Acquiring language

The so-called 'innateness question' has been a burning issue over the last quarter century. Exactly how much language is pre-programmed within the human mind? Do humans have a genetically imprinted 'Universal Grammar', as Chomsky suggests? Or were the rudiments of language invented by a clever cave-man and handed down from generation to generation? No detailed solution has yet been found to these questions. But by examining them, we are slowly acquiring a greater understanding of the nature of human language.

One point in particular has become clearer: language has all the hallmarks of maturationally controlled behaviour. It used to be thought that animal behaviour could be divided into two types: that which was inborn and natural (for example, dogs naturally bark), and that which was learned and unnatural (dogs may be taught to beg). It turns out, however, that this division is by no means clear-cut and may be misleading. Many types of behaviour develop 'naturally' at a certain age, provided that the surrounding environment is adequate. Such behaviour is maturationally controlled, and sexual activity is a typical

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example. Arguments as to whether it is inborn or learnt are futile. Both nature and nurture are important. Innate potentialities lay down the, framework, and within this framework, there is wide variation depend­ing on the environment. When individuals reach a crucial point in their maturation, they are biologically in a state of readiness for learning the behaviour. They would not learn it at this time without a biological trig­ger, and conversely, the biological trigger could not be activated if there was nobody around from whom they could learn the behaviour. Human infants pay attention to language from birth. They produce recognizable words at around 12-15 months, and start putting words together at around 18 months. The urge for language to emerge at this time is very strong, and only very extraordinary circumstances will suppress it - as in the case of Genie, a Californian teenager who from the age of twenty months had been confined to one small room, and had been physically punished by her father if she made any sounds. Naturally, she was without speech when she was found. But all normal children, and some abnormal ones, will begin to speak if they hear language going on around them.

The content-process controversy

The realization that language is maturationally controlled means that most psycholinguists now agree that human beings are innately pro­grammed to speak. But they cannot agree on exactly what is innate. In particular, they cannot decide to what extent (if any) language ability is separate from other cognitive abilities.

All researchers agree that there is extraordinary similarity in the speech development of English children. Children who could not pos­sibly be acquainted go through similar stages in their development, and also make similar mistakes. The implications of this coincidence are hotly disputed. On the one hand, there are those who consider that this uniformity of speech development indicates that children innately contain a blueprint for language: this view represents a so-called con­tent approach. Extreme supporters of this view suggest that children may have a universal framework imprinted on their brains.

On the other hand, there are those who support a process approach, and argue that children could not possibly contain specific language universals. Instead, they are innately geared to processing linguistic data, for which they utilize a puzzle-solving ability which is closely related to other cognitive skills.

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A further group of people point to the social nature of language, and the role of parents. Children, they argue, are social beings who have a great need to interact with those around them. Furthermore, all over the world, child-carers tend to talk about the same sort of things, chatting mainly about food, clothes and other objects in the immediate environ­ment. Motherese or caregiver language has fairly similar characteris­tics almost everywhere: the caregivers slow down their rate of speech, and speak in slow, well-formed utterances, with quite a lot of repetition. People who stress these social aspects of language claim that there is no need to search for complex innate mechanisms: social interaction with caring caregivers is sufficient to cause language to develop.

This latter view is turning out to be something of an exaggeration. The fact that parents make it easier for children to learn language does not explain why they are so quick to acquire it: intelligent chimps exposed to intensive sign language rarely get beyond 200 words and two-word sequences. Furthermore, language seems to be due to something more than a desire to communicate. There is at least one strange child on record who acquired fluent language, but did not use it to communicate. He spoke only monologues to himself, and refused to interact with others.

The whole controversy is far from being solved, though psycho­linguists hope that the increasing amount of work being done on the acquisition of languages other than English may shed more light on the topic. It is possible, however, that we shall never unravel the mys­tery entirely: it seems likely that children use an inbuilt linguistic abil­ity to solve general intelligence problems, and also their natural puzzle-solving abilities to solve linguistic problems. With this kind of intertwining, the various strands may be inextricably interwoven.