Question

Research some of the general characteristics of language and the concept of speech acquisition in infants using your textbook, the Internet, and the online library resources before responding to these questions:

Researchers describe language as having six different properties. Describe the six properties. Which two properties do you think are the most important? Explain your answers with reasons.

Jim and Sue just had a baby, and they are interested in learning more about the process of language acquisition. They have heard about the controversy surrounding the view that speech is special. Do you think speech is special or is it processed like other auditory stimuli? Explain your answer with reasons.

Several African languages use clicks as consonants. Jim and Sue, who are English speaking, cannot hear the difference between the different types of clicks and have a difficult time learning one of these languages. If they were to move to Africa when their baby is about one-year old, do you think the baby would be able to hear the difference? Why or why not? Do you think she would hear the difference if they moved to Africa after her tenth birthday? Give reasons for your answers.

Write your initial response in 4–5 paragraphs. Apply APA standards to the citation

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) When one picks up a new language there are always 2 different elements. One is to memorise words and concepts. The other is to understand the grammar and rules. They are both equally important elements. A baby memorises the word “mama”. But a toddler understands inflection and syntax and eventually forms a sentence that they have never heard before at home. For example, Can I go play with John?

There are six different properties or characteristics of a language that has to be comprehensible to a child in order to pick up. They are:

·         Displacement – With animals, language is a matter of response to stimulations. However, human language is profound, comprehensible and is able to exist in times and places that are beyond local stimuli.

·         Productivity or Creativeness – This is when we combine different words, sounds or symbols each time we want to convey a different thought. Humans do not speak the same sentence over and over again in different tones for different moods. They are different sentences each time something is said.

·         Discreteness – Human language is made up of distinct sounds and compounds. Each sound is assigned its own meaning.

·         Arbitrariness – The sounds and inflections that we use to create words don’t have any natural assignment to themselves. The words used to answer this response have meanings and sounds that are assigned by humans. They are nothing in and of themselves.

·         Duality – This simply means that language exists in different forms. Humans can read the word “tree”, they can write it and they can also speak it.

·         Cultural transmission – Cultural transmission is simply when a particular culture would transfer their language style to another who is influenced by it.

Through cultural transmission and a new baby’s ability to pick up language, it is likely that Jim and Sue’s child would pick up new African languages quite easily.