Children and Language

Watching a child learning the language of its family is a particularly inter­ esting and rewarding experience. The development of a child's language abilities is the development of one of its uniquely human characteristics. Observing and recording the process offers a great deal of insight into the nature of language itself.

All children who have normal physical and intellectual development will acquire the language or languages used in interaction with them. In fact, it is this interaction that is the critical factor. If no-one uses language to interact with the child, the process of language development will not proceed normally.

In various places and at various times in history, there have been docu­ mented cases of ‘wild children’ who have been found living with groups of animals. These children had apparently been lost at an early age and had been cared for and protected by the animals. However, these children were unable to speak when they were found. Depending on how old they were when found, many of them could not learn to speak after they were taken back into the care of humans, even though they were given every opportunity to do so.

There are also some cases of children who were given basic physical care by their parents but, for various reasons, no human communicative interaction at all. These children suffered the same results and were unable to use or learn language.

Acquisition ond learning

The cases just mentioned indicate that human babies need interaction with other humans, using language, in order to learn language themselves. They also suggest that the process has to take place at a particular stage in the life of a baby or young child.

The fact that all normal babies learn the languages that are used in interaction with them suggests that human beings are naturally predisposed to learn language. The process is known as acquisition, to distinguish it from the conscious, deliberate process oflearning. The term ‘acquisition’ refers to ‘the gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations’ (Yule 1996:151).

Theories of longuoge Acquisition

Trask (1995:140) describes the acquisition of one's first language as ‘the most astonishing and wonderful feat we accomplish in our entire life'.