Language Learning in Adults

Diane Ackerman’s essay “We Are Our Words,” opens an enlightening window on the processes of human Language Acquisition (LA), particularly in the very young. In these words she is following the findings of many linguists and researchers in recent decades. She rightfully said, “babies have brains flexible enough to learn any language they are brought up in,” which is true as anyone can see that by a very early age babies can mimic what they hear from their parents or care-givers. By the end of this paragraph she also says, “but by puberty this process becomes “heavy lifting”.” Once again one cannot argue with her assertions because most people who have attempted to learn a language as an adult will attest to the difficulties that this entails.

Having been raised as a bilingual speaker, acquiring Italian as an infant and then through immigration to Australia, I acquired English by age 5 so that I now speak both these languages like a native speaker. Once again this is exactly what Ackerman was talking about in her essay and again, I agree wholeheartedly. I remember as a child silently experimenting with different syntax and grammatical structures in both languages and having no difficulty differentiating between the two (Chomsky, 2005, 3). Some parents, to their children’s detriment unfortunately, deny their children born into a bilingual household the opportunity of growing up hearing both languages through some misguided notion that they are “protecting” their child from being confused by multiple languages. In fact, research has shown that a child exposed to multiple languages will not only learn all of them but will excel at other subjects as well.

I wish however to question Ackerman’s statements that once puberty is reached that language learning becomes increasingly difficult due to a biological influence. (Paragraph 6) If we firstly observe how a baby acquires language we can see that for the first year roughly the baby does nothing but listen to the sounds of the parents. Then when the infant is ready speech happens according to what they have heard. Why then at the age of 14 and above is it so difficult to acquire a new language schema. Surely the brain is more developed at an older age. The speech centers are more complicated and the learner can understand the grammar and fit new knowledge into an already formed language schema (Piaget). Should this not enable an adult to acquire a language more easily? To find the answer I believe it is necessary to go back to the beginning and examine how a baby learns, and how this differs from adult learning.