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Widening the field: The process of language acquisition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Edith L. Bavin
Edith L. Bavin
Affiliation:
School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia. e.bavin@latrobe.edu.auhttp://www.latrobe.edu.au/psy/staff/bavine.html
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Abstract

Evans & Levinson (E&L) argue against Universal Grammar on the basis of language diversity. A related and fundamental issue is whether the language input provides sufficient information for a child to acquire it. I briefly discuss the more integrated approaches to language acquisition which focus on the mechanisms, and research showing that input cues provide valuable information for the language learner.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 5 , October 2009 , pp. 449 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Evans & Levinson (E&L) argue against the notion of Universal Grammar (UG), illustrating the huge diversity in human language – a diversity that exists at all levels. A justification for UG was the assumption that language is too complex for a child to acquire and that the input does not contain sufficient evidence for the child to learn the system; prior knowledge of language was therefore assumed. Hence, information about the process of language acquisition is fundamental in any discussion of UG and the domain specificity of language, something that E&L do not elaborate on.

Acquisition data are available from a range of languages, including those represented in the cross-linguistic studies pioneered by Dan Slobin (Reference Slobin1985a; Reference Slobin1985b; Reference Slobin1992; Reference Slobin1997a; Reference Slobin1997b) and from more recent publications. The data indicate that young children quickly attune to the input language at all levels. Young children are adept at identifying the recurrent patterns of organisation within the input language, whether these are related to case systems, tense and aspect systems, word order, syntactic alternations, complex sentences, pronominal systems, the encoding of spatial relations, or other features. Based on the findings, the proposed UG principles and parameters are not adequate to explain the acquisition process. Nor do they convince all researchers that the language input lacks sufficient evidence for acquisition without prior knowledge of language structures, or that children from different language environments follow the same path in acquisition.

The crucial question is: What does the child bring to the task? A related question is: What factors influence language development? In the UG approach, the focus is on the end state, the mature grammar. Abstract linguistic concepts are available to the child, and language forms in the input are mapped onto these concepts. Both absolute and relative universals have been proposed, candidates for possible innate syntactic content (Valian Reference Valian and Bavin2009, p. 18). The relative universals allow for variation across languages including syntactic features and categories from which languages are built and from which they can select, as well as proposed binary parameters of syntactic variation (Valian Reference Valian and Bavin2009, p. 19). Given the diversity of syntactic features and categories in languages discussed by E&L, there would need to be numerous relative universals to accommodate them. However, the child will need to process the input to determine which were relevant to the target language.

Many researchers in the field reject the formal UG approach; they do not assume domain (language)-specific constraints to facilitate language acquisition. Rather domain-specific knowledge emerges as a product of development. Their concern is with the mechanisms, processes, and strategies involved in acquiring a language or languages. The assumption is that language development cannot be isolated from the child's brain development or social and cognitive development. In the emergentist approaches, language structures are not innate; they emerge from known processes linking “a growing understanding of the brain with new theories of cognition” (MacWhinney Reference MacWhinney1999, p. xvii). The child uses the cues available in the input to identify the language specific patterns (Bates & MacWhinney Reference Bates, MacWhinney and MacWhinney1987), with some cues more reliable than others. In constructivist usage-based approaches, children are assumed to build up syntactic categories and structures of their language gradually, using cues such as frequency and regularity of specific constructions (e.g., Lieven et al. Reference Lieven, Behrens, Speares and Tomasello2003; Tomasello Reference Tomasello2003a; Reference Tomasello and Bavin2009). Instead of assuming that the input lacks sufficient cues for the child to acquire the language, the research focuses on which cues it does provide and the cognitive and perceptual tools brought by the child to the task of acquisition.

A large proportion of the research designed to test proposed UG principles has focused on complex syntax. However, by the time children are processing complex structures, they have vast experience with their language and the contexts of use. In developing a language, new knowledge is built on existing knowledge. In the initial stages, perceptual biases, attentional mechanisms, and cognitive abilities are involved in processing the rich information provided in the input language. Rhythmic and distributional information provide cues to segmentation (Jusczyk Reference Jusczyk1997; Werker & Curtin Reference Werker and Curtin2005; Werker & Tees Reference Werker and Tees1984). Research on statistical learning (e.g., Saffran et al. Reference Saffran, Aslin and Newport1996) shows that young infants are sensitive to language-specific transitional probabilities, correlational probabilities, and distributional features of the input (Höhle et al. Reference Höhle, Weissenborn, Kiefer, Schulz and Schmitz2004; Mintz Reference Mintz, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff2006; Thiessen Reference Thiessen and Bavin2009). The developing sensitivities allow for segmentation of syllables, words, and other grammatical units of the input language, segmentation that is an essential precursor to acquiring the system. As shown by Kuhl (Reference Kuhl2004), as infants become attuned to the sound contrasts of their environmental language, reorganisation of their perceptual abilities takes place; similarly, infants' developing statistical knowledge influences what they later perceive from the input. Thus, knowledge is advanced as they map sound sequences to meaning and retain these mappings in memory (e.g., Hollich et al. Reference Hollich, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff2000) and as they identify category membership, for example, by linking the language context to properties of referents in particular domains (Smith Reference Smith and MacWhinney1999). Similarly, in the later stages of acquisition, knowledge of language structures gained facilitates the acquisition of new knowledge.

Phonological memory is important in forming mental representations of new words (Gathercole & Baddeley Reference Gathercole and Baddeley1989), and vocabulary development is a precursor of vocabulary development (Bates & Goodman Reference Bates, Goodman and MacWhinney1999). By assuming that language acquisition is guided by universal principles specific to the language domain, as in the UG approach, the role of cognitive skills and the influence of individual cognitive abilities on language development are not adequately considered. However, the link is clear from typical language development as well as atypical, an example of which is specific language impairment (SLI). It was first proposed that SLI supports separation of language from other cognitive domains, and explanations for language problems in SLI were related to principles of UG (e.g., Rice & Wexler Reference Rice and Wexler1996). Although children identified as having SLI are judged to have nonverbal abilities in the normal range, a significant body of research has revealed memory and information processing deficits (e.g., Archibald & Gathercole Reference Archibald and Gathercole2007; Bavin et al. Reference Bavin, Wilson, Maruff and Sleeman2005; Montgomery et al. Reference Montgomery, Evans and Gillam2009). In addition, significantly lower scores on standardised cognitive assessments are typically reported for SLI groups compared to age-matched, non-impaired children. Thus, an alternative explanation is that cognitive deficits lead to difficulty in processing information from the input, information required in acquiring the language (Leonard et al. Reference Leonard, Ellis Weismer, Miller, Francis, Tomblin and Kail2007).

Theorists need to understand more about the diversity of languages, such as discussed by E&L, and the impact that such typological features have on the acquisition process; and, in addition, develop a greater understanding of language in atypical situations. Such understanding can only advance discussion about constraints on human language.

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