The Principles of Language-Study

by Harold E. Palmer

And what happens in the case of the adult, of one who starts his second language from fifteen to twenty years after he has acquired the first? The same thing generally happens as in the last instance quoted, but in a more marked degree. The same interference takes place; the use of the eyes inhibits the use of the ears; the utilization of his conscious and focused attention militates against the proper functioning of the natural capacities of assimilation. Moreover, he is encouraged and trained to use the non-natural methods, he is directed by his teacher to pay attention to everything, to use his eyes, to memorize spellings (generally non-phonetic); his books show him how to analyse, they provide him with exercises calculated to make him concentrate on the detail, and in so doing to miss the synthetic whole. Examine the adult who is supposed to have ‘learnt’ a foreign language; in the majority of cases you will find that his speech is pidgin-speech, that his sounds are wrong and wrongly distributed, that his inflexions are inaccurate, that his sentences are constructed on the model of his native language, that he uses foreign words in a way unknown to the native users of these same words. Inquire in each case how the person acquired his knowledge, and you will find that he acquired it by dint of exercising his capacities for study.

And the minority? We find a minority (alas, a small minority!) who have come to possess the foreign language as if it were their first. Their sounds are right, the distribution is right, the inflexions are accurate, their sentences are constructed on the model of those used by the native speakers, they use foreign words as the natives themselves use them, they are as accurate and as fluent in the foreign language as in their own. They do not interrupt the speaker of the language with requests to speak more slowly, to speak more distinctly, to spell or to write the words; in short, they use the second language as they use their first. Inquire in each case how the person acquired his knowledge, and you will find that he acquired it by methods making no call on his capacities for reasoning, for concentrating, for analysing, or for theorizing. Instead of selecting and adapting previously acquired habits connected with his first language, he was able to form new habits.

To sum up our inquiry, we find that there are people who have been able to use their spontaneous capacities of assimilation in order to acquire a second or a third language; we find that young children nearly always do so, that certain adults sometimes do so.

But we must make quite sure of our ground before proceeding farther. We must ascertain definitely whether all adults possess what we are calling this spontaneous capacity for assimilation, or whether this is a ‘gift’ in the usual acceptation of the term, that is, whether it is a capacity given to some but withheld by nature from others. Some maintain that from the age of reason onwards none but the gifted possess the capacity in question, and that those who do not possess it are bound to use what we shall call the studial processes. Others, on the contrary, maintain that all possess the capacity either in an active or in a latent state, that most adults deliberately but innocently inhibit their power, or that, unaware that these powers exist, they fail to take the necessary steps to awaken them from their latent into their active state.

Which of these two is the correct view?

Let us endeavour to answer this all-important question by examining those who undoubtedly do possess this ‘gift’ or natural capacity. We first inquire whether they were encouraged or disposed to resist the temptation to receive their impressions through the eyes, to resist the temptation to rely on spellings, whether they did consent to use their ears as the receptive medium. In each case we learn that they were so disposed; they did resist the temptation towards eye-work and did allow the ears to perform the work for which they were intended.

We next inquire whether the conditions were such as prohibited them from focusing their consciousness, from paying an exaggerated attention to detail, from submitting the language-matter to a form of analysis, from comparing each foreign word or form with some word or form of their native language. In each case we are informed that such were the conditions.

Our next inquiry is directed towards ascertaining whether, in the earlier stages, the conditions afforded them full and constant opportunities of hearing the language used, without being under the necessity of speaking it themselves. In each instance we are informed that those were precisely the conditions.

This is almost conclusive; we have ascertained that each successful acquirer of the foreign language was working precisely under the conditions enjoyed by the young child (and we remember that the young child is invariably a successful acquirer of foreign languages). It is, however, not conclusive enough; we have yet to inquire under what conditions the other type of adult (the supposedly non-gifted one) had been working. We ask the same three sets of questions, and in answer we learn:

(a) That he was encouraged by his teachers to learn by the medium of his eyes, to base his knowledge on spellings (generally non-phonetic), and in so doing to inhibit his ears from fulfilling their natural function.