Language Acquisition

According to Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck’s textbook, Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction (2010), first language acquisition varies but that all children tend to go through five stages. The first stage, babbling tends to take place when the infant is five to nine months old. Children enter the one-word stage when they are nine to nineteen months old. They begin to be able to say two words when they are eighteen to twenty-four months old. Children usually enter the early multiword stage when they are twenty-four to thirty months old. Finally, children enter the fifth stage, the later multiword stage which takes place once they are thirty months old, and they stay in this stage for the remainder of their lives (Denhem and Lobeck 2010:35 – 40). However, despite western notions that children’s first language acquisition is universal, Don Kulick and Ochs and Schieffelin’s studies of children’s first language acquisition show that this is not the case.

According to Don Kulick’s book, Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self, and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinean Village, first language acquisition varies more so than Denham and Lobeck state. Kulick writes, “A large number of village children do not being constructing simple three-word sentences until they are nearly 3 years old” (Kulick 1992:101). The simple three-word sentences that Kulick talks about would fall under the Denham and Lobeck’s definition of the early multiword stage. However, Denham and Lobeck say that the early multiword stage ends when a child is thirty months old, and Kulick says that the children in the Papua New Guinean village do not enter the multiword stage until they are nearly three, nearly thirty-six months old. This is well past the age of Denham and Lobeck specify for the early multiword stage.

In addition, all caregivers do not have to interact with an infant in the same exact way, in a western way in order for the child to learn language as was preciously assumed. In their essay, “Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three Developmental Stories and their Implications” (1984), Elinor Ochs and Bambi B. Schieffelin compare and contrast the ways in which Anglo-American white middle-class, Kaluli, and Samoan caregivers interact with infants. Ochs and Scheffelin argue, “the biological predispositions constraining and shaping social behavior of infants and caregivers must be broader than thus far conceived in that the use of eye gaze, vocalization, and body alignment are orchestrated differently in the social groups we have observed” (Ochs and Schieffelin 1984:299). Unlike Anglo-American mothers, Kaluli mothers do not make eye contact with infants because they are scared of witchcraft, and Kalui and Samoan children participate in triadic and multiparty social interaction instead of just the didactic social interactions that Anglo-American children are expected to participate in in order to become socialized. In addition, a Kaluli mother does not respond to her child unless the child speaks correctly. Anglo-American mothers, on the other hand, respond to incorrect speech (Ochs and Schieffelin 1984:299 – 301). In other words, there are different practices of child rearing which lead to differences in first language acquisition.

Essentially, many aspects of language acquisition that are assumed to be universal are in fact highly culturally variable. Ochs and Schieffelin write, “What caregivers say and how they interact with young children are motivated in part by concerns and beliefs held by many members of the local community” (Ochs and Schieffelin 1984:302). In other words, the way in which caregivers interact with children is often determinant through culture.

Denham, Kristin and Lobeck, Anne. 2010 The Human Capacity for Language. Linguistics for Everyone: an Introduction. 29 – 63. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Kulick, Dan. 1992 Having Hed. In Language Shift and Culturla Reproduction: Socialization, Self and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinea Village. 92 – 117. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ochs, Elinor and Schieffelin, Bambi. 1984 Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three

Developmental Stories and Their Implications. In R. A. Shweder and R. A. LeVine, eds. Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self and Emotion. 276 – 320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.