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| So you're into sci fi? But what about sci fact? Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction... Each month our very own Voyager Science Queen* will bring you interesting, quirky and downright bizarre tasty morsels from the world of science. And its all completely, totally, 100% true! February Sci-Facts |
Science Page February 2008Language Acquisition We all take our ability to speak for granted. I must admit, until I studied linguistics over summer, I hadn’t ever taken the time to think about it. We acquire our first language (or first languages if you live in a bilingual or multilingual environment), rapidly and easily. Unlike reading and writing, which have to be taught, speaking just seems to come naturally, like walking. We stumble a little at the start, but by the age of five the only thing a child lacks is a big lexicon, which comes with age and experience. What are the stages of this acquisition? There is, of course, the pre-linguistic stage, which starts as soon as a baby has developed the ability to hear in the womb. Most people know that a ticking clock will sooth a baby, as it mimics the sound of the mother’s heartbeat. However, listening starts much sooner than that, as in-utero babies can hear lots of noises from the outside world; music and voices can speed or slow their heart rate. After birth, a newborn will suck faster if she hears an unfamiliar word, and can tell when the same word is spoken by different people. As any parent knows, babies can comprehend the meanings of words before they are able to speak themselves. So, you had best be careful what you say around tiny babies. They understand much more then you realise. The first linguistic stage is Babbling. At the beginning of the babbling stage, a child will make more sounds and gestures than are used in her environmental language(s). As time passes, the child will stop this random generation of noises, and will start to confine herself to sounds used in her environmental language(s)... or, if she is a deaf baby, she will start to refine her gestures. The One-Word Stage is when the child start uses one sound or word to represent a concept or sentence. This word will be used consistently, such as ‘Up’ to mean ‘Pick me up, please.’ My eldest child used to say ‘Boog’ whenever she saw an insect. I thought she was saying, ‘Oh yuk, take it away’, but as she grew older I discovered it meant ‘How pretty... I so want to catch that bug and try to eat it.’ The next stage is called the Two-Word Stage. (Linguists don’t mess around with confusing names for their jargon.) This stage is when the child starts linking two words together to make simple sentences or statements. The word order for these duos isn’t random, as the child will already be using grammar rules. An adjective will come before a noun, such as ‘bad doggie’, and the child will use nouns and verbs appropriately. She will tend not to use pronouns or function words like ‘a’ or ‘the’. There is no three-word stage. After the two-word stage, children start using three or more words in sentences. This is sometimes referred to as Telegraphic Speech, as the child is still using a limited number of words which makes her speech similar to the style once used in telegrams, when people left out any words that weren’t essential for getting their meaning across. While the child still doesn’t sound like an adult, she is still using grammar and her word order is certainly not random. Children acquire their grammar and syntax in stages. I’m going to leave the discussion of this phase of language acquisition until next month, because it deserves some depth of information. This page is dedicated to Lara Weinglass and Renae O’Hanlon, my lecturers over the summer semester. They made a daunting amount of information easy to assimilate. |
| *The Voyager Science Queen is also known as Lynne Green So, who is this woman who attempts to entertain us with Science? Well, I really am a scientist. I have a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Queensland, in Zoology. And, at the moment, I am working in a Pathology laboratory. I have always been intensely curious about every aspect of our universe, from the teeny tiny workings of the gene right up to the mind-bending forces that are twisting and knotting inside a blackhole. So, now I am sharing a brain stuffed full of trivia...and hopefully entertaining people at the same time. As well, I write Fantasy stories and novels. One day, I hope to have a book published, but don't hold your breath. Reading is my other major love, and my favourite authors are Terry Pratchett and Isaac Asimov, though I could list hundreds of others. If I had one wish, I ask for more time to write! Read previous Sci-Facts: Putting on the Squeeze Looking for more scientific oddities? Have you checked out Dr Steven Juan's website? He is, quite literally, the wizard of odds! |
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