In child psychology I reviewed evidence that the fetus can hear, and
that she can learn from the sound of the human voice she hears in
utero.
Later, in language development I discussed Chomsky's LAD, and said it
was a mistake to think that it includes innate knowledge of a
particular language. I gave as an example the fact that a Chinese
baby adopted into an English-speaking home acquires English, not
Chinese.
A student put these two points together and wondered whether the
baby's prenatal language environment might predispose to one language
over another. It's an interesting question.
It seems to me that there are two prevalent assumptions about early
language development;
1) In the initial stage at least, babies babble a wide range of sounds
corresponding to many difference languages, and the early babbling of
babies is the same the world over, regardless of the language spoken
by the mother. Sometimes the claim is even made that babies babble all
the sounds in all the languages of the world.
2) Babies can detect differences between phonemic pairs in "foreign"
languages as well as in their family language (this is based on
research by Janet Werker who showed that 6-month-old-babies can
detect _certain_ phonemic distinctions in "foreign" languages, an
ability they lose by 1 year of age.)
My question: is there any evidence to the contrary, either that:
1) early babbling of babies is _not_ the same the world over
2) babies no older than six months _do_ show differences in their
ability to detect phonemic pairs depending on which language their
mother speaks.
If there is such evidence, it may be due either to genetic or prenatal
exposure, but it would certainly suggest that there is more going on
than just late (post 6-month) exposure to a particular language.
-Stephen
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
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