Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: Kitt@cary.demon.co.uk (Kittredge Cowlishaw)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!yale!yale!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!demon!cary.demon.co.uk!Kitt
Subject: Re: Any info on accent reduction?
References: <1703E679DS85.MAELDE01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu>
Organization: The Old School House
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Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 09:04:54 +0000
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Mary Elder (MAELDE01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu) writes:

> I am a speech-language pathologist working in a University.
> Recently, we were approached about working with a gentleman
> on reducing his Spanish accent.  We are seeking any information
> available about accent reduction, since this is a new area for us
> here at U of L.
>
> Our patient is a very intelligent, articulate businessman who has
> been exposed to English since age 7.  He is quite fluent, but
> retains a minimal Spanish accent.  His ultimate goal is Standard
> Midwestern American English (!).

My guess would be that your patient didn't move to the US at age 7,
but a few years later.  Experimental evidence suggests that final
performance in a second language of the age group 4-7 is very similar
to that of native speakers; by 8-10, final performance is already
imperfect.  There is a consistent decline in final performance with
increasing age of arrival from age 4 until about age 15 (after which
point age of arrival no longer predicts final performance).

If your patient's exposure to English was by, say, classroom
teaching in a non-English speaking country at an earlier age, this
would have no effect on his final performance in English.  That is,
age of arrival in the country predicts final native-like performance
in the language, regardless of earlier classroom teaching (in the
absence of immersion among native speakers).

For a good discussion of this point, and evidence that age of
arrival predicts final performance not only in accent but in syntax,
see Newport and Johnson (1989).*

The bad news is that older learners may not be able to eliminate
the linguistic traces of their foreign origins completely.  Although
anecdotal evidence of exceptions to this rule abounds, especially
among the modest denizens of sci.lang, Scovel (1988)** claims that
there is no empirical evidence that such individuals exist--and
he's been searching for such evidence since 1969.

--Kittredge

*"Critical Period Effects in Second Language Learning:  the Influence
of Maturational State on the Acquisition of English as a Second
Language" by Jacqueline S. Johnson and Elissa L. Newport in _Cognitive
Psychology_ 21, 60-99 (1989)

**"A Time to Speak:  A Psycholinguistic Inquiry into the Critical
Period for Human Speech" by Thomas Scovel (1988)
