What, If Any, Linguistic Knowledge Does a Human Being Possess at Birth - Coursework Example

LINGUISTIC ACQUITITION College WHAT, IF ANY, LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE DOES A HUMAN BEING POSSESS AT BIRTH INTRODUCTION Language and linguistic ability and knowledge development is a gradual process that takes place among children as they grow up. Languages are composed of sounds that are assembled to form words, which are combined to form sentences, which are arranged to convey ideas (SEDL, 2013). It is therefore a process that a child’s young and developing brain is exposed to at birth and is with time expected to learn and master. This therefore needs to be understood whether they are born with some already structured ability that guides their learning process of understanding languages they are exposed to. Different languages are structured differently; so during the process of learning babies do not only have to learn how to speak but also to make sense out of what is said and respond (Freeman & Freeman, 2004). During their young ages, babies make different babbling sounds in a bid to communicate before they develop a format and learn the structuring pattern of the language of their immediate sorounding. These sounds though as they develop get erased from their communication techniques because they really are not part of the normal language system (Wadhwa, 2005). Theories exist about the linguistic abilities of babies and how they develop and learn the systems of languages. These theories all have a different way of looking at a child’s linguistic development. Noam Chomsky for one believed that all human beings have language acquisition devices (LAD) at birth that contains knowledge about languages (Skinner, 2002). This paper therefore will look at the theories, their implications and conclusions. THEORETICAL EVIDENCE Noam Chomsky’s theory on linguistic was against the theories that had always been in place and received a lot of criticism. He for one was against the behaviorists’ theory that children learnt by trying to imitate the speeches of adults and were reinforced to improve on their inadequacies by rewards or punishments (Macaulay, 2006). The theory insinuated that as time goes by and as children grow and develop, they start to notice and imitate whatever they saw. This in effect helped then communicate by repeating words that they heard said within their environs more often. Chomsky though refuted this arguing that there was no way children could learn a very complex aspect of life such as language by simply imitating (Macaulay, 2006). In his theory though Chomsky believes that after babies are born with the LAD capability in them, which enables a born baby to understand and embrace their native language. His theory therefore can be classified as nativists’ theory of language. He is against the theory that babies learn by imitation saying that; “Children are exposed to inaccurately formed language since people interrupt themselves, mix up languages sometimes, get contradicting information in their conversations but the children in the end still learn” (Linden, 2008). This he says were it that children imitated their adults to learn the native languages then would grow up really mixed up in their conversations and may not even understand what they are saying or being told. Therefore there has to be something that enables then to distinguish and identify the right structure of the language system and adapt it. His other argument against the behaviourists theory of learning languages in children is that by simply imitating, the children would have very limited room for expanding their knowledge of languages. He says that the children instead learn also the rules around the structural formation of the language they hear and form other new sentences. Learning through watching and imitating would therefore he believes limits their linguistic capabilities to that of the people they are around while growing up (Keenan & Evans, 2009). Children as it is are able to expand their knowledge of a language and even have the capability to learn more than one at a time. Expanding their knowledge not only limiting it to the sentences they had said by their caretakers is in itself according tp Chomsky enough to dispute the behavourists’ theory of linguistics. Another theory about the nature in which children acquire their linguistic knowledge is the interactionist theory. This theory believes that through the biological components and their ability in human being to develop and adapt, children are therefore able so interact socially or otherwise and learn. This learning prrocess enables then to learn the language being spoken within their visinity and the sorrounding environment in which they are being brought up in (Shulman & Capone, 2010). This theory belives that children depend on their parents and the sorrounding to learn languages, and that they cannot learn without it. The support from their parents coupled with the other social interactions they brush shoulders with that are meaningful in the end enable thye infants to develop linguistic knowledge and develop communication skill from that. Nativity theory that Chomsky’s LAD greatly support also has a different view of how infants acquire their linguisitc abilities. The nativity theory say that language language undestanding and knowledge is an innate human characteristic that is genetically wired into the human brain (ODea & Mukherji, 2000). Infants therefore come with an already designed ability to analyze and synthesis languages and make sense of the sentences made. He believes that this is a predeposited capability that they are born with and with time as they grow and develop, use of language gets to develop in them too. The ability of children to master the commonly used words around and use it as a starting point and a reference for anything they are taking about is a starting point (Sealey & Carter, 2004). In his LAD concept he say that infants have the the device is innate and the ability to use it to intergrate the native language is alredy inbuilt. Children in their growth at one point or another will have to develop and learn different skill sets with the help of LAD. He argues that the presence of LAD is a very viable explanation as to why children in their growth will learnt and use sentences that they have never come across or heard before. They do this by the use of the LAD that helps them in making sense of what they have heard said and gives them the ability to use that to construct their own meaningful sentences (Crain & Lillo-Martin, 1999). And he also believes that it’s the reason behind children not growing up making the same mistakes their parents were making in their conversations but are able to communicate effectively. His other argument to support his LAD is that children learnt languages so fast and acquired skills of using grammar that cannot only be credited to exposure to the language environment (ODea & Mukherji, 2000). He believes that the effectiveness with which these children are able to capture and use the words to formulate new sentences must be genetic. It therefore has to to with his language acquititions device embedded in the human brain at birth that has the ability to capture and learn. He also claims in his justification that the fact that babies can bubble at a very young age is also proof that they were born with some capabilities in as far as language in concerned. Just like he critisized the behaviourists’ theory on linguistic acquitition, his LAD idea also has undergone various critisisms. These are arguments that have been put across to dispute his LAD idea in support of the nativity theory of lingustics. Some have argued that his theory is one that cannot be easily and effectively proved through scientific experiments (Piaget, 1980). A theory they say is worth any salt if it can easily be put to the test and its allegations proved beyond any reasonable doubt to be true or false. Testing and experimenting on infants at birth to confirm whether they have the LAD abilities as claimed by Chomsky they say is a little tricky and risky. Chomsky’s theory is critisised therefore as mainly based on assumptions and unproven facts that do not hold much water. “Other arguments against Chomsky’s theory are that; languages in children do not develop immediately the children are mature enough to control their voices. This is disputes the innateness of his theory and his argument that LAD is an already inbuilt ability at a child’s birth. Since heis theory also talks about the speed at which the children learn the langueages, He does not explain their inability to do so at an early age of their life with his claim of the innate nature of LAD. His theory to these critics is therefore one sided and does not put all facts into consideration. Scientific research has also proved his belief that children even after growing up in a not so correclty spoken language environment are able to speak fluently themselves” (ODea & Mukherji, 2000). Theories are only as good as their proofs. Facts have to be drawn from the arguments of theorists to prove that whatever they claim to be about is really true (Friedberg, 2011). Experimental analysis and testing of these theories have been conducted to eliminate those that are formulated just for arguments sake. Languages and linguistic abilities and knowledge is a very wide area of study if the number of languages were anything to to by. The development of a young one to the stage of ife where they get to know how to communicate verbally is always a long road. It also differs for the different children depending on their background and sometimes even the language (Chomsky, 1985). This is since the different languages in essence also have different sentence structuring. EXPERIMENTS ON THE THEORIES In a bid to learn how infants develop and acquire their knowledge in linguistics, experiments have been conducted to evaluate their learning process. Jenny Saffran in her experimental studies believe that studying the learning process gives people the chance to evaluate the relationship between nature and nurture (National Science Foundation, 2013). She believes that children must first learn where the words in a language are coming from in order to know how to use them in a sentence effectively. In her study, she introduces children to a nonsense language of made-up, two-syllable words spoken in a stream of monotone speech (National Science Foundation, 2013). She then uses the word with no pause between them but instead uses syllables that are clear and orderly. Her experiment’s objective is that; “If the babies recognize the pattern, they can use it to identify word boundaries in subsequent experiments. Saffran therefore plays new strings of speech where only some parts fit the previous pattern, and then records how long the babies pay attention to the familiar versus novel “words.” Since babies consistently pay attention to unfamiliar sounds for longer periods than to familiar ones, a difference in attention times indicates what the babies learned from their initial exposure to the nonsense language” (National Science Foundation, 2013). She then concludes from the experiment that babies are able and capable of identifying the patterns in a speech. Her test therefore show that there are well developed learning capabilities in infants that gets better as they contunue to grow. This to some extent favours chomsky’s theory of inborn LAD. Another experiment in search of proof as to how children acquire their linguistic ability; “Thirty-two infants were assigned to one of two counterbalanced conditions: Language A or B. All infants were monolingual English learners with no history of hearing or vision impairments; none had prior exposure to Italian or Spanish. Eight additional infants were excluded because of fussiness six (6) or failure to attend two (2)” (Pelucchi, Hay, & Saffran, 2009). The infant were familiarized with the language that were played through speaker monted on idelights. They were exposed to twelve trials that were repeated to ensure the infants were well acquinted. Results then revealed that the infants could keep track of the syllables played. These then helped come to a conclusion that that infants can successfully discriminate disyllabic sequences based on differences in their internal BTPs (Pelucchi, Hay, & Saffran, 2009). Empiricism has also been tested in an experiment of participants who were 96 healthy, full-term infants (43 female) from monolingual English-speaking households (Lew-Williams & Saffran, 2012). They were sampled from families that had no history of problems in development, both to hear and to see. Twenty four of these infants were then subjected to the effects of the variables of study; thirty nonsense words each separates by pauses. The results showed that the infants only distinguished the words that they had been exposed to before. “The results thus provided evidence that expectations about word length shaped infants’ processing of statistical cues to word boundaries hence revealing about the manner in which prior experience and new learning interact” (Lew-Williams & Saffran, 2012). This showed influence of empiricism in the learning process of infants. To also test empiricism, a sample of 35 twins was drawn from a population to conduct an experimental test on empiricism. The study was conducted in the United States of America and the distribution of the sample was scattered to cater for and include a wider range. This helped in reducing or eliminating biasness that would have reduced the credibility of the test (Thompson, 2012). The twins were then separated and put into different rooms and exposed to different words at aregular and frequent rate. In one of the control rooms for the experiment, the word “GOD” was repeated several times. The twins were then mixed up and those who were not exposed to the word were later found to also utter it frequently a showing that they learnt it from their brothers. This was proof that children also learn their languages and characters from their environment (Denham & Lobeck, 2011) CONTRADICTIONS These theories all try to disapprove the other and dispute the basis of the others arguments. As we have seen earlier in the paper though, all the theories at one point include empiricism in their arguments. There is also innateness in most of the theories and these show that they tend to have similar bases of arguments in spite of their arguments to prove otherwise. CONCLUSION This paper therefore looked at the theories, their implications and conclusions by looking at the different theories that have been put across to try and explain the acquisition abilities on infants and young children. Learning process is a very delicate and matter and one that should be handled with care and ut most diligence. Grammatical learning among our children is something that should be looked into and researched. Theories and experimental evidence looked at therefore show how big a topic linguistic acquitition has been. These theories all have common bases of arguments that should be brought into agreement and develop one good theory that should be tested and effected. More evidence though is needed to analize how the children get to learn and understand their first language fluently. Some of them are even born with disorders that make them learn at a very slow rate or even sometimes find learning very tough (Litovsky, Saffran, & Grieco-Calub, 2009). The learning of more than one language and what enables it also needs to be studied. REFERENCES Spoken Word Recognition in Toddlers Who use Cochlear Implants. (2009). Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research , 52, 1397. Chomsky, E. (1985). Syntactic Structures. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Company KG. Crain, ,. S., & Lillo-Martin, D. (1999). An Introduction to Linguistic Theory and Language Acquisition. San Francisco: Wiley. 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