Focus on form

[kulaputra]

Or 5 I am correct and you have made a generalised sweeping statement which is logically unsupportable.

[kulaputra]

Sweeping statements are only suspect for synthetic, rather then analytic, arguments. "All bachelors are unmarried" is an analytic argument, as the very meaning of the constituents of the sentence force its truth value, whereas "All bachelors are rich" is synthetic, because to prove or disprove it you'd have to actually gather data about the outside world. The former is simply true; the latter is conditionally true or false depending on facts about the world.

"All native language speakers, barring certain pathologies, are equally competent in their native language" is in fact an analytic claim, the claim that I originally made. Attempting to dispute it on synthetic grounds is like trying to prove "All bachelors are unmarried" false by finding an example of a married bachelor. It won't happen, not because married bachelors don't exist, but because they can't exist.

[rdearman]

Humans make mistakes, so the statement no human has made a mistake when speaking thier language ever in the history of human life is synthetic. Now show me the data.

According to Kant, if a statement is analytic, then it is true by definition. Another way to look at it is to say that if the negation of a statement results in a contradiction or inconsistency, then the original statement must be an analytic truth. So let's negate the statement.

"all native language is incorrect"

Well this would seem to be inconsistent with facts. So the statement is synthetic not analytic. Let's see the data.

[Cainntear]

Look. You made a sweeping generalization about huge groups of people. I am not arguing linguistics, I am arguing that not everything that comes out of a natives mouth or keyboard is correct. Yet I have shown you written proof that this assertion is not correct. You aren't defending your statement. If you had used the word "most" or "generally" I wouldn't have batted an eyelid, but you didn't you said "all native language is correct".

All - Used to refer to the whole quantity or extent of a particular group or thing

This is a sweeping generalization which I take exception to. All means that not once in the entire human history in any language has there been an error spoken by a native speaker of that language.

This is the position I want you to prove. Prove no human ever has made an incorrect statement.

Return to my original statement:
All native language is correct.
Note: I did not say "everything out of a native's mouth is correct". I have clarified, when requested, about the existence of "slips".

My point is that any grammatical, lexical or phonological item used consistently by a native speaker is objectively correct.

"ain't" ain't wrong -- plenty of people use it consistently.
Double negative aren't wrong -- plenty of people use them consistently.
A split between copula and stative isn't wrong -- plenty of people do it consistently.

That's their native language and it isn't wrong, it's just not your native language.

If you have a migraine and end up mangling a verb construction, that's not your native language, that's a slip (performance error) due to a neurological event -- I'm not claiming that as correct language.

All native language, i.e. all rules/patterns/whatever acquired by a native speaker through contact with other native speakers, is equally correct at an objective level. Any attempt to select one particular language variety as "correct" and others as "wrong" is an unscientific act, and purely ideological.

[rdearman]

So everyone has their own Native Language and it just happens to overlap on occasion with the Native Language of others? So your basically saying there is no such thing as a language just what each of us carry around individually.

[reineke]

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[kulaputra]

Humans make mistakes, so the statement no human has made a mistake when speaking thier language ever in the history of human life is synthetic. Now show me the data.

According to Kant, if a statement is analytic, then it is true by definition. Another way to look at it is to say that if the negation of a statement results in a contradiction or inconsistency, then the original statement must be an analytic truth. So let's negate the statement.

"all native language is incorrect"

Well this would seem to be inconsistent with facts. So the statement is synthetic not analytic. Let's see the data.

This is not inconsistent with facts, it is self-contradictory. Native language is by definition "correct."

[kulaputra]

So everyone has their own Native Language and it just happens to overlap on occasion with the Native Language of others? So your basically saying there is no such thing as a language just what each of us carry around individually.

Languages exist by convention on the basis of mutual intelligibility. Where does Serbian end and Croatian begin? You let me know when you figure that out. Yet, they do exist- conventionally.

[Cavesa]

Of course not all the native speakers have the same proficiency in their native language. I don't think it is about mistakes that much but more about functions. (Of course that the mistakes are important too.) The same is true about mistakes but I would be much more careful here. And this thread illustrates the reason pretty well.

There is always a standard of expectations from a usual adult without any neurologic (or other) pathology. Things they should be able to do. And there are people who are better and worse at something. Explaining a game, so that people understand the explanation and want to play it. Presenting yourself as a job applicant. Writing a coherent email. If there were no such a standard and all the natives were considered perfect, there would be no exams in schools.

There are people way above the standard. Some people write novels, some are great orators, some make awesome jokes using the nuances of the language. So, of course there is the other end of the spectrum too. People who fail to perform the functions we would expect from any adult. Thinking everyone is equal is absolute nonsense. And no philosophy is gonna change that. Try telling any employer that the person unable to say a sentence without a mistake is just as suitable to be a business representative as someone speaking correctly and with very rich vocabulary. Sure, none of those two candidates is less native than the other but one is simply much better at using the language.

The abilities are a mix of IQ, other talents, education, attitude, habits, and perhaps other stuff too.

I am convinced the habits and attitude acquired in the native language affect the foreign language acquisition a lot. People who like to read a lot will do so in the other language too and profit from it. Some people do care about the quality of their writing and some don't. Some people like to play with words and build a rich vocabulary and others just don't care. And this transfer of habits influences the end result enormously.

I've seen it many times. People without the good habits and attitude in their native language (such as reading a lot) tend to struggle in the foreign one too.
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To the original theme: yes, the focus on form attitude is a logical part of learning. I am all for combining both immersive extensive activities and studying the proper forms through explanations, examples and exercises.

And it is definitely true that the lack of focus on form is a rising trend in language learning (and has been for some time) and it is a problem. From the other extreme, people not exposing themselves to the natural resources, we are getting to the other one. Those learners expecting to learn just from talking and movies from day 1. Those coursebooks with very few explanations and overviews. The teachers not doing their jobs properly. The focus on meaning is much more represented in the mainstream language teaching.

I definitely don't think there is any problem with extensive reading and listening (most people struggling have simply not put enough time into it, or they have started too early), I have profited from them enormously and I am by far not the only one on this forum. But I have at the same time never thrown away the grammar books and such tools completely.

There are two huge publics damaged by this. The beginners learning to get by and not minding butchering the grammar (and the worse part: the teachers don't mind and prefer to be encouraging and falsely admirative). And the intermediates, convinced they've learnt it all by B1.

[Cainntear]

So everyone has their own Native Language and it just happens to overlap on occasion with the Native Language of others? So your basically saying there is no such thing as a language just what each of us carry around individually.

In a real, objective sense, yes.
In reality, a language is simply a set of dialects that are similar enough to be generally mutually intelligible. This idea is often called a "macrolanguage" because you've got cases like that of Moldovan vs Romanian, Czech vs Slovak, Danish vs Norwegian vs Swedish and Serbian vs Bosnian vs Croatian where a relatively arbitrary boundary exists on political grounds.

But start talking about Western Romance, and the whole language vs macrolanguage starts to break down something awful, and you're left with purely political definitions of language.

But if we define "a language" as being only the schoolbook standard, what we actually end up saying is that a language is something that no-one speaks....