Pre-lingustic Stage

Pre-linguistic Period

*The process of language acquisition is characterized by its naturalness, rapidity subconsciousness and intuitiveness.

*All the children of the world acquire their L1 spontaneously without any intervention and without recognizing that they are doing so.

* Infants are unaware of the grammatical functions and rules of their L1 because they merely perceive, internalize and imitate the heard speech as it is uttered by adults.

* Krashen (1981:6) supports this idea starting that: “Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drills”.

* Yet, LA does not necessitate extensive practice since parents and caregivers usually communicate with each other and with their new born by using their mother tongue and children at this phase do capture the speech as it is used.

*Acquiring the first language is an extraordinary achievement. It is a chore gained by personal exertion and this in fact what makes it different from the other tasks.

*Nonetheless, children begin communicating early before they bring in their L1. This act of communicating with a new born is easily discerned by those who live with them in the household.

·        Scovel (1998:7) contends that “the emergence of speech is not only an apt chronological stage to begin our reflections on the nature of the human mind, it is also the stage where we can glean the least complicated data”.

·        Actually, studying CLA reveals not only the various insights that deserve investigating but also the cleverness of the child which is in constant evolution.

No Language but a Cry!

-         The act of crying seems natural and banal for people but if it is explained scientifically, it will be a whole phenomenon that deserves studying.

 

·        Scovel (ibid: 10) argues that: What we have learned about crying is that it is not only communicative, it is also a direct precursor to both language and speech (human symbolic communication) and speech (spoken language).

 

·         In a sense, crying, at least in the first months, is a kind of language without speech, because the child communicates different types of discomfort without using normal speech sounds.

 

·        Accordingly, children start crying immediately after they are born and it the sole means that they employ to draw the attention of their caregivers who themselves will try to calm the child down by either giving him milk or hold him and so on.

 

·        Children generally cry when they are hungry, sick or feel uncomfortable. Yet, through time the mother especially will understand her child’s crying and provide him/her with the right requirements. Genuinely, babies are endowed by the ability of crying as Scovel (ibid) alleges that:

 

·        During the first few week of a child’s life, crying is largely an autonomic response to noxious stimuli, triggered by the autonomic nervous system as a primary reflex. In brief, this means that the crying response is hard-wired into the child, and crying is initially a spontaneous reaction. As it is completely iconic unaffected by intentional control from the voluntary nervous system, which eventually evolves as the mover and shaper of most human behaviour.

Scovel (ibid) goes on and claims that:

Crying is completely iconic; there is a direct and transparent link between the physical sound and its communicative intent. For example, the hungrier a baby becomes, the louder and longer the crying will be. Moreover, in the first month or two of the child’s development crying becomes more differentiated and more symbolic.

Recap

-         Corresponding to Scovel’s quote crying is an autonomic response i.e. involuntary reaction caused by the noxious stimuli i.e. (harmful impetus) which is launched or provoked by the nervous system that controls human’s actions. As for the term iconic means that crying acts as a symbol or sing to special needs. In other words, the caregiver will be able to distinguish the type of child’s needs according to the pitch of his/her crying.

 

-         As time passes, babies begin to understand that crying can be used to bring comfort, relief from hunger, loneliness and so on. Crying is also essential because babies train their lungs by doing it and this is crucial for their speech communication in the future.

TRUE/FALSE

A sensitive parent should be able to tell the difference between a baby who is crying because he is hungry and one who is crying because he is in pain or is lonely. Justify!

 

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