Chapter 5: What Is the Faculty of Language page 3
The Consequences of Language
Chapter 5. What is The Faculty of Language?
This chapter provides an evolutionary perspective of the evolution of biological structures that enable language: learning structure: vocabulary, pronunciation and syntax; Theories of cognitive development (views of empiricists versus rationalists, and innatists versus constructionist; What is the faculty of language.1. What is unique about the human mind and language?
The preceding chapter has described how the human organism has adapted itself to the production of (human) language, with respect to both the brain and the vocal tract. These adaptations are physiological and so represent genetic changes, as opposed to learned behavior, that humans have undergone. Coupled with these adaptations is the capacity of humans to learn language. That is, as Noam Chomsky puts it, humans are constructed in such a way that they cannot help but to learn language, any more than birds can help learning to fly. This fact is brought home by the comparison of the persistence of the human children as they go about the business of learning a language, demanding to be taught. This activity stands in strong contrast to the chimpanzee who must be coaxed to acquiring signs using rewards. The term we give to the human ability to acquire language is the faculty of language. This faculty includes both a capacity and an urge to learn a human language. However, the acquisition of a given language also requires exposure to the language and thus clearly involves at a component of learning.
But this formulation of the faculty of language suggests that to be learnable, all human languages conform to structural properties of human languages in order for it to be learnable. The quest to uncover these common properties and conditions, commonly known as language universals, is a major theoretical focus of modern structural linguistics.
But this capacity to learn language raises a number of questions: how extensive is it; how specific is it; is it a capacity specifically dedicated to learning language or does it represent a more general human capacity to which humans have adapted? This task, which Habermas (1979) referred to as a “reconstitutive science” in the sense that the goal is to reconstitute as Chomsky would put it, a symbolic representation of the properties of the mind which enable it to acquire language, based on the evidence provided by the language learning process and by the properties of adult human language.
2. What Do People Learn: Structure
Children, despite their unique personalities, show a good deal of similarity in approaching the task of learning the structure of the language (es) about them. But what is so remarkable about these intermediate stages is that they are so similar, both among learners of the same language, but among learners across languages. In this process, the child develops an intermediate language, which is substantially different from the adult language. In the interest of communicating with these children adult caregivers participate in this process with the child by using language that the child has created. In section 3, we will examine several views as to why these similarities exist. In this section, we examine how children begin to acquire words, pronunciation and syntax.
Learning words (lexical signs)
Acquisition begins with the recognition that words are signs, meaning that to use words one has to match a signified with a signifier. In the early stages, children can recognize a much wider range of words than they can produce; yet much of the evidence about learning is based on their production of signs. The signifiers of early words are limited to sequences that the child can produce, often derived from some phonological content from the adult language, e.g., tee from kitty, goggie from doggie.
Since some of the earliest sounds are the consonants p, b, and m and the vowel a, and significant caregivers are often the parents, it is not surprising that some of the first words in almost every language for these ‘significant others’[1] are mama, papa, and dada.
The development of signifieds follows a slightly different process where a signifier begins representing a narrowly defined referent (tee = ‘cat’) which often broadens in scope (tee = ‘small dog’ and ‘cow’; goggie = ‘toy dog’) until it narrows again when a new sign pushes out a referent (tee = ‘small dog’; goggie = ‘small dog’).[2]
Age of Child / SignifiedsCat / Cow / Horse / Large Dog / Small Dog / Toy Dog
Mo/Dy
....
21/11
22/18
23/1
23/2
23/24
23/25
23/26
23/27
24/10
24/20 / tee
x--
x
x---
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
pushie
x
x
x
x
x / ------
->tee
x
x
x
x
x
x–--
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
xxxxx
moo-ka
x / ------
–tee–---
x
hosh x
x x
x xxxx
x
x
x
x------
x
x
x / ------
--->hosh
x
biggie goggie<-
x / –>tee
x
x
x
x
goggie<--
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
-–-x
x / goggie
x
–--x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
pushie / moo-ka / Hosh / biggie goggie / goggie / goggie
x = continued usage; ---> = source of signifier; xxxx = termination of usage; bold = first word usage
Based on M.M. Lewis 1959.
The first word usually appears in the second year of life, and following that vocabulary builds one word at a time, averaging about 8-11 words a month (Golinkoff and Hirsh-Passek 2000:116). Once the child can produce about 50 distinct words (19-24 months), vocabulary development accelerates to around 22-37 words.
Learning pronunciation (representational signs)
Children announce their arrival into the world with a well-developed sound source. During the first year in particular, these cries announce an individual’s discomfort, hunger or pain, which parents soon learn to interpret. At this time, neither the brain nor the vocal tract is well developed enough to permit the production of adult language signs, however, during the first year, children can hear the differences in the voicing of consonants such as t versus d and p versus b. The first six months or so constitute a cooing stage which includes “goo and gmp sorts of sounds, or quite whooping” (Jackendoff 1994:102). This prelanguage stage is followed by babbling, a stage in which “the baby makes a large range of meaningless, often forming strings of syllables” (Jackendoff 1994). At the beginning of this stage, sounds not found in the adult language often appear; toward the end of this stage, the child’s babbling more closely resembles the adult language.
The onset of the atactic stage (see below), sometime around the end of the first year, marks the beginning of the controlled production of phonological signs. This articulation begins in the form of a syllable which is a sequence of a consonant and a vowel. Often this syllable is repeated. The first distinction contrasts a vowel /a/ with a labial consonant (either /b/ or /m/; the control of nasality comes later). Later a vowel contrast between /a/ and either /i/ or /u/ develops, soon followed by the other. In chapter 5 we noted that these three vowels were the most basic, and most easily articulated human vowels.
Initial Phonemic DistinctionConsonant - Vowel
Labial Consonant - /a/ / Syllable Development
duplicated syllables
baba
Dental - Labial
/b/ - /d/ / High -s Low Vowels
/a/ - /i/ (or /u/) / baba- dada
baba- bibi
dada- didi
Oral- Nasal
/b/ - /m/
baba -mama / Voiced- Voiceless
/b/- /t/
baba – tata / Front - Back
/i/- /u/
bibi - bubu / Dental - Velar
/d/ v. /g/
dada - gaga / Syllable Diversification
baba - babi
mama - mami
Over time other contrasts, like those shown in the above table as the child more and more closely approximates the adult language. During these intermediate stages, a child will often substitute an unpronounceable sound for one that can be produced as in the lexical example of titi for kitty. A number of language sounds (/r/, /l/, // (the th sound in English) frequently pose problems for some learners, if present in their language and substitutions persist longer for some learners than others, but gradually disappear. One such substitution, using // for /s/ is so common that there is a name for it lisping in English.
Learning Syntax (tactic signs
In chapter two, we described the properties of syntax, which is the tactic system of adult humans. But before reach this stage, they pass through two other stages, termed “one-word” and “two-word stages.”
The one-word stage. The interaction between Brenda and the researcher Scollon illustrates communication using atactic sentences, and that Brenda is able to get across a message which when rendered syntactically, would say “hearing that car, no - not a bus, reminds me of the car ride that we had yesterday.” Sentences at the atactic stage consist, as mentioned above, of a single lexical sign. This is why it is often called the “one word” stage. The grammar for generating atactic sentences is shown in the adjacent table.
Atactic Grammar: S --> W S = Sentence; W = WordBased on (Dwyer 1986).
Brenda: Car [pronounced /ka/. Car. Car. Car.
Scollon: What?
Brenda: Go. Go.
Scollon: [Undecipherable.]
Brenda: Bus [pronounced `baish’]. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus.
Scollon: What? Oh, bicycle? Is that what you said?
Brenda: Not (`na’].
Scollon: No?
Brenda: Not.
Scollon: No. I got it wrong. From Moscowitz (1978:124).
As the formula (SàW) describes, the atactic sentence consists of a single word, and thus one part of speech. The semantic functions such as action, agent, or object have to be inferred by the listener, for there is no way to convey this in the atactic system. Nevertheless, Brenda is able to take advantage of several non-tactic devices for enriching the meaning of her messages:[3]
Context: Relying on the context in which the message was uttered. In this case, this included the sound of the car outside. Context also includes the other sentences in the interaction. Brenda also took advantages of this.
Background knowledge: Relying on knowledge shared between the interlocutors. In this case, Brenda was relying on the knowledge of the car ride yesterday.
Feedback: Interacting with the other for confirmation of understanding. Brenda used this several times during the exchange.
Iteration. While ataxis involves one-word sentences, iteration allows the user to repeat the sentence or issue a second in the same “paragraph.” Two different sentences in the same paragraph, when coupled with the use of context, produce results very similar to parataxis.
ExampleBrenda: (a) Tapecorder. (b) Use it. (b) Use it.
Scollon: Use it for what?
Brenda: (c) Brenda talk. (d) Corder talk.
From Moscowitz (1978:124)
The Two-Word Stage. This stage follows the one-word stage somewhere around the second year of life. Sentences at third stage consist of paired lexical signs. In the example, (a) Tapecorder has been analyzed by the author as an (one word) atactic sentence because it appears to be a single word.[4] However, the sentences (b), (c) and (d) have been analyzed as paratactic. These examples reveal two important points about paratactic sentences:
Word order is not important. The action (use) in is in the second position in (b), while the action (talk) is in the second position in sentences (c) and (c).
The semantic relationship between the two words differs in these sentences. It is action-object in (b) and (d) and action-agent in (c).
Pivot/Open Grammar
Formula: S --> P:O; O:O; P:PP=Pivot; O=Open
At one time this stage was analyzed as a “pivot/open” grammar based on the claim that this stage represented a beginning level of syntax, with two parts of speech. In the above example, “use” and “talk” would be pivot (verb-like) words and “it,” “Brenda” and “corder” would be open (noun-like) words. Note also, that sentence (a) could be analyzed as an Open-Open sentence. However, Bloom (1970) critiqued the pivot/open grammar by pointing out that, the determination of the part of speech was based on using the part of speech of the word to the nearest adult equivalent. Thus, because “talk” in the adult language is a verb, would be classed as a pivot word. Bloom favored an approach that analyzed how a word is used by the child. More importantly, the pivot/open grammar tells us nothing about how these sentences are to be interpreted than the paratactic grammar.
Paratactic Grammar
Formula: S --> W : WS=Sentence; W=Word
Based on (Dwyer 1986).
An alternative to the pivot/open grammar is the paratactic grammar, which is far simpler, having only one rule and one part of speech (the word). This means that a paratactic sentence may consist of any two words in the lexicon and in any order. While the user may prefer some word combinations and word orders, it is the user, not the grammar, who introduces these preferences.
The interpretation of the meaning of a paratactic sentence (the signified) involves the intersection of the meaning of the two constituent words. This is very similar to the interpretation of nominal compounds in adult human language in the sense that the meaning of nominal compounds involves the intersection of the meanings of the two words involved. Thus the word “buttercup” has come to mean a “flower which is yellow (butter) and cup shaped.” Were it a paratactic sentence, it could have meant “a cup for butter” or even “a cup made out of butter.”