language learning meets body image nightmare

[trochee]

A fellow linguistics grad student forwarded this to me:

Quoth he:

"A short cut to better spoken English: South Koreans trimming their
tongues to improve speech"


(My favorite line from the story is: "Learning a foreign language too
early, in some cases, may not only cause a speech impediment but, in the
worst case, make an child autistic.")

DRIVEN BY A desire to give their kids an edge in an increasingly
competitive society, a surprising number of South Koreans have turned to
the knife in a seemingly drastic bid to help their offspring perfect their
English.
“Those who have a short frenulum (a strap of tissue linking the
tongue to the floor of the mouth) can face problems pronouncing some
characters due to a disturbance in lateral movements of the tongue,” said
Bae Jung-ho, an oral surgeon at Seoul’s Yonsei Severance Hospital, who
operated on the six-year-old last month.

Read the full story here at MSNBC.

Comments

[soliss.livejournal.com]

Oh my god.

That is... so disturbing. *shudder* Poor kids.

[dreamlogic.livejournal.com]

For crying out loud. On the order of medical procedures both useless and horrific (eyelid surgery, female genital mutilation) practiced in various cultures, snipping a frenulum that shortens the tongue in an unusual manner (something that's been done for a long time all over the world, not a recent trend in one of those barbaric, exotic, weirdo Asian countries as this reporter seems to imply) barely registers. My opinion of the article earlier stated here.

just a note

[dreamlogic.livejournal.com]

Any perceivable harshness of tone in my previous comment is a byproduct of my ticked-offness at the article, not towards you in particular. :)

Re: just a note

[soliss.livejournal.com]

Got it.