What is the fis phenomenon?

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every definition i can find hurts my brain

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s the idea that *understanding* language and being able to physically *produce* language are two different things and that understanding comes first.

The core example is an anecdote of a child who pronounced “fish” as “fis” because they couldn’t produce the ‘sh’ sound, just an S. But when fed back the word as ‘fis’ the child didn’t understand the speaker, they *knew* the word was “Fish”. Basically the kid didn’t know it wasn’t speaking properly and didn’t think ‘fis’ was a word, as far as the kid knew they were saying “fish” properly the whole time.

Similar studies in non-verbal communication such as sign language have shown the same result, implying this isn’t some physical issue (like not having formed lip strength to form words) but a mental issue stemming from language development.