One topic we have touched on in this lesson that I have found particularly interesting is language recognition, especially speech segmentation. Ironically, prior to beginning this lesson, I began to teach myself Polish with the help of a Kindle application, YouTube videos and other free online programs. I’m sure many people may wonder, “Why would you want to learn Polish?” It seems quite obvious that Polish is not a very common language in the United States in general, nor is it a common language in my current area in western Pennsylvania. In my hometown in north-western Pennsylvania, there was a section of the town which was commonly referred to as “Polak Hill,” which is where my grandfather, whom my sister and I called Dziadzia, pronounced with our own Americanized accent as Ja-Ju, was born and raised. His parents, my maternal great-grandparents, where both Polish immigrants. They arrived, separately, in the United States during the mid 1920’s; one from the border of Russia and Poland, the other from the border of Czechoslovakia (now known as the Czech Republic) and Poland. Now, almost 100 years later, I am the second generation of English-only speakers in my family.

My grandfather spoke fluent Polish, and I have several wonderful memories from my childhood of listening to him and his sister talk in this foreign, confusing language which they both seemed to fully understand. I was fascinated, even at an early age, by their ease of using both English and Polish in their everyday lives. My Dziadzia’s wife, my grandmother, fully detested using Polish. It was the only language her mother-in-law, my great-grandmother, spoke. Even after my grandmother moved to “Polak Hill” she could barely speak the language. Her parents, from Germany and Poland, were raised in bi-lingual homes as well, but used English as the primary language when raising their children. My grandmother has often told me that she could understand Polish better than she could speak it. Even to this day, she can only speak a few basic phrases but can have a full bi-lingual conversation with a friend; her friend speaking Polish and my grandmother answering in English.

I’ve been utilizing a few specific videos on YouTube, the link to one ca be found in my sources, that have been helpful in learning the correct pronunciation of the different syllabus’ and sounds made in the Polish language. One video in particular, entitled “Real Polish Conversation – odkurzacz” clearly demonstrates the concept of speech segmentation. Our book describes speech segmentation as an individuals ability to identify when one word ends and another begins within their own language or a language they understand (Goldstein, 2011). While I’ve mostly used this video to help with my pronunciation or certain character in the Polish language, I cannot always determine when one word ends and another begins. With more practice on my own time, I’ve begun to be able to make out individual words but still have a far way to go.

Perceiving speech is a prime example of top-down processing. With top-down processing, it becomes “possible to perceive individual words in a conversation even though the sound signal for speech is often continuous” (Goldstein, 2011). In my case, English is my primary language. I speak it fluently, have taught my child to speak it, and have several conversations in it each day. While some people I may talk to have an accent due to the different region they come from, I am still able to understand and reply to the conversations we have because of my prior experiences using the English language. Having spent the majority of my life near Pittsburgh, I pronounce some words differently than the friends I made while spending two years living near Philadelphia. Even though we all spoke English, the pronunciation varied. None-the-less, without top-down processing, my adjustment to the new region would have been much more difficult.

So while I spend my free time learning Polish, which my fiance says sounds like I’m intoxicated, I can’t help but wonder the struggles my ancestors faced when arriving in America. Only knowing Polish, the English words they heard upon their arrival had to have sounded like a string of random sounds, rather than intellectual speech. And while with time they were able to make out the distinct sounds and words in the English language, they also retained the ability to perform those same functions with Polish. Even my grandmother, who hasn’t had a conversation where she spoke Polish in more than four decades, has been able to assist me in the correct pronunciation of words and statements. I am hoping that learning this new language will strengthen my connection with my heritage, but prior to this current lesson, I hadn’t realized the complexity of the brain processes involved in language and speech. I know that in a later lesson we will cover language more thoroughly, so for the time being I will continue to give my brain an exercise by practicing my Polish.

Mają dobry dzień! Have a good day!

Free Translation and Professional Translation Services from SDL. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2014, from http://www.freetranslation.com

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth

Real Polish Conversation – odkurzacz. (2010, Nov, 11). retrieved Jan 29 2014, from www.youtube.com Web Site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfd06gJoLbs