LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
– CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
R.S.A.Susikaran.,
MA.,M.Phil.,(Ph.D)
Assistant
Professor
Department
of English
Oxford Engineering College,
Trichy,Tamil Nadu, South India.
Contact – 9600360192, +914312513101
ABSTRACT
Language
development is the crucial part of the human cognitive nature, understanding
language development is important aspect to understand the base and to recall
its various components of linguistics. Language development is a process
starting early in human life, when a person begins to acquire language by
learning it as it is spoken and by mimicry. Scholars share the conviction that
key aspects of personality and ability including linguistic and communication
ability, are formulated in the earliest stages of life. But they are divided on
the role of human intuition on one hand and heredity or environment has in
childhood development of knowledge, aptitude and skill. Equally they are
divided on how skills emerge and develop. A number of different theories have
been advanced that are meant to explain language acquisition. This paper
therefore examines the acquisition and theories based on the language
development.
INTRODUCTION:
Language
development is a process starting early in human life, when a person begins to
acquire language by learning it as it is spoken and by mimicry. Since language
development is the crucial part of the human cognitive nature, understanding
language development is an important aspect to understand the base and to
recall its various components of linguistics. And as to their universality, the
cognitive aspect of communication in language is understood as similar among
primates, non-primates, and human in some aspects, and differs in other aspects
such as, predisposed communication, photographic utterances, language
acquisition, and pragmatic components etc. The Purpose of this paper is to
examine the role of biology and environment in language acquisition and
theoretical approaches. This paper will present a brief overview of the subject
of child language acquisition, will give four of the major theoretical outlines
for the same, and will conclude the commentary on the differing views of
language acquisition.
Biological Preconditions:
Linguists do not
agree on the biological factors contributing to language development; however
most do agree that the ability to acquire such a complicated system is unique
to the human species. Furthermore, many believe that our ability to learn
spoken language may have been developed through the evolutionary process and
that the foundation for language may be passed down genetically.
Some evidence
that language is biological includes:
- There are
proven areas of the brain that are responsible for language production and
comprehension (Broca’s Area and Wernicke’s Area).
- During
brain lateralization, there seems to be a sensitive period for speech
production.
Environmental Influences
The behavioral
view of language development is no longer considered a viable explanation of
how children acquire language, yet a great deal of research describes ways in
which children’s environmental experiences influence their language skills. One
component of the young child’s linguistic environment is (child – directed
speech) also known as baby talk or mothers, which is language spoken in a
higher pitch than normal with simple words and sentences. Although the
importance of its role in developing language has been debated many linguists
argue it to have the important function of capturing the infant’s attention and
maintaining communication. Adults use strategies other than child-directed
speech like, recasting, expanding and labeling. Recasting is rephrasing
something the child has said, perhaps turning it into a question or restating
the Child’s immature utterance in the form of a fully grammatical sentence.
Expanding is the restating, in a linguistically sophisticated form, what a
child has said. Labeling is identifying the names of objects.
Social Preconditions
It is crucial
that children are allowed to socially interact with other people who can
vocalize and respond to questions for language acquisition to develop
successfully, it must be in an environment that allows them to communicate
socially in that language.
The two most
accepted theories in language are psychological and functional Psychological
explanations focus on the mental processes involved in language learning.
There are four
main components of language:
v Phonology involves the rules about the structure
and sequence of speech sounds.
v Semantics consists of vocabulary and how concepts
are expressed through words.
v Grammar involves two parts. The first syntax is
the rules in which words are arranged in to sentences. The second, morphology
is the use of grammatical markers (indicating tense, active or passive voice,
etc.)
v Pragmatics Involves the rules for appropriate and
effective communication. Pragmatics involves three skills:-
(i)
Sing language for greeting, demanding etc.
(ii)
Hanging language for talking differently depending
on who it is you are talking to.
(iii)
Following rules such as turn taking, staying on
topic.
v Each component
has its own appropriate developmental period.
Phonological Development:
From shortly after birth to around
one year, the baby starts to make speech sounds. At around two months, the baby
will engage in cooing, which mostly consists of vowel sounds. At around four
months, cooing turns into babbling which is the repetitive consonant-vowel
combination. Babies understand more than they are able to say.
From 1-2 years, babies can recognize
the correct pronunciation of familiar words. By 3-5 years, phonological
awareness continues to improve as well as pronunciation. By 6-10 years,
children can master syllable stress patterns which helps distinguish slight
differences between similar words.
Semantic Development:
From birth to
one year, comprehension (the language we understand) develops before production
(the language we use). There is about a 5 month lag in between the two. Babies
have an innate preference to listen to their mother’s voice. Babies can
recognize familiar words and use preverbal gestures.
From 1-2 years,
vocabulary grows to several hundred words. By 3-5 years children usually have
difficulty using words correctly. From 6-10 years, children can understand
meanings of words based on their definitions.
Grammatical Development
From 1-2 years,
children start using telegraphic speech, which are two word combinations. Brown
(1973) observed that 75% of children’s two word utterances could be summarized
in the existence of 11 semantic relations.
Eleven important
early semantic relations and examples based on Brown 1973:
·
Attributive
: “ Big house”
·
Agent
–Action : “Daddy Hit”
·
Action
– Object : “Hit Ball”
·
Agent
– Object : “Daddy Ball”
·
Nominative
: “That Ball”
·
Demonstrative
: “There Ball”
·
Recurrence
: “more ball”
·
Non-
existence : “All-gone ball”
·
Possessive
: “Daddy Chair”
·
Entity
+ Locative : “Book table”
·
Action
+ Locative : “Go store”
At around 3
years, children engage in simple sentences, which are 3 word sentences.
Grammatical morphemes added as there simple sentences start to emerge. By 3-5
years, children continue to add grammatical morphemes and gradually produce
complex grammatical structures. By 6-10 years, children refine the complex
grammatical structures such as passive voice.
Pragmatics Development
From birth to
one year, babies can engage in joint attention. Babies also can engage in turn
taking activities. By 1-2 years, they can engage in conversational turn taking
and topic maintenance. At ages 3-5, children can master illocutionary intent,
knowing what you meant to say even though you might not have said it and turn
about, which is turning the conversation over to another person. By age 6-10,
shading occurs, which is changing the conversation topic gradually. Children
are able to communicate effectively in demand settings such as on the
telephone.
Theoretical frame works of language development:
There are four
major theories of language development.
The behaviorist theory, proposed by
B.F. skinner (father of behaviorism) say that language is learned through
operant conditioning (reinforcement and imitation). This perspective sides with
the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate. This perspective is not widely
accepted today because there are many criticisms. These criticisms include that
the perspective is too specific, encourages incorrect phrases and is not
entirely possible.
The nativist
theory, proposed by Noam Chomsky, says that language is a unique human
accomplishment. Chomsky says that all children have what is called an LAD, an
innate language Acquisition device that allows children to produce consistent
sentences once vocabulary is learned. He also says that grammar is universal.
This theory, while there is much evidence supporting it, is not believed by all
researchers.
The Empiricist
theory argues that here is enough information in the linguistic input that
children receive, and therefore there is no need to assume an innate language
acquisition device (LAD). This approach is characterized by the construction of
computational models that learn aspects of language and/ or that simulate the
type of linguistic output produced by children.
The last theory,
the interactions perspective, consists of two components. This perspective is a
combination of both the nativist and behaviorist theories. The first part, the
information- processing theories, tests through the connectionist model, using
statistics. From these theories, we see that the brain is excellent at
detecting patterns.
The second part
of the integrationist perspective is the social-integrationist theories. These
theories suggest that there is a native desire to understand others as well as
being understood by others.
Conclusion
There is no
longer any doubt among linguists and child psychologists that language
acquisition is an elaborate and completely monolithic type of study. Under the
rubric of civilization and more directly under the context of societal
development, language is one of the most important aspects of culture. There is
a basic dispute over the subject of child language acquisition which exposes a
nerve between the nature versus nurture controversy. In its most basic form,
the initiates, led by linguist Noam Chomsky, believe that children are
biologically programmed for languages. In this view, the way a child learns to
speak is more a function of the genetic makeup and ethnic heritage.
In opposition,
the social integrationists maintain that language is acquired from cues in the
environment given by parents, peers and other members of society. In fact the
very nature of this approach necessitates that a social interaction take place
between the child and some other person that has already mastered some of the
basic constructs of language. Theoretically there is also ample basis for a
well-defined sequential bias for semantic relations within early language
acquisition.
References
·
Berk, L.E (2006) Chapter
9 – Language Development in Child Development (8th ed., pp.356-395). Pearson (original work published
1989).
·
Brown, Roger.(1973) A First
language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,
·
Gray, W.D &
Schunn, C.D
(eds) 2002, Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive
Science Society, Lawren Erbaum Associates. NJ.
·
Santrock, J (2008). A
topical Approach to Life-span Development. New York, NY: Mc Graw- hill Higher
Education.
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