From reading the title it would be of no surprise if many people are already wondering what is going on, but that is the exact same feeling when I came across this topic, now, I’m deeply fascinated as to how we acquire our mother tongue. Inductive reasoning suggests that there must be something special within our brain to pick up and become fluent in a language in about three years. To back this idea we can relate to the fact that it takes many more years to become fluent in a second language, and we still don’t have the aptitude of a native speaker. However, there are many valid arguments for both sides and the ‘Nature v Nurture’ debate has turned into a rather cagey, intense argument.
I first came across this meditation at a school club called ‘Polyglossia’, this means the coexistence of multiple languages in nearby settlements. Broadly speaking, it comes under the huge scope of linguistics, and whilst it only represents a small sub-topic it is potentially the most riveting. Psychologists, psycholinguists, evolutionary biologists and genetic biologists have dedicated lives and spent years researching what the possible answer could be. However, as with many things, the answer is yet to have been uncovered.
The most famous academic when it comes to the ‘Nature v Nurture’ Debate is Noam Chomsky, he came up with the revolutionary idea of Universal Grammar and that learning our first language is an innate skill because of this. It states that all languages are based upon a common form of grammar and that is why we merely take first language learning into our stride. It is a set of plans for the grammatical machinery that powers all human languages and children must be constrained to pick out just the right kinds of generalisations from their parents speech and imitate the same or similar things back, ensuring they make grammatical sense. Whilst not everyone agrees to this point, the majority of academics approve that syntax; some lexical categories and structure-dependency are all universal.
Another key concept to the nature side of the altercation is that humans are the only animals who can physically speak. No other animal has the correct vocal apparatus or biological mechanisms to be able to produce speech. Monkeys, who are said to be the animal most similar to humans have been put through vigorous tests to try and make them produce speech, nonetheless it is not possible.
Whilst the arguments I have stated seem very pro-nature there are some very credible nature respects. When speaking to a child you will notice that they tend to make many mistakes especially with irregular verbs and how to form them. A lot of ‘goed’, ‘putted, ‘mouses’ are thrown around because the children use what they already know, however, what they already know cannot be used for every noun and every verb. They need to adapt to each verb individually. Babies learn a word at a time, and make a gradual progression from trial and error and listening to others to then put these words into sentences. Once listening to their parents for the first time, they do not reproduce their sentences straight away suggest an innate dexterity isn't all and certainly not enough.
The mystery of language learning is a great one and one in which it will be extremely difficult to ever find an answer. All that is left now is to keep testing and doing more research, if that’s possible!
