Language and Communication.

Non-verbal communication in children can often be quite helpful to adults in understanding them.  Children are usually quite poor at hiding strong emotions, so if something is bothering them, and the child won’t tell, the problem can often be deciphered by watching the child’s bodily movements.  If another person has caused the grievance, the child’s stance and facial expression towards that person may give it away easily- a typical position is the body bent in a ‘c’ shape away from the wrong-doer, arms crossed, with a scowl and eyes narrowed at him/her.  

Language as sound.

“Newborns are ‘language universalists’; they can learn any sound in any language, and they can distinguish between all the vowels and consonants uttered by human beings”.  So says Patricia K. Kuhl of the University of Washington Department of Speech and Hearing.  She says that by the age of 6 months- and this is a debated theory-, as opposed to the one year that was previously thought, babies have learned to distinguished the sounds- the phonetics- of their native language (or, they may have more than one tongue, as it is quite possible for babies to be bi or trilingual if they are spoken to in more than one dialect in their home), before actually learning the words.  At six months, a baby can understand every single sound that we have in the phonetic alphabet- every sound that's used in any language of the world.  But two year-old babies have lost this skill already because they've already started to filter out all the sounds their language doesn't use and forgotten how to produce or perceive these sounds.  Babies are like a blank sheet: they have no former experience with language so they have none of the particular idiosyncrasies of any one tongue (for example, Chinese people are often troubled when learning foreign languages, as in their own, ‘l’ and ‘r’ are pronounced the same way) written out and memorised. Thus, they are open to learning whatever is directed at them, with no bias against any sound.

It is recognised by every expert in the field that infants are born primed for language learning.  Their brains are like sponges- ready to soak up everything they hear- although they cannot understand that each of these sounds- the building blocks of our language- make up a meaningful word, they register each individual sound unit.  The child learns the rules to its mother tongue- articulation, word recognition, and syntax- about 6 months after his ability to identify individual phonemes.  “Infants are behaving like a computer without its printer hooked up- they store millions of bits of information before they can speak, simply by listening… they are mastering language simply by listening to us talk” says Kuhl.  What is even more remarkable about the child’s almost immediate grasp of the structure of language is that we are not, or at least very few parents do, teaching them these rules of the language explicitly- and getting the flash cards out with verb tables on them to teach a 6 month old child is quite futile anyway- they learn simply by listening to the talk that surrounds them: that which is directed at them and that which is simply carried out around them.  The sound of the latter is usually quite different to the type of speech directed at the child- baby talk, or ‘motherese’.

Although it was discouraged as being pointless in the ‘80s, motherese is back again.  Recent research- among various others, Roberta Golinkoff, University of Delaware’s Professor of Education, wrote ‘Baby talk: Parents do make a Difference, by Promoting Childhood Chatter’- says that this encouragement does help the child with their communicative skills that will stand to them in later life.  This is something many people do naturally to a baby; regardless of what reports on baby-talk are popular at the time- I know my infant brother was inundated with requests to “Look at the choo choo!” “Say baa baa!”.  Ways in which a parent can help their baby to chatter are:

• Speak slower than usual and pause between words.  This allows the child to register what the adult is saying.  
• Talk about objects the child is focused on, reaching for or touching; the child will associate the sound of the word with what they were looking at.  My first word, for example, was ‘chicken’, because I had a farmyard mobile above my cot.  
• The speaker usually repeats both what they and the child says- if the child says “mama”, the mother often says “yes, mama!”.  
• No matter how short a word is, as many as possible are usually simplified by the speaker and made repetitive- ‘cow’ goes to ‘moo-moo’, for example.    

Steven Pinker in his book ‘The Language Instinct’, argues that motherese is and has always been an unessential part of language development, part of the Western mentality “that sends yuppies to learning centres to buy mittens with bulls’ eyes to help their babies find their hands sooner.  

The child itself, whether helped by carers chattering to it or not, practices using his speech apparatus before he actually says anything: he cries, coos and babbles.  All are familiarising him with the use of his vocal cords, lips and tongue.  As he grows, he enjoys ‘verbal play’- even by himself.  The infant finds that different positioning of the mouth produces different sounds; this encourages further experimentation.  He often vocalizes some consonants (m, b, k, g and p) at about 5 months, while vowel sounds came sooner, at about 4 months.  The vowels are sounded with an open throat and a wide-open mouth.  The vowel-consonant sounds are strung together at around seven months, in a form of gurgle- babbling. While all infants develop at different rates, most can babble happily to themselves and can imitate speech sounds by the age of 9 months. However, some choose not to until they are past 18 months old, and then can often speak in sentences.  My brother was silent until 23 months, when he was brought tea in a bottle, which he tasted and complained “There no sugar in this!”.  From then on, he talked like a child who had been since they were at 8 months.

Spoken and written media.

The written and spoken media is home to countless articles, facts and theories on the development and the innate language and communicative abilities of a child.  The thousands of pieces of information, particularly on the Internet, that I found that aided me in my research for this project is testament to this fact.  Many radio programmes and television shows have been dedicated to the health and welfare of the child, however, these have been less relevant to the topic than the various written articles available both on the web and in books.  One good radio show, however, if you are either travelling through Arizona (KJAA am) or tuning in on the web is The Parent Report, a show which deals with family issues, from newborn children to teenagers.  It is very informative, and also provides written articles; I recommend it.

The primary difference between the written and spoken media is that in newspaper articles, books, magazines etc, only one person’s opinion is given, whereas on live discussions, a debate between multiple parties can be created.    Another difference is the style of language used: in spoken broadcasts, a more natural language is used, particularly when a live debate is being held, when the everyday style of the speaker’s speech and accent comes through.  Newspaper language, in broadsheets anyway, tends to be more reserved and formal.

The media, in all its forms, is an essential medium for experts to express their opinions.  Any controversial new theory written about a subject such as language and communication provokes further discussion, experimentation and research, and this is essential for the development of every area of science.  In the area of the child’s communicative skills, research has helped generations of parents understand their child’s needs- that of speech development and non-verbal communication, for example.

The aim of my essay was to examine the language and communication skills of the young infant, under various topics.  I have discussed how the child learns at first basic nonverbal gestures to convey his emotional needs, and then gradually builds up a repertoire of movements, that often accompany words for emphasis.  I have also shown how the infant acquires language; a remarkable development, as it happens with such ease.  As Encyclopaedia Britannica says, “one soon realises how complex a language is when trying to learn it as a second language… it is then that one can easily appreciate the complexity of the knowledge acquired by a child in mastering his mother tongue”.  I have also shown the distinction in the different natures of written and spoken media when it comes to publishing and debating issues on the development of language and communication in an infant.  Spoken and visual media can hold instant and heated debates- except those which are scripted- while the written cannot.  Furthermore, the language used in each of these mediums of communication is different: more formal language is used in written reports and studies.  I believe I have provided a clear and concise study of all of the above

.Bibliography

‘Nonverbal behaviour- applications and cultural implications’- edited by Aaron Wolfgang:  Academic Press (1979).

‘New perspectives in nonverbal communication’- by Fernando Poyatos: Pergamon Press (1983).

‘Language and communication’- edited by Helmut Esau: Hornbeam Press (1980).

‘The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals’- by Charles Darwin (1872).

‘Book of child care’- by Hugh Jolly: Sphere Books Ltd. (1978).

‘General Phonetics’- by R-M. S. Heffner: University of Wisconsin Press  (1950).

Centre for Nonverbal Studies:  http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~li101is1/FA01/101f1h04.htm.

http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/index.htmnotes.

http://google.com.

http://yahoo.com.

http://www.google.com/search?q=darwin+and+nonverbal+communication&hl=en&start=10&sa=N.  

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010815082552.htm.

http://www.washington.edu/research/pathbreakers/1992b.html.

http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=motherese&hc=0&hs=.

http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/center.htm#Center%20for%20Nonverbal%20Studies.

http://www.sciencedaily.      

http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock//virtual/gavin.htm.

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