| דפים בנושא: < [1 2] | Are women really better at learning languages?
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1. Exceptions don't invalidate a generalisation. An exception only invalidates a purportedly absolute rule.
2. Just because something is sexist or unfair doesn't mean it can't be true (e.g. the fact that men are usually, although not always, physically stronger). Differences in the brain exist, and while I don't know whether they affect language learning much, I do know that facts – if this is a fact (which I don't know whether it is) – remain true regardless how offensive they may be.... See more 1. Exceptions don't invalidate a generalisation. An exception only invalidates a purportedly absolute rule.
2. Just because something is sexist or unfair doesn't mean it can't be true (e.g. the fact that men are usually, although not always, physically stronger). Differences in the brain exist, and while I don't know whether they affect language learning much, I do know that facts – if this is a fact (which I don't know whether it is) – remain true regardless how offensive they may be.
3. Some of you guys presume it's false just because it's sexist. That too is junk science logic.
4. Some of you commit the excluded middle falacy. Just because something isn't all-important doesn't mean it's automatically irrelevant. That's poor logic.
[Edited at 2014-01-20 11:23 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
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חבר (2008)
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| Multitasking | Jan 20, 2014 |
Frankie JB wrote:
..... multitasking is just too demanding for most males.....
Another myth.
| | | | Ty Kendall 
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Local time: 03:15
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| Give me someone to talk to and I can talk for England.... | Jan 20, 2014 |
Frankie JB wrote:
women do have an advantage in languages... and it's why they tend to like chatting more than men
This claim (at the very least) is open to debate. It certainly isn't fact. As many studies as there are showing women talk more there are an equal amount showing that there's no discernible difference in male/female speech rates. See this language log post for starters:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4488
I've seen many linguists refer to this myth as "an urban legend that refuses to die".
you are an ignoramus mi amigo
...because this isn't ad hominem at all is it ...
I think we should be careful about how much credit we give biological, physiological, neurological etc. factors. Language Log has a whole series of articles on "dubious uses of neuroscience" and we shouldn't be reluctant to question something just because a study with lots of impressive sounding Greek and Latin words has been pushed forward as 'proof of claim'.
"There certainly are psychological and neurological differences between men and women, sometimes big ones... authors...use a set of rhetorical tricks that tend to make sex differences seem bigger and more consequential than they really are."
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003419.html
| | | | | A happy ignoramus!! | Jan 20, 2014 |
Frankie JB wrote:
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
...but this kind of studies is what sexist people use when they need to prove that men and women are different and deserve a different treatment.
but if you are serious when you imply that men and women are intellectually alike, you are an ignoramus mi amigo.
That's quite alright. Does not bother me, to be honest. Personally I think that it is pretty dangerous to base our opinion about men and women upon statistics which, in turn, are based upon the abilities and attitudes of people who have been raised in our rather sexist society. Equally wrong is to base our assumptions upon the available science about an organ we are barely beginning to understand.
I am convinced that all the theories about men and women being thrown around will be the laughing stock of future scientists once they are done scratching the surface of this matter.
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I also read the studies proving the fact that ...................
Alltough 80% of the students at my language school were female , I think all mentioned studies are nonsense. Why couldn't a woman be a better mathematician then a man or a man not a better translator then a woman?
In short, depends on the person.
Why this discusssion? Well, if we go back far enough, we end at Genesis, but please remember, the best chefs (cooks) in the world are male!
... See more I also read the studies proving the fact that ...................
Alltough 80% of the students at my language school were female , I think all mentioned studies are nonsense. Why couldn't a woman be a better mathematician then a man or a man not a better translator then a woman?
In short, depends on the person.
Why this discusssion? Well, if we go back far enough, we end at Genesis, but please remember, the best chefs (cooks) in the world are male!
Explanation please. ▲ Collapse
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Robert Rietvelt wrote:
Alltough 80% of the students at my language school were female , I think all mentioned studies are nonsense. Why couldn't a woman be a better mathematician then a man or a man not a better translator then a woman?
Explanation please.
Basic logic. If women are 'better' at learning languages, this means that:
1. They are better in general, though exceptions apply.
2. They have an advantage, like in physical strength, which can be offset.
This does NOT mean that some men can't be better than some women at learning languages.
Also, being better at learning doesn't guarantee actually learning more than e.g. someone who is worse at it but studies harder. Just like not all smart people end up having high degrees and not all people who do have high degrees are actually smarter than the average Joe (at least in terms of intelligence).
| | | | | Please could we avoid sexist comments? | Jan 21, 2014 |
Robert Rietvelt wrote:
the best chefs (cooks) in the world are male!
Explanation please.
Correction: the best *professional* cooks *working in restaurants* are male.
Working as a chef is incompatible with raising children, which mostly is done by women.
Women do their cooking for free, at home. But nobody cooks better than Mum!
| | | | | White lies, black lies and statistics... | Jan 21, 2014 |
It's the old adage.
The average human does not exist. (Is it male or female??)
Although this is controversial, many people acknowledge that gender is not absolute - it is more a scale. There are myriads of possible gene combinations, some of which indirectly affect the central gender factors more or less.
It is also quite surprising on the surface how hormones and genes affect apparently irrelevant factors like hair, just for starters. So it doesn't surpri... See more
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To Tomás and Ty:
Don't get me wrong, I'm an ignoramus too, and admittedly we humans all are, but most of the time when I'm not knowledgeable about a topic I try and avoid as much as possible to talk about it with aplomb.
You have got to understand that for someone like me who's interested both in logical reasoning and neuroscience, it was painful to read so many fallacies and so much contempt for research. Obviously I'm not omniscient in those fields but those are stil... See more To Tomás and Ty:
Don't get me wrong, I'm an ignoramus too, and admittedly we humans all are, but most of the time when I'm not knowledgeable about a topic I try and avoid as much as possible to talk about it with aplomb.
You have got to understand that for someone like me who's interested both in logical reasoning and neuroscience, it was painful to read so many fallacies and so much contempt for research. Obviously I'm not omniscient in those fields but those are still my playgrounds and I can't keep quiet when I read baloney.
To Tomás:
-It's been shown that social determism doesn't hold water and fails to explain many things. It does have an impact but, as I said earlier, compared to nature, conditioning has just a superficial effect. As it name implies, epigenetics is just an epiphenomenon. Babies are certainly not "blank sheets" ready to be written on and both genders do start to show dissimilar abilities at a very young age when conditioning has not had time to influence them.
-Granted, the brain is a foggy matter and we don't know much about its massive potential as of today but brain imaging is a fantastic tool which has already shown how much brain's circuitry is different between males and females.
To Ty:
-I have studied electrotechnics: 95% of males. Then I have studied languages: between 2/3 and 3/4 of females. As such, I doesn't prove much, but if you look at larger samples roughly the same should appear, and from then there are conclusions to be drawn. As I said earlier, even if teens may be influenced by their friends when choosing their studies (social conditioning), the general trend is that they tend to do what they feel like doing, which means what their brain is wired for, which means mostly what nature offered them. And it's not even what they did before in school which matters because the great majority of boys and girls nowadays study the same thing until about +/-15 years old.
-I can't disagree with you when you say neuroscience can be used dubiously. I'm aware some vulgarized neuroscience writers are nothing short of snake oil merchants who use gross clichés to sell books. But I want to add that it's not ONE study which shows there are impressive differences between men and women, but a huge number, among them from very reliable institutions. Thanks for the links by the way.
To Łukasz:
Thank you for stepping up to the plate and showing how many arguments here are lopsided and don't prove the trend wrong.
To Tom:
Waiting for your evidence to demonstrate the multitasking advantage of women is a myth. 95+% of secretaries in the UK are women. It must be the so-called 'tyranny' of women over men, right? Women are so nasty with men!
To Christine:
Thank you for your educated input! It basically sums up what I said and is I believe a balanced view of reality as we know it today. The most valuable takeaways regarding this topic's assertion is that it's not firstly about gender but about brain orientation. And that although saying "women are better at learning languages" is a simplistic and caricatural way of depicting reality as life's not so binary, it's also true: Jane Averages do have an advantage in language-related fields.
Some questions could confirm this trend:
-How much % of interprets are females? How much are males? My guess is that both fields are dominated by women and that interpretation has a higher % of women (their advantage is clearer when using speech than writing).
-Among the minority of boys studying languages, how manly are they (although maybe uneasy to judge, it's a reflect of brain orientation), compared for example to the boys studying mechanics? My guess is that at the same age the latter are more virile.
-By the same token: Who tend to get along better with women: Males studying languages or males studying mechanics? My guess is the former.
-How much time does it take a 75% masculinized brain to learn a language (assessed through objective metrics) and how much time does it take a 75% feminized brain to learn the same language? My guess is the 2nd will learn faster, and this is exactly what's to be understood with the headline above  ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ty Kendall
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Local time: 03:15
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| Studies are ongoing... | Jan 21, 2014 |
Frankie JB wrote:
Waiting for your evidence to demonstrate the multitasking advantage of women is a myth. 95+% of secretaries in the UK are women. It must be the so-called 'tyranny' of women over men, right? Women are so nasty with men!
But by the same token you haven't proven it either. Even the studies which would lean in that direction tend to come with the caveat "it depends on the task" ( http://www.biomedcentral.com/2050-7283/1/18 )
You attribute the female domination of secretarial work (administrative assistant in PCese) to some inherent female ability to multi-task without considering that maybe there are other reasons...
"The rise of the secretary began with the Industrial Revolution, which created an enormous amount of paperwork. In the early 20th century, it became a female job as companies realized they could pay women lower wages to do the work."
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/31/news/economy/secretary-women-jobs/
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