Language Acquistion: A Brief View

MEMO

        My research paper I wrote on language acquisition is a very short paper on some to-the-point brief views on what I deem as important to language acquisition.  I originally had a much larger paper in mind and had to cut it down to only a few topic points.  This paper is different than what I planned when I wrote my annotated bibliography.  I excluded my source on sign language because that topic was too broad to enter with everything else.  I added a couple of reference sources on Genie because I felt an example of real field research would tie the Critical Period Hypothesis in to the reader.  This research paper is for any audience that wants to understand a few basic topics of language acquisition; however, it can be easily used for a social work or psychology practitioner who wants to add more to their own research or one that needs more understanding of the topic.  This paper has easy-to-read terminology and words to where most anybody could read it.  Most of the harder scientific words are given some kind of definition.  The main purpose of the paper is for the reader to understand the main points of discussion for language acquisition in a manner that one can understand without it sounding like a lengthy medical book.  I added my own examples and thoughts on the main discussion points so the reader can look at them in a different more casual light.  I incorporated synthesis into my paper by combining my sources with different parts of the research to make one good statement.  It is a paper where you will leave with a clear understanding of what you just read. Enjoy.        

Language Acquisition:

A Brief View

Anthony Lee Sanderson

University of Arkansas

Language Acquisition:

A Brief View

        Language acquisition is a study that has been examined in depth for several decades.  When most people speak, they take for granted the words that are spoken.  More specifically, they do not look into the mechanisms of the brain acquiring language and how language is truly developed.  Through several published books dealing with language acquisition, a brief explanation of the innateness of language, the Broca’s area, the Wernicke’s area, the Critical Period Hypothesis, and the growth and maturation in the context of language explains how language can be understood from these scientific perspectives.  The purpose of this research paper is to briefly review a few important aspects of language and its implications for providing knowledge and understanding of how children should acquire language; furthermore, the findings here are important to psychology or social work students, practitioners, scientists, educators, and general audiences because language is one of the best abilities that humans have and it opens up many windows to the knowledge of or to the research of the brain and how language separates human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom.  

Key words: innateness; Broca; Wernicke; Critical Period Hypothesis; Genie; maturation; onset    

INNATENESS OF LANGUAGE

        For centuries, humans have been fascinated by language and the complexity of the brain and how it is able to develop the mechanics for language acquisition.  Many premature theories and hypotheses have tried explaining how we are able to produce the phenomenon of language acquisition.  The answer that scientists and researchers were looking for came from a man by the name of Noam Chomsky, and that the discovery that he came up with is that language is innate and that this knowledge of language is inborn (Guasti, 2004; Lenneberg, 1967; MacWhinney, 1999).

         How can a human naturally be born with the ability to acquire language?  Look at how a cat is designed, for an example.  If you drop a cat from a two-story building, it will land on its feet every time.  Numerous tests have shown that this is true and the natural behavior of a cat.  The neural networks and the mechanisms that are designed in the cat have developed this sense of balance and it can only be theorized that this behavior is innate.  The ability to create language is the same with a human; we are born with the ability to speak.  However, there are debates as to how rich the genetic makeup is when supporting human linguistic abilities (Guasti, 2004).  There are many areas of the brain that contribute to the innateness of language acquisition, and not to mention, environmental inputs as well.  An interesting innate part of the brain that contributes primarily to language is the Broca’s area and the Wernicke’s area, which are two main areas of the brain that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Broca’s Area / Wernicke’s Area

        The Broca’s area was coined in 1861 by a French surgeon and anthropologist by the name of Pierre Paul Broca (Crank; Fox, 2002).  Broca discovered this part of the brain when he was examining a deceased patient.  This patient was able to listen and understand what was said to him; however, he was unable to speak any sentences or write them on paper.  Broca found this odd because the patient did not have any impairments of his mouth or vocal chords.  When Broca examined the patients’ brain, he found a lesion in the left inferior frontal cortex.  After examining several more patients with the same issue, he came to the conclusion that led him to

his famous statement, “we speak with the left hemisphere.”  The first language center of the brain was found and then labeled the “Broca’s Area.”

        Ten years later, a German neurologist by the name of Carl Wernicke found a different part of the brain, which involved the understanding of language (Saffran, 2002). This part of the brain was located in the posterior portion of the left temporal lobe.  Like Broca, Wernicke found a lesion on a patient’s brain also, but in a different location.  People with this lesion could speak words, but their words were not able to be comprehended, hence the discovery of the Wernicke’s area.  After further research with neuroscientists, they have been able to find that the Broca’s Area and the Wernicke’s area are connected with a neural loop (arcuate fasciculus) that contributes to both producing and understanding spoken language (See Picture 1).  The Broca’s area (associated with language outputs) is at the frontal end of the loop and the Wernicke’s area (associated with processing inputs) is at the other end (Saffran, 2002).

Picture 1

[pic 3]

        In summary, the two areas of the brain act as “best friends.”  They both get a long in ways that they need each other in order to function properly for the purposes of language acquisition.  What good would the Broca’s area be without the Wernicke’s area?  A person would have all the motor functions associated with it, but he would not have any basis of thought

to be able to speak without being able to input the words spoken to him and being able to process those words.  On the flip side, what good would the Wernicke’s area be without the Broca’s