Handout for Psy 598-02, summer 2001
Language Acquisition ~ Introduction
Basic Contours of the Emergence of Language
In the new, four-volume, 5th edition of the Handbook of Child Psychology there are three
chapters dedicated to reviewing the literature on language acquisition. In the first of the
three, Lois Bloom—a well-known researcher in this field, working at Teachers
College—writes the following:
“The literature is in general agreement that the first sounds of the newborn infant
are the overt elements from which speech develops, that vocalizations are used
as a means of communication before words proper are used; that comprehension
appears before the use of words; that the normal child has a repertoire of a very
few words by one year of age, that development is slow in the first months of the
second year, but that towards the end of that year a great increase in the speed of
progress appears; . . . that [use of words] for specific meanings is a
developmental process; . . . that the first words have the force of a phrase or
sentence, and combinations of words do not begin for some time.”
But Bloom then admits that she is quoting the first edition of the Handbook (then known
as the Manual of Child Psychology), published in 1946. And then she notes that McCarthy,
the author of that chapter, was quoting John Dewey, from 1935. And Dewey in turn was
citing a French article published in 1934.
In other words, what we know now, in 2001, we already knew in 1935. Bloom
continues:
“The basic contours of the emergence of language are agreed upon by most
researchers.... However, beyond these broad descriptive strokes, we have less
agreement on the details of early language and even less consensus on how best
to explain its development” (Bloom, 1998, 320-321).
Description and Explanation
The distinction Bloom has drawn here between description and explanation is
important, though potentially misleading. Researchers do generally agree when they
are asked to describe the “basic contours” of what children do as they learn their first
language. But the debate about how to explain these facts is still surprisingly polarized
and antagonistic.
At the same time, when it gets to the details of description, what people see depends on
their theoretical presuppositions.
Nativism and Environmentalism
Noam Chomsky, and the rest....
Twenty-seven years of the Journal of Child Language....
