Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Martina Zahradníková

First Language Acquisition and Socialization

Bachelor's Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D.

2011

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography

…................................................................

Martina Zahradníková

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I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D.

for his kind help and support.

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Table of Contents:

1. Introduction 6

2. Language Acquisition Theories 8

2.1 Behaviorism 8

2.2 Nativism 10

2.3 Social Cognition Theory 12

2.4 Social Interactionist Theory 12

3. Prelinguistic Communication 13

3.1 Pointing and Gesturing 16

3.2 Baby Sign Language 17

3.3 Child-directed Speech 18

3.4 Social Variations in Child-directed Speech 23

3.5 The Human Speechome Project 25

4. Linguistic Communication 27

4.1 Stages of Child Language Development 28

4.1.1 One-word Stage (12-18 months) 28

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4.1.2 Two-word Stage (18 months) 29

4.1.3 Three-word Stage (28-42 months) 30

4.2 Vocabulary Spurt Hypothesis 33

5. Language and the Brain 36

5.1 Location of Language in the Brain 36

5.1.1 Broca's Area 38

5.1.2 Wernicke's Area 39

5.2 Critical Period Hypothesis 39

5.2.1 Feral Children 41

6. Conclusion 44

7. Bibliography 45

Summary 50

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1. Introduction

This thesis deals with first language and a degree to which children's social

environment influences its successful acquisition. It suggests that children neglected by their

caregivers at the early stage of cognitive development could not become competent users of

their first language later in life. The fact is that there is a strong correlation between successful

language acquisition and a stimulating social environment provided by the caregiver. Hence

that insufficiently nourishing social relationships during early childhood apparently result in

language impairments. The various components of this thesis attempt to utilize different

perspectives to support this assumption. Accordingly, this thesis submits evidence that stems

from presenting both theoretical foundation and current research in the field. Its content is

organized in a following manner.

The first chapter reviews chronologically the most influential theories of language

acquisition that is behaviorism, nativism, social cognition theory and social interactionism.

The second chapter on prelinguistic communication revisits children's pre-speech

perceptual and conceptual development involving, for example, a look on infants' pointing

and gesturing and its implications for subsequent linguistic progress. Moreover, it features

an extensive section on child-directed speech.

The third chapter overviews linguistics stages of normal human language

development, which are one-word stage, two-word stage, three-word stage and mentions

some of the problems regarding language children face at each of these stages.

The fourth chapter considers biological and cognitive structures underlying language.

Particularly, it reviews functions of Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Additionally, this chapter

assesses critical period hypothesis and selected cases of feral children.

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In the end, the thesis lists primary and secondary sources for further reference and

detailed information on the subject of first language acquisition.

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2. Language Acquisition Theories

The precise mechanism of how children grow into competent users of language have

always been a difficult question to answer. Researchers and intellectuals from a variety of

disciplines have been tackling this problem. For years, they have been engaged in

''flame wars'' over the nature versus nurture debate in order to shed some light on the process

of language acquisition. Consequentially, several competing theories of language acquisition

emerged. For the purposes of this thesis I will consider the most prominent ones:

behaviorism, Chomskian nativism, social cognition theory and social interactionism.

2.1 Behaviorism

Behaviorism was a dominant theory in the field of psychology during the first half of

the twentieth century. Behaviorists study only what is observable and try to find clues to

changes in a child's behavior in the environment. They disregard existence of any internal

processes, that might be responsible for these changes. Child is viewed only as a passive

object receiving input. 1950s brought B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior (1957), which applies

behaviorists' principles to language. Language is nothing more than a part of general human

behavior. Accordingly, this perspective is employed in investigating and formulating

hypotheses on infrastructure underlying both language and behavior. It is then assumed that

language is acquired by the same principles, therefore, by conditioning through association,

imitation and reinforcement. As Harley puts it (2009), ''Children learn language in the same

way as rats learn to navigate a maze for the reward of a food pellet'' (p.18).

This perspective seemed inadequate in explaining language acquisition and was

targeted by many critics. The most remarkable criticism was provided by Noam Chomsky.

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Chomsky (1959) could not accept the notion that there are no complex prerequisites required

for language other than the basic stimulus-response model:

As far as acquisition of language is concerned, it seems clear that

reinforcement, casual observation, and natural inquisitiveness (coupled with a strong

tendency to imitate) are important factors, as is the remarkable capacity of the

child to generalize, hypothesize, and "process information" in a variety of very

special and apparently highly complex ways which we cannot yet describe or begin to

understand, and which may be largely innate, or may develop through some sort of

learning or through maturation of the nervous system (p.12).

The problem with behaviorism is usually illustrated by following examples.

First, the nature of language itself is conflicted with the notion that language can be

acquired by imitation. Language is a creative entity bound by a set of rules. Although, it

incorporates these restrictive elements, one can virtually create an infinite number of unique

grammatical sentences. Presumably, any of these sentences should be comprehensible to

every speaker. This distinctive nature of language could be illustrated by Stephen Fry's quirky

line featured in a sketch from A Bit of Fry & Laurie: ''Hold the newsreader's nose squarely,

waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers'' (Fry, Laurie, & Ordish, 1989).

Second, the fact that children acquire language at such a rapid rate, managing to

acquire everything they ever going to need to use language, in first three years of life.

Moreover, these simple mechanisms could not allow children to learn an immense quantity of

words. Grammatical errors regarding syntax practically never occur. On the other hand, they

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make errors regarding words, for example, this is the case of overgeneralizations. The fact

that this could be explained by mere imitation seemed inadequate. Obviously, children use

some imitative elements, especially in child's play. However, this is not a direct imitation as

they cease to use it whenever they get bored with it.

Finally, children are able to acquire normal language even though their caregivers do

not provide them with continuous feedback. Caregivers usually do not judge grammaticality

of their children's utterances; instead they focus on the content.

Behaviorism in its literal interpretation was rejected. In the 21st century, some ideas of

behaviorism have been transformed into relation frame theory, a psychological theory of

language and cognition. Moreover, behaviorists' perspective survives in techniques used in

therapeutic sessions involving applied behavior analysis (ABA). This behavioral treatment

strategy has demonstrated significant gains in language, IQ scores and other cognitive abilities

in autistic children, albeit the outcome of these therapeutic sessions is dependent on the age

the treatment is entered (Leblanc, Richardson, & McIntosh, 2005, Eikeseth, Smith,

Jahr, & Eldevik, 2007).

2.2 Nativism

Similarly to behaviorism, nativism tends to put emphasis on one side of the nature

versus nurture debate. In this case, any major impact of environmental factors on language

acquisition is overlooked. Nativists suggest that there is an innate mechanism of language

development hard-wired into the human brain.

The nativist approach is associated with Noam Chomsky, a renowned American

academician, a public figure and a prolific author in variety of disciplines. Chomsky critiqued

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behavioral theory of language in his quintessential A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal

Behavior (1959). He proposed that there must be an innate capacity for language, because

verbal input children receive is imperfect, therefore, insufficient to achieve successful

development of all language components. Furthermore, on the side of nativism is the fact that

all children reach particular levels of language competence at approximately same ages.

Chomsky called this innate capacity language acquisition device (LAD). LAD predetermines

that all human individuals are capable of developing language. Nevertheless, as later models

of language acquisition propose, children need to be exposed to language of their community

in order to develop this genetic blueprint for language.

Later Chomsky's work substitutes LAD with the theory of universal grammar (UG).

UG is described by Ingram (1989) as a part of a genetic program containing a collection of

universal principles, which determine the form of any human language (Ingram, 1989, p. 25).

The theoretical basis of UG is founded on the assumption that there is a deep level of

similarity contained within all human languages given that each human language is governed

by a set of comparable constraints.

Another argument on the side of nativist viewpoint is the poverty of stimulus (POTS)

hypothesis. POTS suggests that children could not be capable of acquiring such a profound

system of communication by simple imitation or social interaction without any preexisting

faculties, because their caregivers do not provide them with sufficient data to learn all the

complexities of language. Among the hard evidence, that supports the nativist approach are

children provided with pidgin language as their primary input. Pidgin is a simplified

communication system developed from one or more languages by communities with no other

language in common. When children acquire pidgin as their native language, they creolize it.

In other words, they turn it into a conventional language.

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2.3 Social Cognition Theory

Social cognition theory is a learning theory used in psychology and education.

It originated from social learning theory based on work of N.E. Miller and J. Dollard, which

supposed that an individual could learn behavior only by observing his social environment.

For example, in criminology this theory used to be one of the approaches that explained

deviant behavioral patterns.

In linguistics, modification of social cognition theory assumes that children, in order to

decode the meanings of words, make use of the same mental capacities applied in other

cognitive tasks such as ''ability to infer the intentions of others, ability to acquire concepts,

appreciation of syntactic structure and general learning abilities'' (Bloom, 2000, p.10).

No other other preexisting capacities specialized for language are required, because ''word

learning is the product of children's ability to figure out what other people are thinking when

they use words'' (Bloom, 2000, p. 10).

2.4 Social Interactionist Theory

Social interactionist theory reaches a compromise between nature and nurture by

suggesting that children acquire first language by established cognitive structures, which are

stimulated by environmental input.

Current trends in social interactionism regarding language acquisition are represented

by Catherine Snow, who claims that ''mothers actively and intensively teach language in the

home'' (Moerk, 1976, p. 15); in other words, that children do not independently absorb their

first language from the environment.

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3. Prelinguistic Communication

Prelinguistic phase of human development predetermines subsequent linguistic

development. Any delay in child's prelinguistic development points at underlying

developmental disorders, which prevent normal language acquisition. Human foetuses are

able to perceive melodic patterns of their mother's speech through amniotic membranes.

Research by DeCasper and Spence has shown that newborns ''exhibit changes in sucking

behaviour depending on whether the infants hear stories that were read by their mothers

during the last few weeks of pregnancy or whether they hear novel stories'' (as cited in Bavin,

2009, ch. 7, p. 108).

The moment children are born, they are exposed to language of their community in a

social setting or as Clark (2009) puts it ''infants are born into a social world, a world of touch,

sound, and affect, a world of communication. They develop and grow up as social beings,

immersed in a network of relationships from the start'' (p. 21).

Newborns arrive into this social setting dependent on their caregivers to feed them and

keep them safe and sound. Their vocal tract is in its expressive function comparable to a non-

human mammal. The larynx descends into the throat by three months, then it opens up the

pharynx that allows the tongue to move forwards and backwards and later produce the variety

of vowel sounds (Pinker, 1994).

Consequently children have to rely heavily on non-verbal options when they attempt

to communicate their needs. Adults have to rely on similar means in order to interact and bond

with infants, who do not comprehend what is being communicated to them at this early stage.

Contrarily to the fact that infants are not able to produce speech, they show a

remarkable ability to spot patterns in prosodic features of speech, which helps them to

segment the stream of speech into smaller units. They are capable of making subtle

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discrimination of phonemes based on frequency, intensity, duration, rise time and temporal

pattern (Bloom, 1994). This ability is essential to identifying singular words and mapping the

specific meanings onto them. Mandel et al. reported that ''infants can recognize the sound

patterns of their names as young as 4.5 months, and by 6 months, they can recognize their

names in ongoing speech'' (as cited in Bavin, 2009, ch. 7, p. 116). By the same token, they are

capable of distinguishing both native and non-native sounds till about ten months. This is

supported by various event-related potential (ERP) studies, which measure electrical activity

of the brain structures when responding to a stimulus. For example, Kuhl studied ERPs of

young infants and found that they respond to native and non-native sound with differential

neural activity (Kuhl, 2007, p.2). Upon reaching this stage children lose this extraordinary

capacity, because when they ''gain experience with their ambient language, they attune to

phonetic information that is linguistically relevant'' (Schmale, Cristia, Seidl, & Johnson, 2010,

p. 2). They are no longer ''universal phoneticians'' (Pinker, 1994, p.264).

Additionally, before infants start to produce speech they are capable of communicating

in complex ways through deictic, iconic and conventionalized gestures. The distinct category

of this gestural communication involves homesign or kitchen sign (Gleitman & Newport,

1995, Grimshaw et al., 1998, Bloom, 1994), which is a system developed independently by

deaf children of hearing parents, who are growing up isolated from the deaf community. No

other animal species including our primate relatives do not possess these communicative

qualities. As Tomasello suggests:

human pointing and other gestures may already embody forms of social cognition and

communicative motivation that are unique to the species, and that are necessary as a

first step on the way to linguistic conventions both phylogenetically and onto-

genetically (as cited in Bavin, 2009, ch. 5, p. 70).

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Early vocalizations consist of merely nothing more than crying and cooing. That does

not prevent caregivers to impose conventional conversational exchanges on children as if they

were adequate speakers of that particular language. Conversational exchanges between

children and adults work as a forum in which parents provide running commentary on events

occurring in a child's environment. However, this does not mean that children are provided

with an explicit feedback on every single word or syntactic structure they utter. This linguistic

forum for learning rather serves its social function and therefore helps an individual become a

member of the particular society and the culture (Clark, 2009).

The earliest exchanges do not require any significant contributions from children,

because caregivers talk to them as if they already were active participants in a conversation.

This is evidenced by exchange between a three-month-old infant and her mother:

Ann: (smiles)

Mother: oh, what a nice little smile

yes, isn’t that nice?

There

there’s a nice little smile

Ann: (burps)

Mother: what a nice little wind as well

yes, that’s better, isn’t it?

yes

yes

Ann: (vocalizes)

Mother: there’s a nice noise (Clark, 2009, p. 25)

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As this excerpt shows the mother takes even the slightest contributions into account.

As the child gets older the demands on contribution to a conversation became more

challenging. This particular way of talking to children is referred to as child-directed speech

or motherese.

3.1 Pointing and Gesturing

Prior to onset of pointing and gesturing, it is necessary for infants to undergo

fundamental perceptual and conceptual development. These developmental foundations have

to be in place, because of the notion that, according to Tomasello and his colleagues' findings,

''children do not use their early pointing gestures merely to direct attention to an object or

themselves; but they use them to influence the mental states of others'' (as cited in Goldin-

Meadow, 2007, p. 741).

By the time children start gesturing, they should be adept at identifying faces, objects

and actions. They should be capable of perceiving similarities and differences in

phenomenons presented by their environment. Such cognitive ability is crucial for successful

interaction as it enshrines both linguistic and non-linguistic means of communication.

Cognitive development starts to get noticeable at around 6-8 months of age, when

children start to make demands on their caregivers. At 8-9 months they begin to understand

the intentions of others and alter their behavior accordingly. At about 10–12 months, infants

are ready to put their pattern-making skills together with their communicative and meaning-

inference skills to use. These are the nourishing circumstances in which human language is

ready to be properly developed (Lieven, 2008).

Gesturing as well as coordinating the synchronized movements of the vocal tract is a

motor act. Advances of this skill in infancy ''create a broad range of novel experiences and

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opportunities for exploration that may have implications for language development'' (Iverson,

2010, p. 19). Moreover, progress in motor skills predicts the rate of child's vocabulary

acquisition.

During the first year gestural communication is integrated into the conversation to

balance linguistic shortcomings. Meanings in social interactions are derived from gestures the

same was they are derived from caregiver's utterances, stance, facial expression affective

display and other factors contributing to successful interactions (Clark, 2009). This applies

also to mediating meanings in social interactions.

3.2 Baby Sign Language

Baby Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language using elements of American Sign

Language (ASL) taught to hearing infants to communicate with their parents. Recently,

teaching hearing babies to sign has became fairly fashionable. This trend showed its great

commercial potential in many expensive sessions offering lectures to parents, who are

frustrated with not being able to communicate effectively with their pre-speech children.

Many of the BSL promoters claim that baby signing will enhance children's

intellectual and linguistic potential. However, there is no solid scientific evidence to support

these claims. There is still an ongoing debate regarding effects of baby signing. One side of

the debate states that there is no difference between baby signing and another social activities

such as peek-a-boo. Thus what is taught to children are simple symbols not language. As these

symbols are taken out of the context of ASL, they do not posses the child-directed property of

spoken language or signed language, which is the natural attunement to the level of children's

language development.

The other side of the debate suggests that BSL promotes large receptive and

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expressive vocabulary, advancement in mental development, reduction of problematic

behavior and increased joint attention (Doherty-Sneddon, 2008).

To sum up, for now baby signing is still a profitable business based on

pseudoscientific claims. However, it cannot be denied that it has its benefits in an increased

social time spent with the child. This way it nurtures the child's normal language

development, but it cannot promise a substantial advancement of child's mental capacities.

3.3 Child-directed Speech

Child-directed speech (CDS) is used by adults when they talk to infants. CDS has to

be adjusted to infants who are novices to language, therefore it carries peculiar speech

patterns as opposed to adult-adult directed speech. This idiosyncratic nature of CDS works as

an attention-getter. The particular nature of CDS is beautifully reflected in this quote by the

exploding elderly mother from Monty Python's Flying Circus, which is used by Harley

(2010):

Ooh, he’s a clever little boy – he’s a clever little boy. Do you

like your rattle? Do you like your rattle? Look at his little eyes

following it . . . look at his iggy piggy piggy little eyeballs eh

. . . oo . . . he’s got a tubby tum-tum. Oh, he’s got a tubby

tum-tum.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus (p. 60)

Primarily, CDS exposes to children what to focus on, because it separates speech from

environmental noises and adult-adult directed speech. Among features of CDS, which serve

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this purpose are higher pitch, intonation, longer vowels, affect and simplified words. CDS is

also highly grammatical, repetitive and refers to ''here and now''. It provides verbal feedback

on what is spoken about. CDS is critical in establishing joint attentional frame, which

conditions normal language acquisition. The extent of exposure to joint attention is highly

correlated with child's vocabulary development (Dale, 2004). As Tomasello (2007)

summarizes, the nature of joint attention and cooperative function of pointing lays on social

cognitive and social-motivational infrastructure, which is uniquely human:

Pointing things out for other people seems like an exceedingly simple act. But it turns

out that this is a uniquely human form of communication under natural circumstances,

and it rests on a very complex and mostly hidden social-cognitive, social-motivational

infrastructure that, apparently, nonhuman species simply do not possess in anything

like the human form. The social-cognitive part of the infrastructure comprises mainly

the joint attentional frame, which rests on the ability to know things mutually with

others, and the communicative intention that derives from skills of joint attention as it

is essentially the intention that we know together that I want something from you

(p. 719).

Children have to be exposed to CDS in interactive contexts as overhearing does not

appear to promote acquisition (Clark, 2009, Kuhl, 2007). Only socially meaningful situation

provide the child with the tools to work out the single or multiple meanings of words.

For example, a mere exposure to TV could not enhance the language acquisition

process at the early stage, because it lacks the interactive effect. It does not involve children in

conversation, therefore, does not require them to react directly to objects in view. Moreover,

TV works with concepts, which are absolutely incomprehensible to infants; hence, the effect

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of exposing children to TV is comparable to feeding them with pages taken out of a dictionary

and hoping that the child spontaneously absorbs some of its content. Surely, once the child is

already an accomplished speaker, TV and other media have an indisputable impact on

vocabulary development.

Contrastingly, adults tend to adjust the speech modifications along with the pace of

child's language development according to comprehension children display (Clark, 2009,

Harley 2001). This is clearly evidenced by the two shortened examples taken from Child

Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) database.

First session was held when the child was aged about 6 months:

Mother: think we're gonna play in Charlie's room for a little while ?

Child: uh.

Mother: yeah (whispered faintly).

Mother: all done ( whispered faintly) .

Mother : you're gonna see that thing ?

Mother: getcha. something else?

Mother: ….

Mother: oops.

Mother: so what's that ?

Mother : look .

Mother : what's that ?

Mother: in here .

Child: ah .

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Mother what's that ?

Child: ah.

(Soderstrom, Blossom, Foygel, & Morgan, 2008,

American English Corpora, CHILDES).

And another session held when the child was about 1 year and started to babble:

Child: ehh.

Mother: it's okay .

Mother: here, let's do this.

Child: euh enh.

Child: amee.

Mother: can you get (th)em in ?

Child: uh

Mother: hmm

Mother: go (a)head, put (th)em in .

Mother: see if you can do that .

Mother: ah (breathing in) oone.

Mother: yay

Child: ooweedah

(Soderstrom, Blossom, Foygel, & Morgan, 2008,

American English Corpora, CHILDES).

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As illustrated by these primitive conversational exchange excerpts the rise of the

child's active participation could be clearly tracked.

All human societies adjust their speech in communication with young children. There

are certain universals, but the precise form of CDS is culturally conditioned. Virtually all

western societies use analogous patterns when speaking to children.

However, there are societies for which the term CDS should be applied loosely as they

do not speak at the child but for the child. One of these societies is Kaluli community, located

in Papua New Guinea. The CDS in this form might appear as shown in an example bellow, an

exchange between Wanu (a child) and a mother:

Mother (to Wanu): Whose is it? Say like that. ‘εlεma’

Wanu (to Binalia): Whose is it?

Mother: Is it yours? Say like that.

Wanu: Is it yours?

Mother: Who are you? Say like that.

Wanu: Who are you?

Mother: Did you pick it? Say like that.

Wanu: Did you pick it?

Mother: My gramma picked it! Say like that.

Wanu: My gramma picked it!

Mother: This my gramma picked. Say like that.

Wanu: This my gramma picked.

(Clark, 2009, p. 49)

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Children in Kaluli community are not considered to have any specific intentions or

cognitive abilities de facto prior to their first words. Once a first word is expressed, Kaluli

start to teach them how to speak and behave in social interactions. In such interactions,

typically between caregiver, child and other people, they take the child to face up the other

participants and use the expression ''εlεma'', which could be translated roughly as 'say it like

that', this expression signals to the child that he or she should repeat the same utterance

(Clark, 2009).

The form of CDS is not based only on cultural conventions, but also on the

socioeconomic status (SES) of the families the children are raised in. Particularly, CDS

influenced by social status has an impact on subsequent vocabulary development.

3.4 Social Class Variations in Child-directed Speech

Person's socioeconomic status (SES) is represented by a collection of several factors

that interplay with each other. These factors include years of formal education, job and earned

income (Clark, 2009, Fenson et al., 1994). SES has an evident impact on child language

development, because SES defines the characteristics of the input language used by the

caregiver. SES is a quite reliable resource for prediction of child's vocabulary size in early

years . According to Hoff (2003) among the factors having an impact on the relationship

between SES and language are:

(a) biologically based differences in children’s abilities, caused by genes or health

(b) global effects of differences in family functioning and home environments

(c) specific effects of differences in language-learning experiences

(p. 1368)

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The difference between input language used by low SES and high SES caregivers does

not lay only in the richness of vocabulary and literacy reflected in CDS, but also in social-

pragmatic speech. High SES caregivers tend to use more affirmation and encouragement

when talking the their children. They also produce more wh- questions and compel the child

to start conversations. Opposed to high SES caregivers, low SES caregivers tend to direct the

child's behavior by discouragement and prohibition (Rowe, 2008). On the other hand, Miller

notes that low SES caregivers also teach children teasing, talking back and responding to

different situations (as cited in Clark, 2009, p. 46). This, however, might be conflicted with

the behavior expected by teachers at school.

Furthermore, Rowe mentions that there is a link between parent's beliefs about child's

development and communication. The parental knowledge is dominated not only by their

personal and social beliefs, but also cultural beliefs. For example, similarly to Kaluli that were

mentioned above, Gusii babies are not considered to understand speech; their caregivers

respond only to cries of distress (Rowe, 2008). Correspondingly, parental knowledge from the

SES viewpoint is received from the cultural environment, but there is also an access to

additional information on child development. The way this information is accessed is what

makes the difference between low SES and high SES caregivers. Low SES caregivers chiefly

draw on the informal advice of friends and family, whereas high SES caregivers rely on

information from books, magazines and the expert advice they get at pediatrician office

(Rowe).

In short, the SES and parental beliefs about how much emphasis to put on the

importance of a stimulating environment during childhood decides to a certain extent the

richness of children's vocabulary and the pace of its growth.

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3.5 The Human Speechome Project

Linguists interested in language acquisition always tried to keep detailed records of

children at the early stage of language. The first language diary ever was written by personal

physician to Louis XIII of France, who kept a daily journal on Louis' development for twenty-

six years. However, these researchers could not manage keeping an accurate record of such

monumental amount of information regardless of their personal commitment. In 2005, MIT

released an unprecedented project collecting data on language acquisition, which provides

language researchers with invaluable insight into one of the most fundamental aspects of

human nature.

The Human Speechome Project (HSP) is conducted by MIT's Media Laboratory by the

associate professor Deb Roy. HSP started in 2005 as an effort to observe language acquisition

closely over the first years of a child's life. This project is exceptional because of the fact that

one of the researchers, Deb Roy, turned his house into an observation room, where the

investigated subject is his own family.

The whole house is set up with audio and video recoding devices, which are not

disruptive to any members of this household. The recorded material is subsequently analyzed

in the laboratory. The compressed data adds up to approximately 300 GB a day. Currently,

there are about 400 000 hours of audio-video recordings. This huge amount of data requires a

specifically deigned data analyzing software and hardware equipment. It will take years for

the data to be analyzed even with the help of large and powerful data processing systems.

However, HSP has its shortcomings. It does not capture all waking hours of the

observed child. Comparably to other case studies its restriction lays in the fact that

''conclusions about the general nature of language development that may be drawn from

analysis of the Speechome corpus are inherently limited since the data charts only one

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child's development'' (Roy, 2009, The Speechome Corpus, para. 3).

The project is currently focused on the process by which children learn their first

words and early grammatical constructions, but the ultimate goal of this research is to find a

key to processes involved in human language learning and apply this knowledge in teaching a

robot to talk.

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4. Linguistic Communication

Children's linguistic communication is preceded by pre-speech vocalizations and

gestural communication, which was mentioned in the previous chapter. Pre-speech

vocalization starts at about 6 months of age with vocal play, when children experiment with

their vocal equipment. Then vocal play is followed by vocalized babbling or signed babbling

in case of hearing impaired infants, which is in its developmental steps comparable to hearing

children's babbling. During these periods children engage their vocal tract in singing melodic

strings of syllables, simple rhymes and humming. When children show significant delays in

vocal play it may be a sign of pathology (Crystal, 1996). As he writes, ''children are most

likely to play with the skills they are in the process of acquiring'' (Crystal, 1996, p. 25).

At about 12 months children utter their first words. However, they do not suddenly

drop babbling, but their progress moves along with brain maturation as Crystal (2007) notes:

''a set of well-practiced sounds is available for use at the time when children become

intellectually capable of using sound for the communication of meaning'' (p. 83). Moreover, at

the time first word are uttered, maturation of different learning faculties is in motion, most

importantly maturation of attention and memory. Children become almost fluent at about 3-4

years of age. For illustration, they have to be accomplished at quite high levels of semantics

and syntax in order to decode intricate streams of speech as Dr. Seuss' ''Duck takes licks in

lakes Luke Luck likes. Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.'' from Fox in Socks

(Dr. Seuss, 1965, p. 43), which is among the wildly popular readings for children of that age.

Nonetheless, children can be considered competent users of language with solid vocabulary

around 10-12 years of age (Clark, 2009). Although, they have mastered the rules of their

native language around that age, they will be building their vocabulary in their native

language for the rest of their lives. Once children used their first words, they have a

27

challenging task ahead of them, from then on they have to learn about 60 000 words by the

time of their high school graduation (Bloom, 2000).

Further this chapter brings an overview of stages of language development in more

detail, then I will consider vocabulary spurt hypothesis.

4.1 Stages of Child Language Development

4.1.1 One-word Stage (12-18 months)

Around 12 months when children speak their first words they tend to refer to things

and people they are in daily contact such as family, relatives and toys. First words are almost

exclusively labeling words, nouns. Then children progress to action words and holophrases or

telegraphic speech. Holophrase is a single word, which looks like a be a condensed sentence.

For example, the word 'cookie' could mean 'I want a cookie', a sentence in which some

grammatical elements are skipped, therefore the term telegraphic speech. Holophrase

portends the onset of two-word stage.

However, young children make errors, when learning their first language. Typical

mispronunciations occur while learning vowels and consonants, which are for instance:

replacing fricative by stops, e.g. 'see' pronounced [ti:], avoiding consonant clusters, e.g. 'sky'

pronounced [kai] and dropping unstressed syllables, e.g. 'banana' pronounced [nana]. (Crystal,

2007, p. 86)

Among the other common occurrences appearing in child's language are

overextensions and underextensions. Overextensions refer to a situation, when a single word

is applied to more concepts. For example, the word 'ball' used for any round objects.

On the other hand, underextensions refer to a situation, when a general word means one

specific thing, for example the word 'shoes' meaning 'my shoes' only.

28

4.1.2 Two-word Stage (18 months)

As children reach vocabulary of about 50 words they are ready for the two-word stage.

Two-word stage passes in several weeks. Child usually never fails to put the grammatical

elements in two-word utterances in their rightful places. What was initiated with holophrase,

continues with telegraphic speech, speaking in two-word phrases. The examples of the two-

word phrases could be following: 'Mommy chair', 'good dog', 'give cookie', etc.

Children start to experiment with early syntactic structures and with other grammatical

constructions. What was initiated with holophrase, continues with telegraphic speech.

The Wug test

The Wug test was a famous experiment conducted by Jean Berko in the 1950s. This

linguistic experiment was designed to investigate the mechanisms of morphological

acquisition. For the purposes of this study, following morphemes were selected:

a. plural {-s} with three allophones:

[SI after [p,t,k,f,Ol

[az] after [s,z,S,i,E,j]

[z] after other voiced sounds

b. possessive {-s}

c. present {-s}

d. past {-ed}

with three allophones (same as plural)

with three allophones (same as plural)

with three allophones:

29

[ad] after [t,d]

[t] after [p,k,E,f,O,s,S]

[d] after all voiced sounds except [d]

(Ingram, 1989, p. 439).

Children were presented with a drawing of strange bird-like creature, the researcher

called it 'a wug', a fabricated nonsensical word. Then the child was shown another picture of

two 'wugs'. The researcher started for him with the statement: ''Here is a wug. Now there are

two.." and the tested child was expected to fill in the missing plural form. Every normally

developing child answers with a correct plural 'two wugs', which proves that it must have

learned a rule that allows him to create this exact form.

The plural form 'two wugs' cannot be explained by simple imitation hypothesis,

because the probability that the child could have ever heard the words 'wug' and 'wugs' is

extremely small.

4.1.3 Three Word Stage (28-42 months)

Around third birthday children come gain more fluency in their first language. They

use full positive and negative sentences and learn how to use inversion to create questions.

They also begin to understand they cannot apply literal meaning to idiomatic expressions.

At this stage children make great advancement in expressive abilities, especially due to their

radically expanding vocabulary. Besides, by this time they should have learned to extrapolate

the suitable pragmatic construction out of the social context. However, there are still problems

with right forms of irregular plurals, verb endings, irregular verbs, tenses and other sentence

components. Moreover, during the third year children start to notice the difference between

rising and falling patterns in English tag sentences, therefore the difference between 'requiring

30

information' and 'emphasizing information'. For example, the implications of rising pattern

in Are home tonight? and falling pattern in This is really boring, isn't it?

Mastering intonation in all its ranges and meanings continues into teenage years.

This was exposed by a study regarding British radio and TV announcers reading out football

results. According to this study adults are able to predict whether the score is going to be a

draw, a home win, or an away win. On the other hand, children aged seven to eleven were

unable to do it. Even the oldest children did not reach the level of competence shown by the

adults. Young teenagers have been shown to have difficulties understanding the way

intonation distinguishes some sentences. For example, they do not hear the difference

signaled by intonation and pause in sentences She dressed, and fed the baby and She dressed

and fed the baby. They are unable to tell apart if the described actions are concurrent or if one

follows the other (Crystal, 2007, p. 88).

However, children could make themselves very well understood at this stage. The

massive improvement is clearly shown in the following example of conversation between a

parent and a 3 year old child:

Child: do you have another tiger ?

Mother: no .

Mother: and here's Grover and the chipmunk .

Child: wonder where he go ?

Mother: he goes right there .

Child: oh .

Mother: and here's Grover wishin(g) that he was a king .

Child: where does he go ?

31

Child: where does he go ?

Mother: he goes right there .

Child: oh .

Mother: this is Grover wishin(g) ...

Mother: what ?

Child: that he was a flower .

Mother: that he was a flower .

Child: where does it go ?

Mother: right there .

Mother: it's kinda hard to tell where these go .

Child: yeh .

Mother: this one goes on this page here .

Child: oh .

Mother: and this is Grover wishin(g) that he was a Spaceman, flying on the

moon .

Mother: flying around the moon .

Mother: I think that's the one we lost .

Mother: okay, he goes on that page .

Mother: can you figure out where he goes on that page ?

Child: I know he go this way .

(Warren-Leubecker, 1982, Warren-Leubecker &

Bohannon, 1984, American English Corpora, CHILDES).

As it could be seen in this excerpt, the changes in child's communicative abilities

32

facilitate changes in mother's CDS speech. Compared to previously listed examples of

caregiver-child conversational exchanges, both speakers are required to participate to an equal

extent. In the utterance of the child participant could be seen that the proper word endings are

not yet fully developed as in ''I know he go this way''.

4.2 Vocabulary Spurt Hypothesis

The vocabulary spurt hypothesis is rooted in the fact that, around the age of 18

months, there appears to be a sudden rise in rate of new word acquisition. There are several

explanations for this sudden word intake.

Several researchers suggested that extensive brain development takes place, which

results in significant cognitive advancement. According to a well-known developmental

psychologist Jean Piaget, at this age children understand the concept of object permanence,

which means that they realize that objects continue to exist even they could no longer see

them. Furthermore, ''the point at which children show they have recognized the symbolic

value of words, when they realize that everything has a name'' ( Clark, 2009, p. 78 ).

The other point of view is that children do not acquire words abruptly, but continually.

They comprehend the words before they learn to operate the precise movements of their

speech organs, when they start to use all the words they already comprehend, which they

could not articulated them just yet, it might appear a sudden spurt. The continual new word

acquisition is supported by computer modeling studies. Generally, it is favored over the

sudden spurt model. McMurray reports:

Since words differ in difficulty along a variety of dimensions, they should take

different amounts of time to acquire, and since children are adding new words all

33

the time, at a certain point they will begin to produce many more than they had

earlier. Computational modeling of these factors shows that, in effect, a vocabu-

lary ''spurt'' is simply the natural product of parallel learning combined with

variations in difficulty (as cited in Clark, 2009, p. 79).

To chronologically sum up child's early linguistic development there is the simplified

course of child language development from Harley (2010):

1 month Burp

4 months Laugh

6 months Ba da ba da ba da – babbles consonants

9 months Some comprehension of words and simple instructions

12 months Ma – first words

18 months Bad dog! Vocabulary explosion and two-word utterances

24 months Three-word utterances and longer

36 months Increasingly large vocabulary of thousands of words, full sentences, use

grammatical rules

(p. 50)

The third year closes the main milestones of child language development. However,

that does not mean that language learning is finished. Children pass the other milestone

around 5 years of age, when children according to Dunbar's social brain theory and order of

intentionality hypothesis reach a fifth order of intentionality. Reaching fifth order of

intentionality children begin to understand that other individual's mind states could be

different from their own. This is the point, where they learn to use language not only to lie

34

with conviction, but also engage in pretend play (Dunbar, 2003).

Furthermore, the subsequent language development regarding any grammatical rules

continues till puberty, from then on, if we disregard pathological occurrences and brain

injuries, significant changes could not expected. However, language does not stagnate, but its

expansion is based largely on acquisition of new vocabulary.

35

5. Language and the Brain

Language is a communication system unique to humans, which transmits social and

cultural information. There are several theories of language origin, from the ancient

creationist theory to cultural innovation hypothesis and theory of mind. Regardless of any of

these theories there is a global consensus that beside the vocal apparatus, language is intensely

dependent on underlying brain structure. Several years ago we could not identify which brain

regions are assigned to which functions. The single option was to learn from abnormal brain

of patients with damages caused by developmental disorder, diseases, injuries and lesions,

which were revealed in majority of cases only during autopsy. Consequently, the particular

function could be deduced mutually from the location of the damaged part and disturbances in

patient's behavior and movement coordination that were observed when the patient was alive.

Nowadays, sophisticated computational technology and high-resolution neuroimaging

studies allows us to observe awake brain in the real-time without having to cut the skull open.

Scientific methods such as fMRI (Functional magnetic resonance imaging), PET (Positron

emission tomography) and MEG (Magnetoencelography) illuminate areas of the awake brain

that are engaged in language processing, decision making and problem solving.

5.1 Location of Language in the Brain

There are two prominent areas of the brain that as widely recognized as dedicated to

language processing, Broca's area and Wernicke's area.

However, damage to these specific centers do not have to result in complete aphasia,

especially in young age. For instance, in young infants and very young children,

hemispherectomy, a complete removal or disconnection of one half of the brain used to treat

36

epilepsy in extreme cases, does not prevent language acquisition. However, these children are

not completely fluent and there is some impairment in comprehension of syntax (Pinker,

1994).

The neural plasticity allows the brain to reorganize itself, so that the adjacent areas

could take over some of the functions the damaged part is no longer able to manage. This

supports the notion that language is a globally processed entity not limited only to two areas,

therefore make use of different neural networks scattered across the gray matter. For instance,

this is supported by functional webs hypothesis, where ''a word is represented as a functional

web, spread over a wide area of cortex'' (Lamb, 2010, p. 17).

Recently the hypotheses of networking nature of language became prominent as

Schnelle (2010) remarks:

The mental function of language competence is instantiated by many brain areas. It

is important not to forget the central neural function, namely interaction. In most

cases only interaction of several functional areas allows them to generate the

functional coherence of interdependent components.

(p. 17)

To sum up, language is not a set of simple computational models. Brain has to

interconnect data coming from different centers processing for instance visual, auditory and

emotional information to allow a person to produce a coherent and meaningful sentence,

therefore respond adequately to any situation.

The following parts are focused on Broca's and Wernicke's areas.

37

5.1.1 Broca's Area

Broca's area takes its name after a French physician Pierre Paul Broca. Broca

discovered this area due to his observations of patients with deficits in language production.

The autopsy of the brain revealed lesions in the inferior frontal cortex of the left hemisphere,

which was subsequently named Broca's area and the condition that afflicts language

production with no significant impact on language comprehension became known as Broca's

aphasia.

Broca's area is responsible primarily for language production, grammar and syntactic

processing. Furthermore, research showed that among the structures surrounding Broca's area

are groups of neurons in the lower part of the mirror neuron area, which are responsible for

synchronized mouth movements, visual perception of ingestive actions and communicative

mouth movements (Grewe et al., 2005, Kent & Tjaden, 1997, Schnelle, 2010). Thus, people

who have these structures damaged have difficulties with articulation.

Although Broca's aphasia results in disrupted fluency and agrammatism, an

ungrammatical speech, it does not prevent communication entirely. Patient's speech with this

condition might look like the following example from Pinker (1994):

Yes . . . ah . . . Monday . . . ah . . . Dad and Peter Hogan, and Dad . . . ah . . .

hospital. . . and ah . . . Wednesday . . . Wednesday nine o'clock and ah Thursday . . .

ten o'clock ah doctors . . . two . . . two . . . an doctors and . . . ah . . . teeth . . .

yah . . . And a doctor an girl . . . and gums, an I.

(p. 307)

38

5.1.2 Wernicke's Area

Wernicke's area plays a role in language comprehension. It is located in superior

posterior temporal lobe close to the auditory center. Wernicke's area is interconnected with

Broca's area by neural fibers called arcuate fasciculus, a pathway which allows people to

comprehend what was said and response to it coherently. Damage to this part of brain and its

surrounding areas results in Wernicke's aphasia (Kent & Tjaden, 2007).

Wernicke's aphasia has several different forms. For example, receptive aphasia is

characterized by fluent steam of speech, which contains nonsensical words. People with this

condition struggle with anomia, a difficulty to name objects, therefore their speech is full of

neologisms, distorted and substitute words.

5.2 Critical Period Hypothesis

Critical period hypothesis (CPH) proposes that normal language acquisition is

dependent on age and degree of maturation of cognitive structures. In other words, ability to

acquire language gradually deteoriates with age. Duration of the critical period is not strictly

specified. There is a wide consensus that any delay in language acquisition could be rectified

till about 3 years of age. Furthermore, first language acquisition is possible till puberty, but

with evident impairments, especially in terms of syntax and morphology. After puberty

passes, normal acquisition of first language becomes nearly impossible. The CPH applies to

second language learning as well as it becomes increasingly difficult after puberty.

For the most part, the evidence used to support the existence of CPH includes research

based on analogies of first and second language acquisition, children with delays in language

acquisition caused by congenital deformities such as cleft lip and cleft palate, deaf children of

hearing parents learning ASL later in life and rarely occurring cases of feral children.

39

First the first and second language learning analogy seems obvious. Many adults

experience this on a daily basis as observe children's effortlessness and their struggle with

language learning. Unlike adults, children are able to reach a native-like level in their second

language without a foreign accent. Unfortunately, a Babel fish is a fictious creature; hence

communication barriers between speakers of two distinguished languages could not be

overcome by any means other than enduring the language learning process.

However, biological maturity of language learning capacities is not a decisive factor

for effective language learning. The fact is that adults do not devote as much time to learning

and practicing a new language as children do. For instance, three-year-old children devote

seventy hours a week to using a new language, but adults dedicate four to five hours.

Moreover, older children are more efficient learners than very young children as could base

their learning on any preexisting knowledge (Clark, 2009).

Second, children with cleft palate are more likely to recover any impairments

regarding their abilities when palatal surgery and speech therapy takes place early in their

development. For example, a recent study showed that early intervention, assisted by

cooperation of a speech therapist and a parent trained in stimulation of problematic features in

language of children with cleft palates younger that 3 years, results in reduction of

compensatory articulation and improvement of speech performance (Scherer, D'Antonio, &

McGahey, 2008).

Third, CPH is evidenced by cases of deaf children of hearing parents learning ASL

later in life. Deaf children of hearing parents are ''individuals who regularly experience

linguistic isolation in the context of normal development'' (Grimshaw, Adelstein, Bryden, &

MacKinnon, 1998). When deaf children of such dispositions become adults, they tend to

contact deaf community and start learning ASL. Similarly to the case of late second language

40

learners they do not reach a native-like level as they language will be impacted with

grammatical errors and accents (Pinker, 1994, p. 37).

Finally, the notorious evidence supporting CPH is several case studies of feral

children. Feral children are children severely deprived of human contact and socialization due

to extreme cases of child abuse or abandonment. Inevitably, the fact that most of the children

are discovered past the CP and that all attempts at teaching them language result in failure

speaks in its favor. Feral children will be reviewed in detail in the following chapter.

To sum up, Critical Period Hypothesis could be controversial in some aspects such as

the extent to which second language acquisition could be analogous to first language

acquisition and late learners of ASL, but the fact is that there is a strong correlation between

age and language acquisition.

5.2.1 Feral Children

The real-life case studies of feral children always cause a stir across scientific

community in variety of disciplines. Most importantly, feral children are counted as evidence

in both sides of the nature versus nurture debate. Scientists are fascinated by these case

studies, because they themselves could not conduct an experiment regarding total isolation of

an individual from a young age and depriving him of normal human contact in laboratory

settings. This is commonly referred to as the forbidden experiment. Hence, the extraordinary

cases of feral children give scientists an opportunity to at least see the outcome of comparable

situations. As dramatic as these case studies are, they always bring an insight into human

nature and their rarity makes them even more valuable. These cases are used to support or

disapprove different theories of language acquisition, critical period hypothesis and

socialization. As feral children attract a lot of public attention, they have a profitable

41

potential, therefore many of the cases turn out to be hoaxes. On the other hand, they may be

simply missclasified, such as the notorious case of Amala and Kamala. This thesis uses

verifiable and throughly documented cases of Genie and Isabelle.

Genie was discovered by social services in 1970 in Los Angeles, CA. She experienced

intense abuse on a daily basis from about 20 months of age, when she was confined to her

bedroom till she was thirteen years old. When rescued she could not use her legs to stand

upright, because she was suffering from serious deformations, as a result of her being tied to a

potty chair the whole time. Furthermore, she was mute, because she was beaten every time

she made any kind of noise. Moreover, she was malnutritioned, therefore she could not chew

solid food. This abuse and torture was inflicted on her by her father and brother as her mother

was blind and could not take care of her.

After she was rescued, teams of therapists and researchers took interest in her case.

Her case was worked intensively regarding acquisition of language, enculturation and

socialization. As she became attached to her caregivers, she made a considerable progress in

all of these areas. During this period she was taught language intensively, but she was unable

to acquire it successfully. Her case showed that there is a contrast between acquisition of

morphology and syntax and semantic knowledge. In other words, ''her case suggested that

different components of language are differentially vulnerable to the age at which acquisition

os carried out. In particular, her case points to the separability of a conceptual and referential

linguistic development from a grammatical component, for which the acquisition potential

appears'' (Reynolds & Fletcher-Jansen, 2001, p. 428). However, she was unable to reach

mental level of her peers and as her case lost funding and intensive care of researchers, she

quickly deteriorated (Reynolds & Fletcher-Jansen, 2001).

42

Another well-documented case of feral child is Isabelle. Isabelle was found in Ohio in

the late 1930s. From infancy till the age of six she was hidden by her deaf mute mother from

any significant human contact. Unlike Genie she did not suffer sever physical abuse. After she

received appropriate attention and underwent intensive speech therapy she developed normal

language. In fact, she matched the level of her peers in all aspects of ordinary life, even in

terms of standardized IQ tests (Clark, 2009). Isabelle, who did learn language, was unlike two

other children.

However, the difference between these to case studies might suggest that the ability to

develop language in feral children might be influenced by preexisting factors e.g. general

intelligence, mental retardation, sensory deprivation and severe psychological trauma as an

effect of inhuman abuse. As the personal or medical history of these individuals is usually

unknown. It should be supposed that any final verdicts on human condition could not be

based singularly on these case studies.

43

5. Conclusion

The aim of this thesis was to argue that social context plays an important role in

acquisition of first language. It suggested that the amount of attention given to children in

early development has an eminent impact on language acquisition. First, the thesis introduced

theoretical background regarding language acquisition, such as Behavioral and Nativist

approaches. Then it supplied observations regarding prelinguistic and subsequent linguistic

development, which chronologically reviewed individual stages in child language acquisition.

The last chapter specified functions of areas of the brain assigned to language processing and

language comprehension. Additionally, it involved parts on critical period hypothesis and

report on two disturbing cases of feral children. Each part of the thesis was designed to

illuminate the case from different aspects.

To conclude, the understanding of how language acquisition works still has to be

clarified. Although, the extensive research stemming from variety of experiments and clinical

observations of atypical speech patterns and damaged neural structures give us some initial

insight. However, the evidence presented by these cases supports both innate and

environmental factors. For example, innate capacity for language is supported by descendants

of pidgin speakers who are capable of developing a full-blown language from rudimentary

structures. On the other side, there are distinctive features of child-directed speech.

CDS, which benefits children's language learning immensely, occurs inevitably within social

contexts. Moreover, children b accepted by their community through the medium of language,

they to learn the local variations of language in interaction with its speakers.

However, it will take years of research to make any ultimate conclusions on where

linguistic genius of infants comes from. At this stage, it does seem likely that language arises

from an elaborate interplay of both biological structures and social environment.

44

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Summary

This thesis to examines the mechanisms involved in learning a first language in

preschool children. The preeminent point is the substantial importance of social interaction in

language acquisition and its further development. First the thesis outlines the theoretical and

conceptual framework with regard to language acquisition. Among language acquisition

theories considered are behaviorism, nativism, social cognition theory and social interactionist

theory. Then next two chapters review prelinguistic and linguistic stages in human

development. The final chapter addresses some of the anatomical structures in the brain

related to language processing. Furthermore, it contemplates language acquisition

impairments caused by insufficient social interaction within the critical period in the early

childhood.

Concisely, this thesis assesses different elements affecting language learning in the

early childhood with a profound focus on the importance of social aspects involved in this

process.

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Shrnutí

Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá mechanismy, které zasahují do procesu osvojování

mateřského jazyka u předškolních dětí. Největší pozornost je věnována zásadnímu významu

sociální interakce v rozvoji mateřského jazyka. První část nastiňuje teoretický a koncepční

rámec v oblasti jazykové akvizice. Mezi teorie, které jsou představeny v chronologickém

pořadí, patří behaviorismus, nativismus, sociální kognice a teorie sociální interakce. Další dvě

kapitoly jsou zaměřeny na jednotlivé fáze v ontogenezi řeci a rozvoj komunikačních a

jazykových kompetencí u dětí. Závěrečná kapitola poskytuje základní přehled mozkových

struktur souvisejících s jazykem a zvažuje důsledky nedostatečné sociální interakce v rámci

kritického období v raném dětství.

Ve stručnosti, tato práce hodnotí specifické procesy ovlivňující akvizici mateřského

jazyka v raném dětství s důrazem na význam sociálních činitelů v tomto období.

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