[lojban-beginners] Re: Differently-shaped vocal equipment (was: Re: Re: lojban-beginners Digest V6 #97)

[m.kornig@sondal.net]

Selon "Turniansky, Michael \\[UNK\\]" <MICHAEL.A.TURNIANSKY@saic.com>:

>   The problem is not just one of "habit and training".  The problem is that
> the brain actually loses the ability to distinguish between phonemes that are
> not consequential in their language.  So, while someone can be trained
> mechanically how to produce a particular phoneme (the same way deaf are in
> oral schools), if they cannot hear the difference, they don't get the proper
> self-feedback to see if they are producing it correctly.  This occurs because
> synaptic connections are pruned in infancy during the language acquiring
> process (presumably because less connections means faster processing time,
> necessary for a realtime language processing).  So for example, tests with
> PET scans of native Japanese speakers vs. German and English speakers have
> shown that hearing of the sounds [l] and [r] are processed in two different
> parts of German and English speakers' brains, but only in a single place in a
> Japanese speaker's brains.  So it becomes much harder for them to tell the
> difference.  See for example, this article:

Interesting. This actually is compatible with my observations.

The fact that most French native speakers actually do improve
their listening skills w.r.t. English texts to some degree
after some training (some of them actually manage to overcome
the H-difficulty completely, for instance) may indicate that
synaptic connections are rebuilt (even with adults) after
some weeks of training. Is this possible/plausible?

Martin