The Comment Factory

Second language learners, particularly those in Iran, like myself, who choose English as their second tongue, usually have a lot of difficulty in getting to grips with it. In order to understand the obstacles for people like me from an academic viewpoint, I interviewed Prof. Wayne O’Neil, Professor of Linguistics, and expert in second language acquisition at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Professor O’Neil received his Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin in 1960, and has since published several books and scholarly articles including, “The Rhythm Rule in English and the Growth of L2 Knowledge”, “The bilingual mind/brain: Do we, can we know anything about it?” and “Nicaraguan English in History”.

KZ: Some scholars assert that perfection in a second foreign language is impossible, that one cannot obtain proficiency in any dialect and language other than his first language, even if he lives in a new country for many years. What’s you opinion?

WO: I have more than an opinion, for it is clear that perfection in the acquisition of a second language (L2) after the age of about seven years or so is not possible, except for very rare individuals; my late colleague Ken Hale, for example. The movement of people, the massive immigration of people to the Western Hemisphere, amounts to a huge natural experiment on L2 acquisition; thus the data are plentiful.

I am in fact presently working on a book about L2 acquisition in which I argue that all first language (L1) interference in L2 acquisition is phonological, assuming a broad enough understanding of the term ‘phonology’. L1 effects show up in L1-L2 differences that involve whether a feature is spoken: plurality, for example; where a feature is spoken: question words/phrases, for example; and how something is spoken: for example, is the phonological feature [strident] active (i.e., distinctive) or not. The tentative title of the book is this: First-language effects on second-language acquisition: It’s phonology all the way down. For extensive discussion of the analogous expression ‘It’s turtles all the way down!’ see this.

KZ: A major challenge for English-as-a-second-language speakers is that they can not effectively relate to conceptions of the target language because of reflective differences. I, for example, think with an Iranian mind, while someone else thinks with a Norwegian mind, and another thinks with an African mind. When we try to translate our concepts into another language then the difficulties emerge. We can think clearly, but the translation is blurred. What’s the reason?

WO: I can offer no reason because I don’t believe the basic premise of the observation. The concept ‘ineffability’, the idea the some things are beyond expression, between languages has little empirical support. Nor is there any empirical support for the Sapir-Whorf conjecture, that we are conceptually trapped by the language we speak. There is no Iranian mind, Norwegian mind, etc. mind; there are just human minds full of thoughts. If knowledge of language can be said to have a function, then its function is to allow a person full expression of his or her thoughts, whatever these may be and wherever a person’s mind may travel.

KZ: Some scholars put forward the notion that the prevalence of English as the international lingua franca may endanger the existence of local dialects, specifically in countries like India, where the people are accustomed to use English as an official language while their ancestral language is something else. What do you think about this idea?

WO: There is no doubt that the local and community languages of the world are disappearing, the number of languages quickly declining, perhaps as much as by half by the end of this century, and that their disappearance is brought about by colonialism and the hegemony of powerful nation states and their languages: Chinese, English, and Spanish in particular, but French, Hindi, Russian, and Portuguese also play a role, but a lesser one. The destruction of languages brought about by colonialism is incalculable, and their destruction through economic colonialism continues apace.

India, by the way, has its own English, quite distinct from the of other Commonwealth nations. In fact, it is quite common now to refer to the Englishes of the world even though spell check doesn’t like that word to be pluralized.

Moreover, although English is an official language of India, hundreds of millions of Indians have little or no knowledge of English and continue to speak local languages, living far outside that fast and modern world of the ruling classes.

KZ: In your various research papers, you suggested that Ebonics — African-American Vernacular English — is a distinct language. However, it’s widely believed that AAVE is a derivative dialect of English whose roots should be located in social and political backgrounds. What’s your idea about that?

WO: In the article on Ebonics (AAE) that you refer, I point out that in common usage, the term ‘language’ is not a scientific term, but a term that is bounded by lines on a map, class and race lines, etc. Thus Norwegian and Swedish, despite the fact that they are mutually comprehensible, are understood to be separate and distinct languages, while Yue (Cantonese) and Mandarin Chinese, not mutually understandable, are generally considered to part of one language: Chinese. A way of speaking is popularly believed to be a language if certain conditions are met; conditions that involve control; so in this sense, I concluded that AAE was a language since people in control (of the Oakland school board) said it was. That’s all that’s needed.

As for the technical term, I-language, this has a quite different status, used by linguists working within a certain scientific framework to refer to both what is in the mind of a person who knows a language and to the linguist’s attempts to capture and formalize that knowledge: to understand its nature, its growth in the individual, and its use in speaking and listening.

KZ: Finally, I would like to know what you think are the main challenges for teaching languages in the contemporary age.

WO: I’m not a language teacher, so I don’t face the challenges that teachers do. However, it does seem to me that a major problem, one that I have written about, is language prejudice. For example, foreign accents are everywhere about us and are here to stay; nevertheless, accented English, for example, is looked down upon, generally quite sternly. And, of course, within what we refer to as a language, certain ways of speaking that language (AAE, for example) meet with great prejudice, social and racial in nature. Thus, all of us who work as linguists and/or as language teachers must work to combat language prejudice, for it generally serves as a mask over class and racial prejudice and should be tolerated no more than any other prejudice.