The sounds of meaning

Their findings parallel experiments done by others, which show that, before babies learn to talk for themselves, they are receptive to the sounds of all languages. But sensitivity to nonnative language sounds drops after the first year of life. " It's not that children become increasingly sensitive to distinctions made in the language they are exposed to, " comments Paul Bloom of Yale University. Instead, they start off sensitive to every distinction that languages make, then they become insensitive to those that are irrelevant. They learn what to ignore, Bloom notes in an article accompanying the Hespos/Spelke report.

As with words, if a child doesn't hear sound distinctions that it is capable of knowing, the youngster loses his or her ability to use them. It's a good example of use it or lose it. This is one reason why it is so difficult for adults to learn a second language, Bloom observes. " Adults' recognition of nonnative speech sounds may improve with training but rarely attains native facility, " Spelke adds.

Speech is for communicating so once a language is learned nothing is lost by ignoring sounds irrelevant to it. However, contrasts such as loose-versus-tight fit help us make sense of the world. Although mature English speakers don't spontaneously notice these categories, they have little difficulty distinguishing them when they are pointed out. Therefore, the effect of language experience may be more dramatic at the crossroad of hearing and sound than at the interface of thinking and word meaning, Hespos and Spelke say.

Even if babies come equipped with all concepts that languages require, children may learn optional word meanings differently. Consider " fragile" or " delicately, " which, unlike " in, " you can leave out when you say " she delicately placed the spoon in the fragile cup."

One view, Bloom points out, " is that there exists a universal core of meaningful distinctions that all humans share, but other distinctions that people make are shaped by the forces of language. On the other hand, language learning might really be the act of learning to express ideas that already exist, " as in the case of the situation studied by Hespos and Spelke.

There are lots of situations involving the relation between ideas and language that Hespos and Spelke did not address, so the debate is still open. Do people think before they speak or do words shape their thoughts?

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Language Myth #21