Babel No More (44 page)

174
“meta-linguistic
abilities far beyond automatic speech”: Ibid., 351.

174
may also have something to do with Krebs’s Chinese: J. Crinion et al., “Neuroanatomical Markers of Speaking Chinese,”
Human Brain Mapping
30:12 (2009), 4108–15.

174
Italian research team revealed in 2009: C. Bloch et al., “The Age of Second Language Acquisition Determines the Variability in Activation Elicited by Narration in Three Languages
in Broca’s and Wernike’s Areas”:
Neuropsychologia,
47:3 (2008), 625–33.

Chapter 14

177
Different languages activated overlapping areas of the brain: R. S. Briellmann, M. M. Saling, A. B. Connell, et al., “A High-Field Functional MRI Study of Quadri-Lingual Subjects,”
Brain and Language,
89:2 (2004), 531–42.

179
training increases the number of synapses: A. Norton et al., “Are There Preexisting
Neural, Cognitive or Motoric Markers for Musical Ability?,”
Brain and Cognition,
59 (2005), 130.

180
“Automatic acquisition from mere exposure”: Eric Lenneberg,
Biological Foundations of Language
(New York: Wiley, 1967), 176.

181
If a child learning Swedish can’t become a native speaker: Niclas Abrahamsson and Kenneth Hyltenstam, “Age of Onset and Nativelikeness in a Second Language: Listener
Perception Versus Linguistic Scrutiny”:
Language Learning,
59:2 (2009), 287.

181
Some have figured that only 5 percent: Larry Selinker, “Interlanguage,”
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching,
10 (1972), 209–31.

181
at fewer than 1 percent
:
R. Coppetiers, “Competence Differences Between Native and Near-Native Speakers,”
Language,
63:3 (1987), 545–73.

181
a type of
sentence that’s hard for people to learn: Sonja van Boxtel, T. Bongaerts, and P. A. Coppen, “Native-like Attainment of Dummy Subjects in Dutch and the Role of the L1,”
International Review of Applied Linguistics,
43 (2005), 355–80.

182
In another project, an exhaustive battery: Stefka Marinova-Todd,
Comprehensive Analysis of Ultimate Attainment in Adult Second Language Acquisition,
PhD dissertation
(unpublished), Harvard University, 2003.

PART 4 ELABORATION: The Brains of Babel

Chapter 15

189
Sorensen wrote in an article about the place: Arthur Sorensen Jr., “Multilingualism in the Northwest Amazon,”
American Anthropologist,
69 (1967), 670–84.

190
typical person will “speak only two or three”: Leslie Moore, “Language Mixing at Home and School in a Multilingual Community (Mandara Mountains,
Cameroon),”
Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics
(2006), 1.

191
“speaks
pelasla, wuzlam,
and French fluently”: Scott MacEachern,
Du Kunde: Processes of Montagnard Ethnogenesis in the Northern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon
(London: Mandaras, 2003), 274.

191
four languages was the norm: Ibid., 275.

196
The languages borrowed each other’s sound patterns: Murray Emeneau,
“India as a Linguistic Area”:
Language,
32:1 (1956), 7.

196
For instance, Sanskrit: Ibid., 9.

197
Added to this mix was the third invasion: See, for example, N. Krishnaswamy and L. Krishnaswamy,
The Story of English in India
(New Delhi: Foundation Books Ltd., 2006).

197
range from 5 to 50 percent of the population: David Graddol,
English Next
(2006),
www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research-english-next.pdf
, 94.

197
the power structure along with independence: Krishnaswamy and Krishnaswamy,
Story of English,
109.

197
“over which one language is spoken from end to end”: George Grierson,
Linguistic Survey of India,
vol. I, part 1, 93.

198
newspapers are published in at least 34 languages: From the 2001 linguistic census of India.

198
The next most populous Indian languages are Bengali, with 70
million speakers, and Telugu, with 69 million: All of the figures here from Paul M. Lewis (ed.),
Ethnologue: Languages of the World,
16th ed. (Dallas, TX: SIL International, 2009).

198
one house with many mansions”: Wendy Doniger,
The Hindus
(New York: Penguin Press, 2009), 197.

198
Bangalore, bringing Tamil with them: The history is related in S. M. Lal,
Convergence and Language Shifts in a Linguistic Minority: A Sociolinguistic Study of Tamilsi in Bangalore City
(Mysore: CIIL, 1986).

200
Hindu fundamentalists attacked Indian women dressed in Western clothes: See Somini Sengupta, “Attack on Women at an Indian Bar Intensifies a Clash of Cultures,”
New York Times,
Feb. 9, 2009. Also, “Police to Invoke Goondas Act Against Hindutva Extremists,”
The Hindu,
Jan. 27, 2009.

200
“They were
being forced into a clipped and compromised existence”: Raju Srinivasaraju,
Keeping Faith with the Mother Tongue: The Anxieties of a Local Culture
(Bangalore: Navakarnataka Publications, 2008), 15.

201
“Within two generations, the Indian literary past”: Sheldon Pollock, “The Real Classical Languages Debate.”
The Hindu,
Nov. 27, 2008.

201
the notion is obvious in the painting
Goddess English:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12355740
.

202
“Goddess English is all about emancipation”:
http://blog.shashwati.com/2006/11/04/goddess-english-ii/
.

202
assume that anyone working with computers is a Brahmin: From a study by Gail Omvedt, quoted in
www.rediff.com/news/2007/mar/05inter.htm
.

202
“if I say the same things in English, I am heard and applauded”:
www.rediff.com/news/2007/mar/05inter.htm
.

203
until you see that he knows languages
in four families: A. K. Srivastava et al.,
The Language Load
(Mysore: CIIL, 1978).

207
successful interactions 89 percent of the time: Josep Colomer, “To Translate or to Learn Languages? An Evaluation of Social Efficiency,”
International Journal of the Sociology of Language,
121 (1996), 181–97.

209
“bilinguals know their languages to the level that they need them”: François Grosjean,
www.francoisgrosjean.ch/myths_en.html
.

211
we need is something brain-based: See, for example, Joan Kelly Hall, An Cheng, and Matthew T. Carlson, “Reconceptualizing Multicompetence as a Theory of Language Knowledge,”
Applied Linguistics,
27:2 (2006).

Chapter 16

215
“trust their guts”: Madeline Ehrman and B. L. Leaver, “Cognitive Styles in the Service of Language Learning,”
System,
31 (2003), 395.

215
not enough for them to call
something “green”: Madeline Ehrman, “Personality and Good Language Learners,” in Carol Griffiths (ed.),
Lessons from Good Language Learners
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 67.

215
They
notice
(which was a key skill): Madeline Ehrman, “Variations on a Theme: What Distinguishes Distinguished Learners?,” October 2006.

216
“functionally equivalent” to the well-educated native
reader or listener:
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/capemay/education/dlpt.asp
.

221
“some bilinguals are dominant in one language”:
www.francoisgrosjean.ch/myths_en.html
.

222
based on a scale first developed by the US State Department’s Foreign Service Institute:
www.govtilr.org/Skills/IRL%20Scale%20History.htm
.

223
good correlation between the skills that someone reports and their actual skill level
:
D. M. Kenyon, V. Malabonga, and H. Carpenter, “Effects of Examinee Control on Examinee Attitudes and Performance on a Computerized Oral Proficiency Test,” paper presented at the 23rd Annual Language Testing Research Colloquium. Cited in D. M. Kenyon, V. Malabonga, and H. Carpenter, “Response to the Norris Commentary,” in
Language Learning and Technology,
5:2 (2001) 106–10,
http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num2/response/default.html
.

223
5 is a “functionally native proficiency”:
www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm
.

224
exploration of how people lose and relearn those languages: Kees de Bot and Saskia Stoessel, “In Search of Yesterday’s Words: Reactivating a Long-Forgotten Language,”
Applied Linguistics,
21:3 (2000), 333–53.

227
suggests that items in memory begin to compete: K. Oberauer and R. Kliegl, “A Formal Model
of Capacity Limits in Working Memory,”
Journal of Memory and Language,
55 (2006), 601–26.

228
a psychiatric illness that affects 1 to 3 percent: L. Friedlander and M. Desrocher, “Neuroimaging Studies of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Adults and Children,”
Clinical Psychological Review
26 (2006), 32–49.

229
When someone systemizes, she (or, more likely, he): Simon Baron-Cohen, “The Extreme
Male Brain Theory of Autism,”
TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences,
6:6 (2002), 248.

230
higher than doctors, veterinarians, and biologists: Simon Baron-Cohen et al., “The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ): Evidence from Asperger Syndrome/High-Functioning Autism, Males and Females, Scientists and Mathematicians,”
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
31 (2001), 14.

230
has also found that autism
occurs more frequently: Simon Baron-Cohen, “Does Autism Occur More Often in Families of Physicists, Engineers, and Mathematicians?,”
Autism
2 (1998), 296–301.

230
relevant work on the obsessional interests of children with autism: Simon Baron-Cohen, “Obsessions in Children with Autism or Asperger Syndrome,”
British Journal of Psychiatry,
175 (1999), 487.

Chapter 17

232
talented mimics had lower
levels of activation in brain regions related to speech: Many of these results and others are discussed in Grzegorz Dogil and Susanne Reiterer (eds.),
Language Talent and Brain Activity
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009).

232
anatomically more complex than those in non-phonetician brains: Narly Golestani, Cathy J. Rice, and Sophie K. Scott, “Born with an Ear for Dialects? Structural Plasticity
in the Expert Phonetician Brain,”
Journal of Neuroscience,
31:11 (2011), 4213–20. See also N. Golestani, T. Paus, and R. J. Zatorre, “Anatomical Correlates of Learning Novel Speech Sounds,”
Neuron,
35 (2002), 997–1010; Narly Golestani and R. J. Zatorre, “Learning New Sounds of Speech: Reallocation of Neural Substrates,”
Neuroimage
21 (2004), 494–506.

233
left insula . . . more strongly in bilinguals
who have equal abilities in their two languages: Michael Chee et al., “Left Insula Activation: A Marker for Language Attainment in Bilinguals,”
PNAS,
101:42 (2004), 15265–70.