Re: [xmca] Meltzoff and Gogol

[Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

I am unsure of the context of this question, David.
When we move from oral to written language, we have a very different
situation than that of a 6 month old.
Say more to guide me to the topic I should address.
mike

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 4:09 PM, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:

> Mike, what do you think Meltzoff and company would make of this? In a 2002
> issue of the Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics there is an article by
> Hansen and Shewell about language attrition.
>
> The authors cite the old Paradis (1985) findings that logographic scripts
> (e.g. Chinese and Japanese kanji) are processed in a rather different part
> of the brain than alphabetic ones (e.g. Japanese kana and Korean). No, it's
> not that old left-right brain claptrap; Paradis et al argued that WITHIN the
> left hemisphere, kanji is processed in the occipito-parietal area and kana
> in the temporal lobe.
>
> Japanese researchers (Uchida et al. 1999) showed that the interior
> occipital gyrus was central to the processing of both, and then Paradis et
> al. suggested that although the actual areas of processing were distinct
> they were so linked as to make the distinction meaningless.
>
> Now, Hansen and Shewell are really much more functional in their
> orientation. They are working for some branch of Brigham Young university in
> Oahu (I think I've been there; they run a resort where underpaid Samoans
> show you how to crack coconuts with your hand). The Mormons send a lot of
> missionaries over here. The Church of Latter-day Saints apparently think you
> can convert people after they are dead as long as you know their names, and
> they have figured out that most Koreans know at least four generations of
> their ancestors, since they are supposed to offer regular chesa (ritual
> meals) on the death-dates of great-great-grandparents and sometimes beyond.
> So I guess Hansen and Shewell want to know how fast the missionaries forget
> the language they picked up out east; and how often they need to be packed
> off for another tour of duty in search of dead souls.
>
> Now, you'd think in this situation, where your main contact with the
> language is written, that whether a script is logographic or alphabetic
> would matter. It sure does when you learn, after all, and we often think of
> language attrition as being something like acquisition only backwards.
>
> Well, here's what they found. The predictors for attrition are absolutely
> the same whether the script is logographic or phonetic. Time since mission,
> vocabulary size, level of speaking abiilty at the end of their mission, and
> post-mission literacy study. The only real difference was that because
> Korean Hangeul is so easy to learn there is really a much closer fit between
> speaking and reading. But overall the main predictors for attrition are not
> to be found anywhere within the brain, but outside in the cultural
> environment. Just where you and I would look for a "soul", living or dead.
>
> David Kellog
> Seoul National University of Education
>
> So they want
>
> --- On Tue, 8/18/09, Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> Subject: [xmca] Fwd: Meltzoff Science paper
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 7:03 PM
>
>
> David-- Is this the piece that upset you?
> mike
>
> -
>
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