Larry Selinker developed his theory of ■interlanguage or “third language”, in 1972. A “latent psychological structure” becomes woken in the brain, when a human being learns a second language, stated Mr. Selinker.
First or second language
We learn a ■second language, if we have spoken a few words of another tongue before. My Polish was far from proficient, when I began learning American. I remember the cognitive moment when pears made quite some difference against gruszki.
I still had some kindergarten to do. Nowadays more people get to begin learning another language early, but let us reason without pointing at anyone in particular. We can imagine Eduardo.
Theoretical example, Eduardo
Eduardo was born in America, in an immigrant Hispanic family. He spoke mostly Spanish before he went to school. His parents spoke Spanish, and his friends in the town area he lived were all Hispanic. However, Eduardo has always had a good awareness of American English in his environment, also via the media.
Eduardo becomes 20. He is doing an IT degree. He takes elliptic integrals easy, but he would need a dictionary to translate math from English to Spanish — he has learned math and spoken about it in English.
Mr. Selinker would say Spanish is Eduardo’s first tongue.
Love yet has not come Spanish-first. Eduardo’s girlfriend is an American, and American English is her only language. She is a real treasure and a natural for a good conversation. When Eduardo tells his sweetheart he loves her, he says it in English, and he means it.
Mr. Selinker would say Eduardo must be holding on to another, third or interlanguage, which is only in Eduardo’s head, whereas there are so many interesting things to talk about that could not belong only there.
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About Earth and Cosmos he said,
Perpetuum mobile was already with ancients a phrase for the impossible in a solitary thing, and the stars continue to show, Earth has been twirling itself and around the Sun, neither slowing nor going faster in the long run. It is improbable there would be nothing more than Earth.
Insight from experience
Regardless of origin and gender, people have primary languages, rather than first or second. My primary language for linguistics is American English. I need a dictionary to translate my own works to Polish, though I was born and grew up in Poland; both my parents spoke Polish, and I went to Polish schools. Only my study of English was not in Polish.
Theoretical example, Ai-li
Let us now imagine Ai-li. Her grandparents were Chinese. She has always been the one for languages. She learned American along with Chinese, before she went to school. About ten years old, she started learning German and French.
Ai-li is graduating from university now. She is writing a thesis about word reference for space in German and French — her two “second languages”, or her “third-second languages”? Should American count as the second, German and French would make the third or fourth, but she has worked with all her languages, for some 14 years now.
Insight from experience
The primary language is not a fixed option. A multilingual speaker will prioritize the relevant tongue, dependent on the environment and context.
A primary language may become “the learner”. Learning German began to work better for me when I started referring to American English rather than Polish. Matters were the same when I learned French, so it is not about language groups or “families”.
Opinion
It is owing to latent psychological structures in the brain that second language learners show simplification, circumlocution, and over-generalization, stated Mr. Selinker.
Fact
Human brains do not make “latent” or “psychological” synapses that could be “activated” with words of foreign tongues. Latencies may occur with injury, yet trauma is not supportive of language, and on the other hand, the brain does not promote dysfunction. Persistent error or post-traumatic perseveration are brain processes as acquired or sustained.
Selinker noted that in a given situation, the utterances produced by a learner are different from those native speakers would produce, had they attempted to convey the same meaning, expands ■Wikipedia.
Mark Twain remains famous for speaking American “since he was born”. His ■Speeches show a sense of humor.
And if I sell to the reader this volume of nonsense, and he, instead of seasoning his graver reading with a chapter of it now and then, when his mind demands such relaxation, unwisely overdoses himself with several chapters of it at a single sitting, he will deserve to be nauseated, and he will have nobody to blame but himself.
— How do we “convey the same meaning”?
Notes for Emily Dickinson’s poetry
Fascicles and print, the poetic correlative with Webster 1828, Latin and Greek inspiration, and an Aristotelian motif, Things perpetual — these are not in time, but in eternity. ■More
Language acquisition
Larry Selinker and Susan M. Gass wrote in their book, ■Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course.
Imperfective morphology emerges with durative and/or stative verbs (i.e. activities and states), then gradually spreads to achievement/accomplishment and punctual verbs.
The book gives examples.
(7-33) She dancing (activity);
(7-34) And then a man coming… (accomplishment);
(7-35) Well, I was knowing that (state);
(7-36) Other boys were shouting ‘watch out’! (achievement).
Where would that be in the USA — countryside, town, metropolis — that people have one type of grammar for talk about accomplishment and another for achievement?
Resources show “punctual verbs” mostly for ■Japanese or ■Singlish.
Children aged 8 years, French and Dutch, were the learners.
The French learners were overall less proficient than the Dutch learners and never reached the stage where they could use the regular past morphology productively.
Both groups were active for three years.
The brain and language learning
As there is the past tense in French, the so called “linguistic interference” or “transfer” must come with language routines or habits, rather than types of minds or first tongues. Our example may come with speech sounds, though these really vary among languages.
English and Polish are not related. The Polish speech sound [sh] as in shop is more fronted than English. The difference is easy to hear, and the Polish word szop is for a raccoon.
If we pronounced the Polish szop with an English [sh], a speaker of Polish could easily tell it. More, he or she would be able to imitate the sound and use it for their saying the word shop in English.
Their speech sound quality [sh] for Polish would not change. The matter is clearly in the habit, which is a good thing, because people mostly like to learn “those sounds” with a grammar of preference, and it is nice to have a way.
The brain and language use
Let us consider theories ■aktionsart and ■semelfactive — with poetry by Emily Dickinson. Is it “state”, for the brain to be wider than the sky? Would putting the brain and the sky side by side be activity; and well, for one to include the other — would it be accomplishment or achievement?
The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.
The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.
The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.
Emily Dickinson, ■The Brain is Wider than the Sky.
Naturally, we may think about rendering the same meaning.