Free English Language Dissertations - Bancroft Observed That '...when Young Children Acquire English Or Any Other
Bancroft observed that '...when young children acquire English or any other language, they are acquiring a tool for social action.' (Bancroft, 1994, page 5).
Explain and illustrate this claim with reference to the study of the
relevant chapters in Mercer and Swan, 1996 and Graddol et al, 1994
1. INTRODUCTION
It has been noted that a desire to communicate appears to be an innate feature exhibited by all babies, revealed through different forms of non-verbal communication and pre-verbal babbling (Bruce and Meggitt, 1999), described by Trevarthan as ‘pre-lexical communication’ (1977 in Schaffer, pages 227270) and corroborated by Mercer and Swan who suggest that children’s early, preverbal, efforts to make their wishes known are an important part of language development (Mercer and Swan, 1996, page 7). A theory accorded to Lennenberg (1967) suggests a ‘critical period’ exists during which language is most easily and effectively acquired, reflected in research by Professor Stapp (1999). Lennenburg’s research, however, was based on a combination of lateralisation studies and social application which appeared to suggest the optimum ages to be most effective between the ages of two years and thirteen years. This observation was noted by Professor Stapp who suggested:
The ability of young children to achieve native like proficiency in a foreign
language in a rather short time is a reflection of a type of neural plasticity, and it appears to be related to the distinct characteristics of the young brain
(Stapp 1999, cited in Robertson, 2004, page 7)
Children’s language continues to develop from these early sources, with morphological development effectively completed by the age of four (Crystal, 2003, page 439). Non-verbal communication has been described as being ‘intimately bound up with spoken language’ (Graddol et al, 1994, page 146), with even young babies exhibiting understanding of quite complex kinaesthetic communication, evidence of which can be revealed in one of the more renowned theories of language development that initially evolved from behaviourist concepts, focusing on the theory of imitation and repetition (Skinner, 1957) with later studies revealing more complex factors need to be integrated, associating the features of nurturing with more innate development. Babies, at a very young age, appear to display an innate ability to copy actions recognised within their environment: a baby will learn very rapidly to emulate facial expressions it observes, even to copying a tongue being protruded.
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