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Language Development Brian Macwhinney P1: HEF/FGC P2: HEF/FGC QC: HEF/FGC T1: HEF 0521651174c42.xml CU1767B-Hopkins November 19, 2004 21:58 Language development brian macwhinney Introduction hard-wired instinct and the view of language as an emergent process, let us review a few basic facts about Almost every human child succeeds in learning the developmental course of language acquisition and language. As a result, people often tend to take the some of the methods used to study it. process of language learning for granted. To many, language seems like a basic instinct, as simple as breathing or blinking. But, in fact, language is the most Early auditory development complex ability that a human being will ever master. The fact that all people succeed in learning to use William James (1890) described the world of the language, whereas not all people learn to swim or do newborn as a “blooming, buzzing confusion.” However, calculus, demonstrates how fully language conforms we now know that, at the auditory level at least, the to our human nature. In a very real sense, language is newborn’s world is remarkably well structured. The the complete expression of what it means to be cochlea and auditory nerve provide extensive pre- human. processing of signals for frequency and intensity. In the Linguists in the Chomskyan tradition (Pinker, 1994) 1970s and 1980s, researchers discovered that human tend to think of language as having a universal core from infants were specifically adapted at birth to perceive which individual languages select out a particular contrasts such as that between /p/ and /b/, as in pit and configuration of optional features known technically as bit.Subsequent research showed that even chinchillas ‘parameters’ (Chomsky, 1982). As a result, they see are capable of making this distinction. This suggests that language as an instinct driven by specifically human much of the basic structure of the infant’s auditory evolutionary adaptations. In their view, language resides world can be attributed to fundamental processes in the in a unique mental organ that has been given as a Special mammalian ear and cochlear nucleus. Beyond this basic Gift to the human species. This mental organ contains level of auditory processing, it appears that infants have rules, constraints, and other structures that can be aremarkable capacity to record and store sequences of specified by linguistic analysis. Without guidance from auditory events. It is as if the infant has something akin this universal core, the child would be unable to piece toatape recorder in the auditory cortex that records together the intricate details of language structure. input sounds, replays them, and accustoms the ear to Many psychologists (Fletcher & MacWhinney, 1995) their patterns, well before learning the actual meanings and linguists who reject the Chomskyan approach view of these words (Fig. 1). language learning from a very different perspective. To One clever method for studying early audition relies the psychologist, language development is a window on on the fact that babies tend to habituate to repeated the operation of the human mind. The patterns of stimuli from the same perceptual class. If the perceptual language emerge not from a unique instinct, but from class of the stimulus suddenly changes, the baby will the operation of general processes of evolution, brighten up and turn to look at the new stimulus. If the cognition, social processes, and facts about the human experimenter constructs a set of words which share a body. For researchers who accept this emergentist certain property and then shifts to words that have a approach, the goal of language acquisition studies is to different property, the infant may demonstrate understand how regularities in linguistic form emerge awareness of the distinction through preferential looking from the operation of low-level physical, neural, and (Fig. 2). For example, a baby may slowly habituate to a social processes. Before considering the current state of long string of syllables that have the form ABA, such as the dialogue between the view of language as a badaba-nopano-rinori-punapu.Ifthe string then shifts 257 P1: HEF/FGC P2: HEF/FGC QC: HEF/FGC T1: HEF 0521651174c42.xml CU1767B-Hopkins November 19, 2004 21:58 258 Domains of development: from infancy to adolescence Pinna Semicircular canals Malleus Oval Incus window Cochelea Auditory nerve Stapes Eardrum Auditory canal Round window Figure 1. The human peripheral auditory apparatus. to an ABB structure, as in badada-rinono-satoto-punana, (Fig. 3). By 6 months, the infant is producing structured the infant will perk up and show increased attention to vocalizations, including a larger diversity of individual the new string. vowels and consonants, mostly structured into the shape Infants also demonstrate preferences for the language of the consonant-vowel (CV) syllables like ta or pe.The that resembles the speech of their mothers. Thus, a basic framework of early babbling is built on top of French infant will prefer to listen to French, whereas a patterns of noisy lip-smacking that are present in many Polish infant will prefer to listen to Polish. In addition, primates. These CV vocal gestures include some form they demonstrate a preference for their own mother’s of vocal closure followed by a release with vocalic voice, as opposed to that of other women. Together, resonance. these abilities and preferences suggest that, during the Until the sixth month, deaf infants babble much like first eight months, the child is remarkably attentive to hearing children. However, well before 9 months, deaf language. Although babies are not yet learning words, infants lose their interest in babbling. This suggests that they are acquiring the basic auditory and intonational their earlier babbling is sustained largely through patterns of their native language. As they sharpen their proprioceptive and somaesthetic feedback, as the baby ability to hear the contrasts of their native language, they explores the various ways in which she can play with her begin to lose the ability to hear contrasts not represented mouth. After 6 months, babbling relies increasingly on in that language. If the child is growing up in a bilingual auditory feedback. During this period, the infant tries to world, full perceptual flexibility is maintained. However, produce specific sounds to match up with specific when growing up as a monolingual, flexibility in auditory impressions. It is at this point that the deaf processing is gradually traded off for quickness and child no longer finds babbling entertaining, since it is automaticity. not linked to auditory feedback. These facts suggest that, from the infant’s point of view, babbling is essentially a process of exploring the coordinated use of the mouth, Early articulation lungs, and larynx. In the heyday of behaviorism, researchers viewed the During the first three months, babies produce cries that development of babbling in terms of reinforcement express hunger, distress, and sometimes pain. By theory. They thought that the reinforcing qualities of 3months, at the time of the first social smile, they begin language would lead a Chinese baby to babble the sounds to make the delightful little sounds that we call ‘cooing’ of Chinese, whereas a Quechua baby would babble the P1: HEF/FGC P2: HEF/FGC QC: HEF/FGC T1: HEF 0521651174c42.xml CU1767B-Hopkins November 19, 2004 21:58 Language development 259 sounds of Quechua. This was the theory of ‘babbling drift.’ However, closer observation has indicated that no drift toward the native language occurs until well after 9months. By 12 months, there is some slight drift in the direction of the native language, as the infant begins to acquire the first words. Proponents of universal phono- logy have sometimes suggested that all children engage in babbling all the sounds of all the world’s language. Here,again, the claim seems to be overstated. Although it is certainly true that some English-learning infants will produce Bantu clicks and Quechua implosives, not all children produce all of these sounds. The first words The emergence of the first word is based on three earlier developments. The first is the infant’s growing ability to record the sounds of words. The second is the develop- ment of an ability to control vocal productions that occurs in the late stages of babbling. The third is the general growth of the symbolic function, as represented in play, imitation, and object manipulation. Piaget (1954) characterized the infant’s cognitive development in terms of the growth of representation or the ‘object concept.’ In the first six months of life, the child is unable to think about objects that are not physically present. However, a 12-month-old will see a dog’s tail sticking out from behind a chair and realize that the rest of the dog is hiding behind the chair. This Figure 2. The preferential looking task in which changes in infant understanding of how parts relate to wholes supports gaze signal discrimination of differences in words. From J. Berko and the child’s first major use of the symbolic function. N. Bernstein Ratner, 1993. Psycholinguistics.Fort Worth: Harcourt When playing with toys, the 12-month-old will begin to Brace Jovanovich. produce sounds such as vroom or bam-bam that represent properties of these toys and actions. Often these phonologically consistent forms appear before the first real words. Because they have no clear conventional status, parents may tend to ignore these first symbolic attempts as nothing more than spurious productions or babbling. Even before producing the first conventional word, the 12-month-old has already acquired an ability to (a) comprehend as many as ten conventional forms. The infant learns these forms through frequent associations between actions, objects, and words. Parents often Frequency in cycles per second realize that the pre-linguistic infant is beginning to understand what they say.
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