Language acquisition
American linguist Noam Chomsky stated that a child’s mind has innate structures, which he called LAD (language acquisition device), and this device grants us the ability to organize speech in various grammatical ways.
According to his hypothesis, we can say that a child is born with some structures in his mind.
Nativism states that certain parts of language are present innately in a child’s brain.
Nativist theories propose that humans are born with a predisposition for language and that there is a universal grammar that underlies all human languages.
Nativism doesn’t mean that a child knows or is born with the perfect ability to speak the full language; rather, children have certain principles in their heads about face language that allow them to know what is possible and what is not; they don’t have the whole language or vocabulary, etc.
Universal Grammar by Noam Chomsky states that there are common underlying principles shared by all languages and that humans are born with an inborn ability to acquire and understand the grammar of any language. Universal grammar serves as the foundation for the diversity of languages spoken worldwide, with each language expressing its own unique characteristics while still adhering to this universal framework.
The Wug test also shows that there is something innate in human beings about language.
This test was created by Jean-Berko Gleason. Before the Wug test, it was hypothesized that children learn by mimicking people around them, but after the Wug test, it was proven that children have something innate about language because they were able to form the plural of Wug as wugs, which is an imaginary character that children have never encountered before.
Regardless of the language they are learning, babies undergo similar stages in their development.
Stages of language development
1: Crying
Crying is the first means of communication for a child. He or she gets attention through crying; whenever they want or need something, they cry to convey their message to the people around them, like when they are hungry, in pain, etc.
2: Cooing
During this stage, babies produce soft, vowel-like sounds. Babies use cooing to express pleasure, contentment, or to simply experiment with their vocal cords.
Cooing is also a way for babies to engage with caregivers and begin to establish early forms of communication.
3: Babbling
Babbling includes the production of repetitive consonant-vowel combinations, such as “ba-ba-ba” or “da-da-da.”
Babbling is a universal part of language development and is seen in infants across different languages.
During babbling, the same set of sounds is used across all languages.
A study tested the process of babbling in fifteen countries.
The study showed that all babies preferred labial-consonant (sounds made with the lips) sounds more than other consonants.
Plosive consonants (sounds produced by the complete closure of airflow in the mouth followed by a sudden release) over others, and low vowel sounds over high vowel sounds.
It helps infants practice the motor skills needed for speech and lays the foundation for learning the sounds of their native language.
Studies involving infants rely on the fundamental observation that babies pay more attention to something new.
Using a method called high-amplitude sucking, one can tell whether a baby is paying more attention or not.
Babies demonstrate varying sucking rates on pacifiers, with faster sucking when engaged or interested and slower sucking when feeling bored.
When a baby is given a pacifier with a sensor in it and audio of the same sound is played again and again, the baby gets slower on the pacifier because he gets bored, but when the sound is changed, the baby starts sucking faster on the pacifier, which states his interest.
The one-word stage
The “one-word stage” is also known as the holophrastic stage.
During this stage, children use single words to convey the whole meaning of what they want and need.
Some examples of one-word expressions are words like mama, dada, milk, or ball.
Though the vocabulary at this stage is limited, children can still convey a range of meanings through their intonation, gestures, and context.
The one-word stage is an important part of language development because it marks the transition from nonverbal communication to the early stages of spoken language.
Two words stage
During this stage, children start to combine two words to make utterances. This stage shows an important advancement in their language skills and communication abilities.
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