Hoffman’s Language Acquisition

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Being incapable of understanding a target language can sever or strengthen the direct link between cultures and human nature. Sometimes, people are not even aware of what they’re lingusuitc or nonlinguistic speaking process. In Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation, adaptability and malleability take hold of young Eva as she eventually discovers and experiments with her linguistics process. Ultimately, it is Eva’s ability to become a culture watcher that solidifies her understanding of English starting at the age of 13 to 40. In turn this highlights the novel’s main themes which are her conflictions about her second language experience. These samples of her book show her complex thoughts, feeling and realizations of her target language. Thus, this essay will go over her learning process, what she is good at, context/social needs that affected her learning and her English fluency today.

First, her learning process in her own words as culture watcher. Eva’s memoir Lost in Translation claims that “ kindness an entirely positive virtue. Polish kindness has the tiniest element of irony.” (pg. 108) Here Eva demonstrates her ability to understand that not all languages are equal, even so they have universal tethers to one another. It is an allegory of her meta-linguistics between her past mother-tongue to here new one. Her cognitive architecture of English and Polish offer insight upon her code-switching styles since she links “kindness” between the two languages threw their differences of meaning and sound.

Noam Chomsky described this phenomenon in his study the innatist theory of language acquisition. Ultimately, it is the action that result in the output of her English that is described within pg.51 of the Pereogry PDF “Hypothesis testing and creative construction or syntactic rule using LAD.” In order to further emphasize this, language acquisition often result in, knowing Eva’s grammatical development. Eva shows the ability to creatively organized the rules of a first language acquisition. Due to the fact that knowing two languages require activation of grammars and lexicons of each language. In addition, her non linguistic systems since she chooses to activate a conversation guided by scenario. She as more capable whereas a monolingual chooses between speaking formal or casual.

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Secondly, what she is good at when, it came down to fluent and non-fluent speech. Eva was 13 years of age when her mother brought her to Canada. Her target language (English) was difficult upon retrieving exchanges especially since her utterance length was not long. During their time in Canada the mother occupation was a housekeeper. Thus, she did not have a rich language environment plus had not developed her new social identity (yet). One day Eva and her mother were invited by neighbors for brunch. She soon noticed that her neighbors had trouble striking a conversation with them. After that event she hypothesized that English words were vague or non-fluent by that experience. In other words, Eva did start learning English at the age of 13 most adolescents have not yet developed strong social identities as to gender, ethnicity or social status. Nevertheless, she could recognize non-fluent and fluent speech.

Now that I have discussed Eva’s learning process and what she is good at. I will go over her fulfilling her context and social needs. Her ability to differentiated English threw the naticist model of acquisition. This form of acquisition is fundamentally used based on pattern discovery and attention to frequency/phonology. For example, “I hear on the Tv sitcoms -by the expectation of laughter, like a dog’s tail wagging … I like the way Penny speaks, with an easy flow and a pleasure in giving words a fleshly fullness.” (pg.122) Eva statement portrays a direct comparison to the sitcom based and social based interactions. She uses the analogy of “a dog’s tail wagging” to represent the pattern of the jokes whether fun or not and laughs that follow after. In order to further emphasize that she prefers the unfiltered form of speech and how she require the underlying features within her beloved friend Penny’s speech.

Lastly, her English fluency as of today. First language is a part of a person social identity and second language offers an individual’s social statues and ethnicity. Through not the only cause, these social factors facilitate the conditions necessary to put the wheels of acquisition aspect in motion. The quality of her English has now become greater then her polish. She finished college and has now begun teaching literature to high school students. For instance, “Suffering and conflict are the best proof that there’s something like a psyche, a soul; or else, what is it that suffers?” (pg. 273). This depicts her ability to form advanced syntax structures and have become in peace with her. By incorporating a clear verification of unilingual mode. As Therefore, using complex sentences for her emerged on its own threw age and topic of interest.

To conclude, this analysis was interesting since she made very open remarks about that a lack of speech leads to violence during her experience in New York. Eva’s ability to establish an understanding of roundness within sentences really intrigued me. Since she goes in greater detail about self-doubt and embarrassment of forming languages plus ways to alter such as, self-compassion or speech therapy. I believe Eva Hoffman engagement and command over English shows how complex the human mind is.

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Hoffman’s Language Acquisition. (2022, February 21). Edubirdie. Retrieved April 28, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/hoffmans-language-acquisition/
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Hoffman’s Language Acquisition [Internet]. Edubirdie. 2022 Feb 21 [cited 2024 Apr 28]. Available from: https://edubirdie.com/examples/hoffmans-language-acquisition/
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