Thoughts on Langauge Acquisition

**Note: The following is possibly undecipherable thoughts on a confusing subject. I would like useful, knowledgable comments. Thank you. -Herodotus-**


Language acquisition is a debated topic in linguistics. When ever someone runs out of things to argue about, language acquisition comes up. This is one of those times. A third of the world’s linguist believe that children are pre-wired for language, any language. The other third believes that children are born with a clean slate, and language must be taught through repetition of sound and usage. The final third is sitting on the fence. It is time for a fourth idea to emerge.
Language acquisition in children 0-8 is based off of a mixture of pre-cognitive genetics and the ability to analyze sounds. A child is not born with a brain that is empty of knowledge, but of one pre-wired for survival. This does not mean that language is pre-wired into the brain, but the potential for language is. A child acquires language through a series of events, starting during the third trimester of incubation and continuing until they reach puberty.
Noam Chomsky believes that children have an innate sense of grammar and a universal grammar for all languages. A child’s mind, much like a computer run off of a context-free grammar. The use of this grammar enables children to assume that every language they here fits into the rules of the context-free grammar. A child will make a mistake while learning the language: i.e. “I do it.” This is not proper English, however it does follow the rule of universal grammar.
A child’s mind might be like a computer’s with the potential to use the universal grammar, but it is necessary for the child to first undergo a basic general analysis of a language. It is necessary for a child’s brain to analyze every available amount of data to continue with its survival. It is necessary for a child to realize the position it is in its surround using one or all of its five senses. In the first three years of a child’s life the sounds that it hears, the symbols in which it sees, and the things that it touches enable the potential for language acquisition to occur. It is through these three key fundamentals that Chomsky’s theories can be applied.
A child needs only one word, one symbol, one gesture in the first three years of its life to stimulate the language acquisition potential. They will mimic the one linguistical sound, gesture, symbol until their curiosity will experiment with other forms of the same concept. I normal situations the first sounds a child makes is “da” and “ma”. Some believe it is because these two sounds are the easiest to recreate. This is true. Partially. “ma” and “Pa”the normal first words of a child because it is constantly spoken to them “can you say ‘mama’?” If the child was repeatedly asked to say another word, and not “mama”,then trhe child would pick up the word and try to talk to you by using the most common word in its vocabulary, the one you repeated.
It is also important to remember that all humans are first and foremost animals. A human brain always returns to a state of animalism when in crisis. Animals have a desire to survive. For a human to survive it must be capable of: feeding itself, caring for itself, and communicate to the human herd. Much like a young animal uses its basic instincts, coupled with its curiosity, to learn how to survive, so does a child. It is through curiosity and mimicry of the other humans around them that children, with the awakened potential to acquire languages, speak. Through the human animal instinct for survival language has evolved for three main functions: reproduction, social interactions, ethical moreys.
Language is an obvious need in reproduction because of the fact that relations between both sexes use communication as foreplay. I do not mean sweet nothings (that came later), but the ability to become the alpha male through leadership and hunting prowess. The best way to have leadership and hunting prowess for a two-legged simian is to communicate using some form of language.
Being social creatures, humans have a basic survival need to communicate with each other. Those who cannot communicate are ostracized from society, and are less likely to survive.
Language creates the moreys of s society. With moreys a society would not exist, and we would be no more then hairless apes.
It is possible for thought to occur without communication. Some such individuals, such as Helen Keller, were unable to communicate thouroughly for most of their lives. (But even Helen Keller was able to communicate using American Sign Language.) Speech is not thought, and thought is not speech. (Assume language equals speech.) It is necessary for someone to share thought through speech, but thought exists without speech.
It is important to realize that at puberty the language acquisition basically stops functioning which leads one to believe that language acquisition is hormonally controlled. It is possible that hormones control the potential for language, but it is also possible that through human evolution, speech has become less necessary after puberty therefore the potential shrinks.