Language and Language Development

1. What Language Is (and Isn't)

Language is a system of symbols (spoken, signed, or written) combined by rules to convey meaning, capable of generating novel messages. Communication is broader — any transfer of information, including animal signals, gestures, and facial expressions. Language is special because of its productivity (we can create new sentences) and structure. Its building blocks are:

• Phonemes — the smallest distinctive sound units (e.g., the "p" and "b" that distinguish "pat" from "bat").
• Morphemes — the smallest units that carry meaning (e.g., "un-," "break," "-able").
• Grammar — the system of rules governing a language, including:
  • Syntax — rules for word order and sentence structure.
  • Semantics — rules and knowledge about meaning.
  • Pragmatics — rules for using language appropriately in social context.

2. Language Acquisition: The Typical Timeline

Language acquisition is the process by which children learn their language. Across cultures it follows a predictable path:

• Babbling (around 4-6 months) — infants produce speech-like sounds ("ba-ba-ba"), practicing the phonemes of their environment.
• One-word stage (around 12 months) — single words ("milk," "dog") carry whole-sentence meaning (holophrases).
• Two-word stage (around 18-24 months) — telegraphic, two-word combinations ("more juice," "daddy go") follow early word-order rules.
• Overregularization (around 2-3 years) — children apply grammatical rules too broadly ("goed," "foots," "runned"), evidence that they are extracting rules, not just imitating.

3. How Language Develops: Theories and Influences

Three broad positions explain acquisition:

• Nativist view (Noam Chomsky) — humans are born with an innate language-acquisition device and universal grammar; the environment merely triggers and tunes it. Chomsky argued children produce novel, rule-governed sentences they have never heard, faster than imitation could explain.
• Learning theory (B. F. Skinner) — language is acquired through operant conditioning: reinforcement, imitation, and shaping. Parents reward approximations of words, so speech is built up from environment.
• Interactionist view — language emerges from the interaction between an innate capacity and a rich social environment; caregivers provide input, joint attention, and contingent responding that scaffold learning. Most researchers today hold some interactionist position.

A related claim is the critical period hypothesis: there is a biologically optimal window (roughly early childhood to puberty) for effortless language acquisition, after which learning a first language becomes much harder. Evidence from late-exposed signers and cases of extreme deprivation supports the idea, though the exact boundaries remain debated. Linguistic relativity (associated with Benjamin Lee Whorf) is the hypothesis that language influences how we think and perceive — a weaker version ("language influences thought," e.g., color or spatial terms) is better supported than the strong version ("language determines thought").

How it works

1. Infants attend to human speech and begin babbling, tuning phonemes to their language.
2. Around their first birthday they enter the one-word stage, using single words to express whole meanings.
3. They combine words in the two-word stage, following early word-order rules.
4. As grammar expands, children produce overregularizations, revealing internalized rules.
5. Acquisition proceeds most easily within the critical period; later learning relies more on effort and explicit instruction.
6. Throughout, the emerging system serves communication, with syntax, semantics, and pragmatics maturing together.

Common confusions

Memory aids

Remember "Please Make Grammar Sound Pretty" for the building blocks — Phonemes, Morphemes, Grammar, Syntax (and Pragmatics) — and "Nurture vs. Nature" for the debate: Skinner = Shaping by the environment, Chomsky = Child brings innate grammar, and Interactionist = In-between.

Quick review

Topic Recap

Language is a productive symbolic system built from phonemes and morphemes governed by grammar (syntax, semantics, pragmatics), and it is a special case of communication. Children acquire it through a predictable sequence — babbling, one-word, two-word stages, and overregularization — explained by an interaction of innate capacity (Chomsky) and environmental learning (Skinner), within a likely critical period. Linguistic relativity suggests language modestly shapes thought, and clinicians carefully separate disorder from variation.

Knowledge Check

1. The smallest unit of meaning in a language is called what?
2. A child says "foots" instead of "feet." What process does this illustrate?
3. Which theorist argued that language is learned through reinforcement and imitation?
4. Which theory holds that humans are born with an innate language-acquisition device?
5. The hypothesis that language shapes the way we think is known as what?

Answers and Rationales

1. Morpheme — phonemes are sound units; morphemes are the smallest units carrying meaning.
2. Overregularization — the child over-applies the regular "-s" plural rule, showing rule learning.
3. Skinner — he framed verbal behavior in terms of operant conditioning and imitation.
4. Nativist theory (Chomsky) — it posits innate universal grammar and a language-acquisition device.
5. Linguistic relativity — associated with Whorf, the claim that language influences (or, in its strong form, determines) thought.