How Language Comes to Children: From Birth to Two Years

Thanks to Noam Chomsky, we know that language is not acquired through imitation; the parrot and mynah bird may copy human noises but cannot hold a conversation. Rather, he posits that the human brain is genetically programmed with a ""universal grammar"" that allows a child to understand the structure of language. Building on Chomsky's insights, de Boysson-Bardies, director of research in the Experimental Psychology Laboratory at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, presents her findings on exactly how this process takes place. Her experiments show that during the last months of pregnancy, the fetus can distinguish sounds; a baby is actually born with a predisposition toward the mother's native language. In subsequent development, she says, the child separates pertinent sounds from the language stream, extracts and categorizes them and begins ""canonical babbling"": ""French babies babble in French, Yoruba babies babble in Yoruba."" The connection between sound and meaning soon follows, and Boysson-Bardies believes it's strongly influenced by the culture within which the information is exchanged. In explaining this process, she sometimes uses a very technical vocabulary of ""fricatives,"" ""occlusives"" and ""disyllables,"" but the descriptions are usually quite accessible. Overall, Boysson-Bardies has written an intriguing and empirically grounded book that consistently sounds this theme: ""Parents do not teach language to their children; they furnish them with models."" (June)