Date:  Mon, 14 Mar 1994 19:08:13 EST

From:  BERGDAHL%A1.OUVAX.mrgate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU

Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent



From:  NAME: David Bergdahl

    FUNC: English

    TEL: (614) 593-2783          <BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX>

To:   NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu" <MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX>



This is only tangential to the question of whether dialect features may be

unlearned or replaced, but I was on a Fulbright to Goettingen in the mid-70's

and a colleague and a friend, Armin Paul Frank, had a slight stutter in German

which was missing in English. I was reminded of this by Don Lance's comment

that he was able to do [E]_____{nasal} in Spanish with more regularity than in

English. But the dark side of my anecdote is that when I last saw Armin 15

years ago he had begun to stutter in English too. Now my analysis of this is

that like Don he had learned a completely new set of habits when he learned

English, but as they became automatic [?and transferred to a different brain

area?] the stutter returned. The occasion was my wife's funeral, so that the

emotional content may have contributed--he'd just driven from State College PA

to attend--but I suspect that automaticity had a lot to do with it.



The lesson is, keep learning a new language? :-)

David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU