Is pronunciation a function of intelligence?

[jeff_lindqvist]

Being "a musician" can mean a lot of things.

There are musicians who happen to be good at languages (including accents). They generally have a fairly good idea of pitch (by the way, relative pitch is by far more important that perfect pitch) and can play/sing by ear if you play something.

There are musicians with so-so pitch (but who are still mainly by-ear musicians). Some have crap pronunciation and grammar in target languages.

There are musicians who are amazing sight-readers and can play just about anything from a score back to you, but who have bad sense of timing/pulse/pitch/whatever. What about their language skills? Who knows.

[basica]

I can see how people think being musical is tied into accents, but I somewhat discredit that idea as I'm not musical, I cannot sing. I can't even tell if a note is higher or lower than the one I just heard (though I can tell they're different), but most people tell me I have an alright accent in both Serbian and Japanese. Maybe I could improve my musical skills if I tried, but it doesn't interest me really.

[Cainntear]

One of the problems today is that the discussion of IQ has become rather taboo. People try to downplay its significance, when its impact is far from negligible. Vocabulary based intelligence tests for example are quite accurate at measuring IQ. Essentially the smarter you are, the more words you know.

The reason IQ tests have gone out of fashion is that there is increasing evidence that IQ is more strongly affected by education than previously assumed; any correlation between IQ and vocabulary size is evidence for this too.

It makes sense then to see how increased intelligence means a greater ability to retain words from multiple languages and to have a sophisticated vocabulary.

High education level correlates with exposure to more sophisticated language, hence a wider range of vocabulary in their native language (which I assume is what you are referring to). It's also far more likely for a well-educated person to have learned about derivational affixes, and therefore probably better eqipped to deal with foreign vocabulary too.

[basica]

The reason IQ tests have gone out of fashion is that there is increasing evidence that IQ is more strongly affected by education than previously assumed; any correlation between IQ and vocabulary size is evidence for this too.

I'm not directly in the field, but I do work in academia and there at least I am unaware of any downplaying of IQ. I'm by no means an expert, but IQ tests measure g, or general intelligence. Education can overcome tests that are too reliant on things like vocabulary or maths which is why more abstract tests are more popular now and are don't seem to be effected by one's educational level. I'd have to spend some time reading papers to confirm that though. That said, there is a correlation between IQ and vocabulary outside of education. For example people who both have degrees, but one has a higher IQ than the other is far more likely to have a larger vocabulary than the other.

EDIT: Forgot to add, I didn't mean it was going out of fashion in academia (which as previously mentioned I believe is far from the case). What I meant is that general society seems to have an issue with IQ. I think this is because in some ways correlations found are a bitter pill for some to swallow, but that discussion is far too off topic.

High education level correlates with exposure to more sophisticated language, hence a wider range of vocabulary in their native language (which I assume is what you are referring to). It's also far more likely for a well-educated person to have learned about derivational affixes, and therefore probably better eqipped to deal with foreign vocabulary too.

As above, education plays a part but IQ is separate from that. If someone has an IQ of 130 (around mensa level) who only has a high school education, they're far more likely to have a more extensive vocabulary than a college education person with a more average IQ (average IQ of a college graduate in the US is around 100 from what I recall, just for reference).

When I've got some time I'll edit in some papers to support my claims here.

[Serpent]

I've never met an unintelligent person who spoke a second language well and with a native accent

It could also be that their language skills cause you to perceive them as unintelligent, even subconsciously
Even if we consider IQ an accurate indicator of someone's innate, fixed ability, I don't think you actually used it to determine whom you consider intelligent or not.

As for "society's issue with IQ tests", it's really more about attributing a person's worth to their result (and about using it to distance yourself from "them").

[basica]

It could also be that their language skills cause you to perceive them as unintelligent, even subconsciously
Even if we consider IQ an accurate indicator of someone's innate, fixed ability, I don't think you actually used it to determine whom you consider intelligent or not.

To the former, I think that's a valid point and most people assume there's a a correlation with one's fluency of the language and their intelligence but while I am not impervious to biases, I would say in the examples I am thinking of I am mostly free from bias as I am speaking of people I know well, not random people I partially interacted with on the streets.

As for the latter, that's exactly what it does. If you have an IQ of say 80, you won't be going to university, you won't be able to understand certain concepts and you won't be capable of a great variety of work.

As for "society's issue with IQ tests", it's really more about attributing a person's worth to their result (and about using it to distance yourself from "them").

Well, yes. This is exactly the problem. Society in general places value on intelligence and by acknowledging the value of IQ tests, they have to admit that certain people are more valuable than others. So, rather than de-emphasize their value of intelligence, they de-emphasize the value of IQ tests. I believe people are inherently of equal value by the mere fact they are human. This is not to say that all people are of equal "pragmatic value" to a society (I don't ask my doctor to fix my car for example), but I believe that's a different thing altogether and shouldn't be conflated with one's inherent value which is what people do with IQ/intelligence.

Also, you reminded me to edit in some sources. Should (hopefully) do that tonight.

[Serpent]

Actually a lot of people aim to de-emphasize the value of intelligence

[basica]

Actually a lot of people aim to de-emphasize the value of intelligence

There's a difference between saying "intelligence doesn't have any real world impact" and "intelligence doesn't determine your worth as a person". The former is what some people do, because they don't believe the latter. This is what I take issue with, because it's ignoring the obvious when there's no need to do so.

[Serpent]

I don't think I've heard that It's more about questioning the concept and definition of intelligence and the methods used for determining it. (I absolutely believe that you've heard this kind of claims)
Anyway, let's try to go back to how it relates to language learning and the pronunciation.

[reineke]

Cognitive aspects of pronunciation talent: how
empathy, mental flexibility, working memory and
intelligence interact with phonetic talent

1. Introduction
"Pierre Fouché, a renowned professor of phonetics at Sorbonne, allegedly
told his students who could imitate a number of different pronunciations,
that “..a strong personality requires just one accent”. In his case it was evidently
true as he spoke lots of languages with a strong Catalan accent*.
Are there really personality factors that prohibit acquiring new languages
(L2) and speaking them with a native-like capacity?

...

We tested 60 participants on both, the non-verbal IQ (Raven) and verbal
IQ (MWT-B) and looked for correlations between these IQ measures and
the subjects’ scores on the linguistic measures: performance (pure pronunciation
proficiency, M. Jilka) and the “talent” scores. Here we measured
three independent “talent” indicators. 1. the pronunciation talent rating by
M Jilka; 2. the MLAT (Modern Language Aptitude Test) with 3. subtests
(phonetic coding, grammatical sensitivity and vocabulary learning); and an
immediate imitation task of an unknown language (imitating Hindi words
which were rated by 5 native speakers of Hindi).

The results showed no significant correlations of either the verbal or the
non-verbal IQ with our above mentioned measures 1 (the “pronunciation
talent score”) and 3 (the Hindi imitation capacity), but it showed significant
correlations with some of the MLAT scores and subscores.

Thus, nonverbal IQ measured by the Raven Advanced Matrices was significantly
correlated to the overall MLAT score MLAT4 - grammatical
sensitivity and MLAT5 Vocabulary learning.

Verbal IQ was significantly correlated to the overall MLAT total score
and its subscale phonetic coding ability, MLAT3.
These are highly interesting results, because it confirmed our hypothesis
that we did not expect a significant correlation between the aptitude or ability
for foreign language pronunciation and IQ measures. However, there
was a significant correlation between both intelligence measures and the
scores on the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT). This result or effect
can be partly explained by the fact that the MLAT, like many other
language aptitude test batteries, have repetitively resported to also measure
some form of intelligence."

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gi ... fced5f.pdf

"*Pierre Fouché, a famous experimental phonetician of the time, was to become his [Max Mangold's] teacher. Fouché, whose expertise was in the descriptive and in the physiological phonetics, never made a real impact on Max Mangold. Fouché was Catalan by origin and never managed to learn to speak French without an accent. Fouché's saying "a strong character needs only one accent" definitely did not win him Mangold's respect."

Language Talent and Brain Activity
edited by Grzegorz Dogil, Susanne Maria Reiterer