Transcript Exceptional Cases - University of Arkansas

Exceptional Cases
• One way to look at the issue of what is special (if
anything) about language acquisition is to look at
unusual cases to see how language acquisition
proceeds
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creolization
deaf children
feral children
Non-children (Primates)
Electronic children (computers)
Creolization
• Bickerton (1981, 1990): The Language
Bioprogram Hypothesis
• Studying the process of creolization, or the
process of when two or more languages merge to
form a new, indigenous language
• When does this happen? When people who do not
share a common language are forced or compelled
to communicate with each other
– Masters and slaves
– Exploration
– Deaf children who do not know sign
Creolization
• So what happens when people are put into
situations like this?
– They attempt to communicate using important
vocabulary items and gestures
– This communication system is called a pidgin.
It is not a language because it has little
syntactic structure. Sounds a lot like baby talk.
– They also do what comes naturally and have
children
What happens next?
• The children, exposed only to the pidgin language,
begin to speak a more fully grammatical language
called a creole.
• Combines vocabulary from the pidgin (so words
from both of the parent languages) with systematic
syntactic rules, especially word order.
• Great consistency between creoles in terms of
their syntactic structure, regardless of the root
language
• Conclusion: The processing of the pidgin through
the children’s brain produces a language.
Language in Deaf Children
• Children who are deaf from birth and have never
been exposed to spoken language
• For many years were taught lip reading and handspelling (still used)
• Now most are exposed to and taught American
Sign Language (not a universal sign language)
– ASL is a complex visual-spatial system of
communication that meets all the requirements to be
called a language.
– Topic-comment structure
– 4th most commonly used language in the U.S. ?
Learning ASL by Deaf Children
• Deaf children who are exposed to ASL as their
first language show nearly exactly the same
pattern of development as hearing children
learning spoken language
– In fact, some advantages for ASL learners, because the
gestures are easier to control than the articulatory
system
– If not exposed to ASL early (usually with hearing
parents), children will show deficits in ASL Syntax
– Conclusion: Language acquisition can occur in
multiple modalities
Feral Children
• Children raised in the wild or with reduced
exposure to human language
• What is the effect of this lack of exposure
on language acquisition?
• Two classic cases
– Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron
– Genie
Victor, The Wild Boy of Aveyron
• Found in 1800 near the outskirts of Aveyron,
France
– Estimated to be about 7-years-old
• Neither spoke or responded to speech
• Taken to and studied by Dr. Jean-Marc-Gaspard
Itard, and educator of deaf-mute and retarded
children
• Never learned to speak and his receptive language
ability was limited to a few simple commands.
– Described by Itard as “an almost normal boy who could
not speak
Genie
• Found in Arcadia, California in 1970 around the
age of 13
• Raised in isolation (in a closet), Genie could
barely walk and could not talk when found
• Studied by Dr. Susan Curtiss (and many others
who fought over her)
• Made great efforts to teach her language, and she
did learn how to talk, but her grammar never fully
developed.
– Used few closed-class morphemes and function words
– Speech sounded like that of a 2-year-old
What Do These Cases Tell Us?
• Suggestive of the position that there is a critical
period (Lorenz) for first language learning
– If child is not exposed to language during early
childhood (prior to the age of 6 or 7), then the ability to
learn syntax will be impaired while other abilities are
less strongly affected
– Not uncontroversial: Victor and Genie and children
like them were deprived in many ways other than not
being exposed to language
– Genie stopped talking after age 30 and was
institutionalized shortly afterward (Rymer, 1993)