language acquisition · 27 February 2010, 22:58
As an English major, watching Caleb explore language is totally fascinating. He isn’t even past the one-word stage yet, but I can see him exploring the rules of English. It’s so wild that once kids start talking, they pretty much never put words in the wrong order. Their mistakes tend to be over-application of rules to exception cases, rather than the kinds of mistakes that a foreign learner would make.
Caleb gets a lot of mileage out of saying “eep?” It is his way of making a request of any sort. It’s amazing how easy it can be sometimes, to tell what he wants. As you may recall, he has been pointing to things and saying, “eep?” as in, “what’s that?” for quite a while now. He’s finally getting to where he will point to things and say what the thing is. He really likes to point out pictures of apples, for example. Clocks are another one. Oftentimes, he’ll point to a picture of a clock and say “clock” (which actually sounds something like his word for ‘hot’, but I can tell the difference). I say, “Yeah, that’s a clock.” And then he points to the clock in the kitchen and excitedly says “clock!” This can go back and forth for quite a while.
He also likes ‘nose’, ‘ear’, and ‘eye’. He likes to hear us talk about what he’s pointing to. He’ll say, “eye” (yet another subtly nuanced ‘ah’ which could sound like hot or clock) and touch his eye. We say, “Yep, that’s Caleb’s eye.” Then he points to someone else’s eye (either one of ours, or a stuffed animal’s). “Yeah, that’s {Daddy’s, Mommy’s, Josh’s, the tiger’s} eye.” And again, he repeats, “eye!” And around it goes, till he has talked about everybody’s eye. I imagine this is helping solidify his understanding of English possessives.
He loves this narration that we provide for what he’s doing. In the past couple days, he has started doing things just to hear us talk about it. Prepositions and verbs seem to be the main thing here. He’ll take a stuffed animal, e.g., a giraffe, and have it sit somewhere. “Eep?” (he’s asking us to narrate.) “The giraffe is sitting in the rocking chair.” Then he hurriedly climbs up into said chair with the stuffed animal and awaits our ongoing narration (“Caleb is sitting in the rocking chair.”) He really likes this. Tonight he spent a great deal of time taking a bear, having it sit on a table, in his highchair, in the rocking chair, on the stair, on a pillow, on the couch … you get the idea.
If only those of us who wanted to learn a second language could have someone repeat the most basic of sentences at our request, for days on end.
I recently read a really good piece, though, on a Korean’s experience learning English, having immigrated here when he was 16 years old, as well as some fascinating facts from researchers on the subject of first language acquisition. So, in some ways, while first-language acquisition is a totally unique experience that can only be accomplished in the early months and years of one’s life, it’s interesting to see Caleb now actively doing what a second-language acquirer has to do to grasp a new language.
It’s unfortunate that my Korean is quite mediocre, and I can’t just ramble at him in Korean the way I can in English. If he ever learns Korean, he won’t have the intuitive grasp of syntax the way he would if I could talk to him more naturally. At least the fact that he can’t understand my grandma doesn’t stop them from having a great conversation. She asks him a question, and pauses, and he replies, usually by saying ‘da’, or talking about things in the room, or just other babbling. They have a good time on the phone.
— Jennifer
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