![]() ![]() ![]() He talk pretty one day.īut back to the age question. ![]() Thus, he demonstrates cultural affinity and some integrative motivation, but, otherwise, he mentions few clear goals – other than to write about the experience and, perhaps, eventually to “carry on a fluent conversation” (179). ![]() He has “spent quite a few summers in Normandy” and, immediately before this “sink or swim” intensive Parisian experience, took a month-long French class in the United States (167). To begin, as Sedaris does, with age, we know that he is forty-one at the time of his linguistic experiment, but we do not discover much else in this essay about his language background, his L1 acquisition process, or his aptitude for languages. Can scholars of second-language acquisition offer Sedaris any consolation – or only add to his displacement and defeatism – with regard to how age and various cognitive, individual, and social factors might affect his efforts to learn French? Newly relocated to Paris for French-language immersion, he’s “Pa Kettle trapped backstage after a fashion show” (167), comparing himself to the lithe bodies and glib conversationalists congregating in the school lobby on the first day of class. The first thing David Sedaris mentions in his narrative essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” is his age (2000, 166). Note: The essay was prepared originally for ENGL 623, “Second Language Acquisition,” Northern Illinois University, spring 2017. ![]()
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