This
week Dr. Suzanne Flynn is visiting LEX/Hippo in Japan so we have been
busy in the office preparing for the various lectures and workshops
that she has been involved in. Dr. Flynn is a professor of linguistics
and language acquisition at MIT in Boston and also a member of the LEX
America Board of Directors. Yesterday she gave a public lecture which
was attended by many Hippo members on raising multilingual children (and
becoming multilingual adults as well). The session also included a
lecture by Dr. Sakai, a Japanese brain researcher on language and the
brain, followed by a question and answer session.
I
was one of the MCs, along with 3 other interns, and introduced myself
and facilitated parts of the session in English, Spanish and a little
Japanese. One of the new things I learned was how to thank a speaker and
solicit a round of applause from a Japanese audience: "Sakai sensei
arigato gozaimashita, mo ichido hakushuo onegai shimasu." (It worked,
everyone clapped!)
Unfortunately,
I couldn't understand any of Dr. Sakai's lecture in Japanese, even
though I wanted to, so I will focus on Dr. Flynn's, which I did
understand. In this lecture she outlined 10 principals of language
acquisition that sum up her years of research and also embody the Hippo
philosophy of language learning. It was interesting to think about her
points as they apply to the way that I am learning Japanese right now.
One of the things that came up in the question and answer session was
how speaking a different language can change one's perception of
self-identity, as many of the year-long exchange students have
expressed.
I
felt a little like this when I was in Mexico, that there was a
Stephanie who spoke English and was a university student in Madison,
Wisconsin and a little bit different 'Estefani' or 'la güera' (the blond girl) as I was often referred to cariñosamente in
Mexico, who spoke (rather broken) Spanish. I think this was because a
lot of your self-identity has to do with how you express yourself and
interact with others. In Spanish, I wasn't able to express things like
sarcasm or wit in the same way that I could in English, so the way that I
communicated and interacted with people was a little different. I was a
lot more direct and concise and probably smiled and laughed a lot more
when I couldn't respond well in words. I still get a little frustrated
sometimes when I am trying to express a very complex idea in Spanish,
but someone in Japan told me the other day that when I have a
conversation with someone in Spanish I get really excited and
expressive. I hadn't really thought about this but I know that the tone
and rhythm of my voice changes, and maybe that expression is embedded
within the language itself, or maybe it's just because I love speaking
in Spanish.
Dr.
Flynn's response was that this is because language is more than simply
words and grammar, and contains a lot of cultural expression as well;
especially when someone acquires a language in a natural immersion
environment, it's very strongly connected to the culture and people
that the language comes from. My own experience supports this
completely. Dr. Flynn also mentioned body language, which is intertwined
with spoken words when communicating in a certain language. In Japan I
have noticed that I automatically bow slightly or nod my head forward
when I say things like "hai", "arigato", "yoroshiku onegai shimasu",
just like native Japanese people do. I was never taught to do this, but
it seems to me that the body motion is almost a part of the word
itself, just like the sounds that come from one's mouth, and it comes
naturally.
す－ちゃん
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