Growing into Language: Developmental Trajectories and Neural Underpinnings

369 Pages·2023·9.358 MB·

by  Liliana Tolchinsky, Ruth A. Berman

Growing into Language

Growing into Language
Developmental Trajectories and
Neural Underpinnings
LILIANA TOLCHINSKY
AND
RUTH A. BERMAN
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP,
UnitedKingdom
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Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Prologue vii
1. Brainsforlanguage(andeverythingelse) 1
2. Languageforrecollection 38
3. Languageforactuality 75
4. Languagefor(im)possibleworlds 114
5. Languageforimagery 149
6. Languageforreflection(onlanguage) 187
7. Languageforliteracyandliteracyforlanguage 225
Afterthoughts 265
GlossaryI:Termsrelatedtobrainsitesandfunctions 278
GlossaryII:Termsrelatedtobrainsitesandneuro-imagingtechniques 288
References 294
AuthorIndex 327
SubjectIndex 338
Acknowledgments
Theauthorsaregratefultothefollowingforhelpwithpreparingthemanuscript
for submission to the publishers: Simon John Cook, who served as our main
copyeditor, Sarah Winkler for help with copyediting and tracking down refer-
ences,VeraRusyanovforherworkonreferences,andIttamarErbwithindexing.
We would like to thank the team at OUP for their patience, their professional-
ism,andgoodwill,particularlyJuliaSteer,VickiSunter,andSamAugustinDurai
Ebenazer, our project editors. Thanks, too, to Pancho Tolchinsky and Catalina
Estradaforhelpwiththegraphicdesignofthefigure.Wearegratefultoourrespec-
tivepartners,EduardoLandsmanandYaacovYaar,fortheirsupportandwisdom
throughouttheprocessofproducingthiswork.Andtoourmentors,colleagues,
andstudents,withoutwhomthisbookwouldnothavematerialized.
Prologue
“Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a moun-
tainousandanonymousworkofunconsciousgenerations.”
EdwardSapir,1921,p.235
“Deathandlifeareinthepowerofthetongue.”
Proverbs18:21
Weembarkedonthisendeavortoshowhowlanguagedevelops‘beyondagefive,’
fromchildhoodtoadolescenceandsubsequently.1Psychologistsandlinguists,like
parents, have always been fascinated by the appearance of a child’s first words
andhowrapidlychildrenturnintotalkers,somuchsothatumpteenbookshave
beenwrittenontheirearlylanguage.Oursisabookonolderusersofalanguage.
It deals with how schoolchildren and adolescents employ language in different
communicativesettingsandfordifferentpurposes—totellstories,engageincon-
versations, speculate about the future, speak metaphorically, make jokes, reflect
onlanguagestructure,andevenwriteacademicessays.
The miracle of early language is so amazing that many philosophers and lin-
guistsregarditasaninnateendowment,agiftthatmustbeinthegenes.Howcan
languagebealearnedbehaviorgivenwhattheycall‘thepovertyofthestimulus’?2
Parentsalmostneverspeakincompletesentences,theyconstantlyrepeatthem-
selves, they often don’t correct their children’s mistakes. Besides, children, like
grownups,saythingstheyhaveneverheardbefore.
We will argue, instead, that there is abundant evidence that poverty of input
makes children poor language users, while the opposite is true—a rich linguis-
tic environment makes for better talkers and writers. In other words, the idea
of language as an inborn, genetic endowment needs to be modulated by exter-
nalfactorsofenvironmentandculture—ambientlanguage(s),homebackground,
schooling,socio-economiccircumstances,andsoon.Acrossthebook,weinvoke
bothinternalandexternalfactorsasinteractinginlanguagedevelopment:genes,
environment,andthenatureofthetask.Theseinvolvewhatspeakersinheritby
beinghuman,thesocioculturalhabitatinwhichtheyareraised,andthepurposes
for which they use language, like writing a diary, chatting at the family dinner
table,ordecidingiftwowordsmeanthesame.
The authors of this book are linguists, originally trained in both structuralist
(European)andformal(American)linguistics.Forthelastfiftyyears—yes,weare
pre-boomerwomen—wehaveattemptedtoexplainhowlanguageoutputschange
viii PROLOGUE
withage.Overtheyearsofourscholarlycareers,eachofushasframedanapproach
tolanguagedevelopmentinthecontextofgeneralcognitivedevelopment.Rather
thantakingeitherdomain—languageorcognition—asprerequisitefortheother,
weconceiveofthemasinconstantinteraction,supportingoneanotheralongthe
lifespan. However, until recently, references to cognition and affect were rather
vague, and the brain—the site of cognition and emotion—was largely missing
frominquiryintolanguagedevelopment.Currentadvancesinneurobiologyhave
enabledustointegratethebrainforprovidingadeeperexplanationof(someof
the)developmentalchangesweobserveintheuseoflanguage.Forexample,whyis
storytellingsuchanaddictiveactivity?Whydoadolescentsdevelopsuchapeculiar
vocabulary?Whyaremetaphoricalmeaningsgraspedbeforeironicones?Howis
itthat7-year-oldsareunabletodefinewhatisaword,eventhoughtheyhavebeen
usingallkindsofwords(appropriately)sincetheageof2?Howisitthatchildren
writebeforetheyread?
Toachieveourgoalofilluminatinglanguageuseanddevelopmenthelpedby
neurobiology,ourbookbeginswithanoverviewofthepropertiesoftheworking
brain,stressingthatthecapacitytolearnandmemorizeaswellastopredictand
correcterrorsremainsplasticatleastinto,possiblybeyond,lateadolescence.The
factthatcrucialdevelopmentstakeplaceinnearlyeveryaspectoflanguageuse
after early childhood justifies the scope of our inquiry. This initial overview on
thebehaviorofthebrain,whatitdoesordoesnotenableustoknowanddowith
language,providesthesettingfortherestofthebook.Subsequently,(ineachof
Chapters2to7),wecommentontheneurobiologicalunderpinningsofparticular
facetsoflanguageuse,andtheskillschildrenneedtodeveloptoexpressthemselves
adequatelyindifferentrealmsofexperience.
Thenextthreechaptersmovealongatimeline:Chapter2trackslanguageusage
intheworldofpastexperiences,howpeoplerecounteventsfortellingstoriesin
thenarrativegenre;Chapter3looksathowpeoplewieldlanguageintheactual
worldofthepresent,forinteractingwithfamilyandpeersordescribingentities
andpresentingarguments;Chapter4considersthewayspeoplereflectonpossible
worldsandalternativeeventualitiesinthefuture.
Wethenmovetotheclustersoflinguisticandcognitiveabilitiesrequiredfordif-
ferentdomainsoflanguageuse.Chapter5takesustotheworldofimagery,where
peoplespeakidiomatically,inculturallyfixedways,combiningwordsthatmake
nosenseonthesurface,likesayingthatsomeonewhodiedkickedthebucket—
a domain where people communicate by implication, indirect speech acts, and
figurativeusages.
Chapter6traceshowpeopleuselanguagetotalkaboutlanguage,howlanguage
isturnedfromameansofcommunicationtoanobjectofreflection.Finally,before
movingontoourconcluding‘Afterthoughts,’Chapter7tacklestheworldofliter-
acy,fromdigitaltextingtoacademicessays,wherepeopleusewritingandreading
asawayofthinking—andwedistinguishbetweenscript-literacyasmasteringthe
PROLOGUE ix
physical elements of a writing system and text-literacy as being able to handle
differenttypesofwrittendiscourse.Eachofthesixusage-basedchapters(2to7)
opensbysurveyingwhatphilosophers,cognitivescientists,and/orhistorianshave
hadtosayaboutthetargeteddomains,proceedstooutliningthelinguisticmeans
of expression that characterize them and their neurological underpinnings in
the brain, and concludes with the developmental trajectories that children and
adolescentstraverseineachoftheserealmsofexperience.
Runningacrossthebookasawholeareseveralmotifs.
(1)Development:Akeythemeisdevelopment—inthesenseoflanguagechange
inthelifeofindividuals.3Inlinewithmainstreamlinguisticapproaches,weagree
thatbeforeage5everynormalchildisalinguisticgenius.Thebookthatheralded
thecomingofageofdevelopmentalpsycholinguisticssomefiftyyearsago(Brown,
1973)endeditsstudywhenthethreechildrenwhosespeechwasrecordedhadnot
yetreachedfouryearsofage.Otherstudiesclaimtoshowthatbyage3,“children
haveacquiredthebasicphonological,morpho-syntactic,andsemanticregulari-
tiesofthetargetlanguage,irrespectiveofthelanguageorlanguagestobelearned”
(Weissenborn & Ho¨hle, 2000, p. vii).4 Here we aim to show that, at each point
indevelopment,children(andadults,too)needtocopewithdifferentproblems
ofverbalcommunication,forwhichtheyconstantlyneedtodevelopfreshstrate-
gies of adaptation and diverse forms of expression. For example, texting peers
requires(linguistic)survivalstrategiesthatdifferfromthoseforconversingata
family dinner table or answering a question in class—and each of these has its
owncharacteristicsamonggrade-schoolerscomparedwithteenagers.
Optimaldevelopmentofanorganismdependsonitsadaptationtovariedsur-
roundingsratherthansolelyonafull-blownfinalenvironment(Lehrman,1953),
sothatallspeciesoforganismshaveevolvedtoadapttotheiruniquenichesateach
pointindevelopment.Hereweattempttoconveytoourreadershowchildrenand
adolescentsadapttoparticularnichesatdifferentpointsintheirdevelopment,by
relyingonrecentadvancesinneurobiologythatdemonstratebrainplasticityand
thelengthydevelopmentofexecutivefunctions.5
Four main time spans can be identified in language development in general.
Startingwithmovingintolanguagefrombirthto3years,childrencrosstoapsy-
cholinguisticfrontieratlatepreschoolage(around4to5years).Subsequently,at
around age 6 to 12 years, they ‘go conventional,’ adapting to the norms of the
ambientsocietyintheiruseoflanguageasinotherdomains.Laterstill,around
ages13to19years,youngpeopleshifttoincreasingautonomyandindividuality
ofexpression,withadolescenceawatershedinthetransitionfromchildhoodto
adulthoodinlinguisticproficiencyasinsexualmaturationandsocialbehavior.6
Ingoing‘beyondage5,’ourbookfocusesonthelattertwostages.
(2) Neurobiological perspectives: We adopt a neoconstructivist approach
(Karmiloff-Smith,1992)asadistinctiveframeworkinneurobiologythatshapes
ourviewoftherelationshipbetweengeneticendowment,brainstructuring,and