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amy | ? |
Sunday, February 17, 2002
No one will care about the following but me. Please ignore.
In Patterns in the Mind, Ray Jackendoff says, A suggestive parallel to the unconscious learning of language might be the process of learning to skip, which requires complicated patterns of muscle coordination. It's impossible to describe to a child how to do it; the best we can do is demonstrate. And when the child figures out how to skip, it will be impossible to get him or her to explain it. Rather, the process of constructing the pattern takes place outside of consciousness; the major part of the learning is experienced as "just intuitive". BZZZZ! Wrong. One of my earliest memories was at age three, being taught to skip by my aunt. I had been trying to learn by watching others but I did not get it until Tante Joan said, "First hop on one foot once, then hop on the other. It's just hopping on one foot one at a time, then do it faster and faster and you're skipping." After that, voila! I could skip. Ha ha, Ray Jackendoff! More like Ray Jackin'-off! (Ouch, that was immature. This book ain't bad; regurgitated Chomsky for those of us who like our examples to include the word fuckin'.) |