1.1 Language and Language Acquisition
Dialects
We will start in this section with some very basic background about language. People often think of grammar as rules that tell them how to speak âcorrectly.â Speaking correctly is often taken to mean speaking in the way educated people do. But this is not really how grammar works.
All human beings, barring serious problems, learn a native language as part of their early socialization in life. Each person learns a certain varietyâcalled a âdialectââof their native language, the variety their ancestors have passed down to them. In the United States, they might learn Southern English, African-American Vernacular English, New England English, or some other dialect. Dialects can vary in terms of vocabulary, syntax, or pronunciation.
Of course, any region of the United States has people from other parts of the country in it and so there are different varieties of English in any part of the country. Dialects can vary by region (e.g., Southern English), social class (e.g., various working class dialects), and by cultural group (e.g., Appalachian English). In many other countries, the differences between dialects are much more dramatic than in the United States.
What people call âStandard Englishâ is a rather âspecialâ dialect. âStandard Englishâ is the variety of English that is held by many to be âcorrectâ both in the sense that it shows no strong regional variation and that it is used widely in mainstream media and by public figures.
Standard English has its origins in the economic power of a fourteenthcentury merchant class in London, people who spoke an East Midland dialect. Because of their growing economic clout, their dialect spread for public business across the country. It became the basis of so-called âReceived Pronunciationâ (âRPâ) in England, and eventually gave rise to Standard English in the United States.
Because of its prestige, many people in the United States speak Standard English and pass on that variety to their children, even if earlier in their family histories their ancestors spoke other dialects. For example, many Southerners have given up their Southern dialect in favor of Standard English and speakers of Appalachian Vernacular English or African-American Vernacular English often adopt Standard English for job interviews and interactions within public institutions.
Standard English is something of a fiction. We all speak it, if we do, in somewhat different ways, as is true of all dialects. We all bring to it different linguistic influences from other dialects and languages we know or which are connected to our ancestors. Further, when we are speaking informally (in our vernacular), we all use language forms that are not used in more formal varieties of Standard English as it is used in mainstream media and in writing.
Language Acquisition
For the most part, oral language acquisition for young children is an entirely unconscious process. It does not require overt teaching or correction of any sort. The process of early language acquisition is, at least in large part, under biological control. Humans are creatures of language. They are born ready and able to acquire some variety of a human language.
Young children do not need correction. When they say things like âgo-edâ instead of âwent,â they often do not pay attention to correction even if they get it from adults. They all end up eventually saying âwentâ as the past tense of âgo.â In fact, when children say âgo-edâ instead of âwent,â they show they are catching on to the general pattern that English forms the past tense of verbs by adding âedâ to a verb, but with some exceptions to the rule (as with âwentâ). They are over-extending or over-generalizing the pattern, a common occurrence in language acquisition. This shows that children are actively looking forâmaking hypotheses aboutârules or patterns. They are not just memorizing what they hear.
The grammars of all dialects of all languages follow certain patterns that are, partly at least, controlled by a human biological capacity for language. The human brain sets certain constraints on what a human language can look like and all dialects of all languages follow those basic constraints. Thus, no dialect is âincorrect.â Dialects are just different from each other. They do vary, of course, in prestige, thanks to how people think about their speakers and their speakers' social positions.
People often think a structure in a dialect is a mistake or âwrongâ because it is different from Standard English. For example, in African-American Vernacular English, some speakers use a ânaked beâ form as in âMy puppy, he always be following meâ or âWe be having leftovers these days.â Since Standard English does not use this form, many speakers of Standard English think it is incorrect. They may even say that âPeople who speak that way don't know English.â
However, the naked be form has a meaning. It is not a mistake. It is what linguists call a âdurative aspect marker,â that is, a form that means that an action or event is a regular event, happens over and over, and is characteristic or typical. Lot of languages have a durative aspect marker, even though Standard English does not. This form was added to English by young African-American children acquiring English and looking for a way to express durative aspect. Throughout history, children have changed language as they acquire it (that's why, for example, Spanish and its mother language Latin are so different from each other).
The linguist Noam Chomsky has famously argued that there is a biological capacity for language that sets a basic design for all human languages and sets, as well, parameters of how different languages can vary from this basic design. Language is, thus, for humans, innate or an âinstinctâ (as is nest building or song for some species of birds, who innately know what their nest or song is like without having to learn it), at least in regard to the core or basic properties of any language. In this sense, at a deep-seated level, all human languages resemble each other in important ways.
According to this view, all varieties of language acquired by humans as native (first) languages are equal, since they all fit the basic pattern or design dictated by our human biological capacity for language. Chomsky's views are controversial. However, it is clear that all humans are born ready to learn language and that human languages do not differ from each other in completely arbitrary ways (i.e., there are language universals, such as the fact that all language have nouns and verbs and subjects and objects).
Language changes all the time. Children change it when they are acquiring it. For example, at one time in the history of English âapronâ was said as ânappron.â But children heard âa nappronâ as âan apron.â Once a whole generation said âapronâ instead of ânappron,â the âcorrectâ form was âapron.â The ânappronâ form can still be seen in the English word ânapkin.â Adults change language, as well, as they are influenced by other languages (e.g., bilinguals) or the need to communicate new things.
Speed and Clarity
Human languages must be both fast and clear. We humans want to be able to communicate without undue slowdowns and yet we also want our communications to be clear. These two demands can come into conflict with each other. If we speak quickly and run our words together, communication can get unclear. If we seek total clarity by spelling everything out explicitly, communication can get too slow.
We can see in the history of languages the constant pressure to balance speed and clarity. For example, Latin had âcase endingsâ on its nouns. Different endings on nouns indicated whether a noun was the subject of a sentence or the direct object. So âpuellaâ was the subject form of the word âgirlâ and âpuellamâ was the direct object form. Latin had other case endings for other grammatical relations. Because endings on the nouns indicated what was subject and object, Latin did not have to use word order to indicate this (as English does) and could vary word order pretty freely. Sentences like âPuella amat puerum,â âAmat puella puerum,â and âPuella puerum amatâ (the girl loves the boy) were all grammatical.
Old English also had cases on its nouns, much like Latin. But, of course, cases endings make words longer, more complex, and slower. So there is a tendency for these case endings over long periods of time to âerodeâ (get shorter) and finally disappear. This makes language quicker. But once case endings are gone, there is no way to tell whether a noun like âgirlâ is being used as a subject or object. So we have lost some clarity. English has lost case endings on its nouns (though they are still on pronouns, as in âheâ and âhim,â âsheâ and âherâ). To indicate what is subject and what is object, English uses the word order âSubject Verb Object,â as in âThe girl loves the boy,â and, thus, has lost the word order freedom Latin had.
So far we are only talking about oral language, not written language. For linguists, oral language is the fundamental form of language. Oral language has been in human history since we became human (and maybe even before). Oral language is part of human biology in the sense that we are certainly creatures prepared and helped to learn oral language by our biology, that is, by structures in our brains.
Written language is much newer in human history, at best it is about 10,000 years old. Not all cultures invented written language (in fact, most did not), while all cultures have oral language today and have had it in the past. Written language is not old enough in human evolutionary history to be part of human biology.
Nonetheless, written language is, of course, an important form of language and important in communication. We will deal with both oral and written language in this book. By the way, American Sign Language counts as âoral language,â even though it is signed, since it is acquired as a native language by some children and used for face-to-face communication.
Reading
- Chomsky, N. (2006). Language and mind. Third Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Clark, E. (2009). First language acquisition. Second Editionrf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Gee, J. P. (2011). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideologies in Discourses. Fourth Editioned. London: Taylor & Francis.
- Milroy, J.and Milroy, L. (1991). Authority in language: Investigating Standard English. Second Edition. New York: Routledge.
- Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct: How the mind creates language. New York: William Morrow. [A good introduction to Chomsky's and Pinker's own arguments for the innateness of the language capacity.]
- Slobin, D. I. (1977). Language change in childhood and history. In J. Macnamara, Ed., Language learning and thought. New York: Academic Press, pp. 185â214. [Slobin's work is the source of the argument about speed and clarity being competing demands in language.]
- Wolfram, W.and Schilling-Estes, N. (2006). American English: Dialects and variation. Second Edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell.