How do children acquire and produce language?

How do children acquire and produce language?

At the beginning of a child’s life, they begin to develop their linguistic skills; these are the foundation of a child’s language which in time they will begin using this language to communicate their feelings, emotions etc and as they get older this will continue to develop as they learn more through social interaction or from their parents.

 

In the documentary by Dr Robert Winston, a boy named Zac who is fifteen months old is seen learning basic language because he hasn’t grasped the concept of more specific language yet. The larynx which is located in the throat is what creates the sound of the voice; air from the lungs makes the vocal chords vibrate producing the sound of the voice. The pitch of the sound produced is controlled by how tight the vocal chords are, so the tighter the chords, the higher the pitch and the looser the chords, the lower the pitch. The larynx in infants is high in the nasal cavity so that babies are able to drink and breathe at the same time but at about three months old the larynx drops 3cm in the throat making it easier to choke but talking is possible (the register of male voices lowers when the larynx drops again slightly during puberty).The larynx changes to suit each stage in life. Zac is learning English as well as Greek which is done using a different part of the brain than adults.

 

Moira who is two and half years old has a completely different linguistic ability than Zac as she is older. Moira is learning ten new words a day and thirty muscles are used in order to produce a word. At two and a half, Moira is able to construct words into proper sentences, this is supported by O’Grady’s theory; by the time most children are four they have probably mastered sounds, perhaps with the exception of ‘r’ and ‘th’. Moira didn’t know the word ‘fawn’ which is a baby deer so she had to pick this up from her parents. When she was asked by her mum what if there was another mouse, how many would there be, Moira replied with two ‘mouses’ which is incorrect as it should be two mice. This is an over-generalisation as the ‘es’ inflection has been added; Moira isn’t at the stage yet where she knows the correct term when there is two mice as she didn’t learn the word ‘mouses’ from her parents as they would know the correct term due to their develop language meaning that she has her own distinctive map of language. When saying the word ‘mouses’, Moira applied the logical plural rule however she hasn’t been taught the exception yet. Also in this clip, it is said that Moira uses the pronouns ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘my’ suggesting that she knows that she is a separate person. Moira is at the age of the terrible two’s where she has the language to express her needs which mainly consists of tantrums and declaratives. Julia who was also shown in the clip is a child who lacks self-awareness due to her age unlike Moira; this may due to the age difference and linguistic ability.