Language, Culture and Cognition: An Introduction

Prof. Bidisha Som

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati

Module - 05
Part - 01
Lecture - 11
Language acquisition

Welcome to the module 5, part 1. Today, we will discuss about Language acquisition.

So, let us take a quick look at the journey so far, kind of a recap. So, till now, we have seen
that language, in both its structural as well as functional domains, is inextricably related to
the neuro-cognitive as well as socio-cultural aspects of human experience. So, not only is
language connected to the mechanisms within the brain, within the cognitive apparatus,
but also, it is informed, and it is in a constant interaction with, the socio-cultural
environment, the input from the outside of the human body.

So, there is a mixture of various factors that give rise to what we see in terms of language
output. So, we have seen that, through various aspects of language, starting with the
category formation process and how it is expressed in language, the framing of an
experience and then, schemas and metaphors and metonymy and so on and so forth.
Various experiences of human life and how they are closely connected to the fundamental
aspects of human cognition, which is then revealed through language. So, this is what we
have seen till now.

Now, let us turn to yet another very interesting angle of language, which is that of learning,
how does language learning take place?

So, in this segment, we will look at a few important points in this domain. So, we will start
with language acquisition in children. Typically, when we are talking about language
acquisition in children, we will be referring to first language acquisition. So, within first
language acquisition, there are various standpoints theoretically, some of them are belong
to one category of theory, some of them belong to another category of theories.

And ultimately, more or less, it all, we can categorize them, the various theoretical
positions can be categorized either belonging to the nature or the nurture part of the nature-

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nurture debate. So, while talking about these theories, we will look at only few of the
scholars we will be able to look at, but the most important ones among them will be
Skinner, Chomsky, Luria, Vygotsky, Piaget, Sellers, Bandura, Bruner and so on.

And then, we will be talking about language acquisition in terms of social cognition. And
of course, there are very two very important concepts as far as language acquisition is
concerned, the notion of ‘critical period hypothesis’ and the idea of ‘the theory of mind’.
So, theory of mind and its role in language development in terms of both typical and
atypical children will also be covered in short.

And then, we will move on to on the role of ‘joint attention’ as in how attentional
mechanism in terms of joint attention in case of children, shape the way language
acquisition takes place. And then, we will conclude with some of the recent latest
developments in this domain, as to where research is today as we speak. This is the
roadmap we will follow.

Now, first language acquisition. Children learn language under normal circumstances, this
is not this is a no brainer. Every normally developing child learns to speak and masters
language within a very short period of time. So, it is understood that this capacity to learn
language is innate, humans are born with the capacity to speak. Of course, as we have seen
in the introductory lectures, that language may not be entirely, exclusively human, but
largely, the complexities of various kinds of you know language manipulation, with
respect to various other factors might be human.

So, this is the capacity that is understood to be an a very important part of human being
human if not , an exclusive criteria. So, but the type of language that one will speak is not
pre-decided, it depends on the kind of circumstances one is born into. And there are stages
of development: starts with you know babbling, cooing and one word stage to two word
stage and so on and so forth; that is stages of development that is also universal, almost
universal there are children everywhere speak learn to speak in the same way.

However, it is on the surface, a very simple affair, every child learns to speak, normally
speaking under normal circumstances, every child learns to speak and that too remarkably
fast. But that is exactly where the question is, how is it that a very complex phenomena of
language, a complex phenomena of the understanding of the rules of language as well, as

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in the structural rules of language, as well as the usage of the same tool, how is it that it is
done it is mastered in such a remarkably short span of time.

Now, compare this, compare language learning with respect to any other complex learning
mechanism, for example, mathematics. Children master mathematics at a much later stage
as opposed to language. So, that is what! Language is a complex phenomenon, it is not a
simple thing it though it is it appears simple, but we have already seen through various
aspects of it that it is not simple at all. There are so many layers to it, there are so many
interactions to master and so on and so forth. So, how is it, how is it done?

So, that is where the primary debate has always been, primary scientific inquiry has been
as to how children do, what they do with respect to language. Children master language at
a very remarkably fast pace; by the age 5 or 5, they are fluent speakers of whatever
language they are born into. So, that is where thea large number of theoretical standpoints
have come into being.

And there are the linguists and psychologists, most notably psychologists, most of the
theories have come from psychology, and also from linguistics to try and find out what is
the underlying mechanism that makes children master language, even when the other
complex mechanisms do not seem to be doing so well with children it takes much longer
time for example, mathematics.

So, before we go into the details of each of these stalwarts who talked about and who have
given us theoretical understanding as to how this probably happens, let us just look at, let
us try to kind of box them into types of theories. So, on the at the be at the beginning we
will talk about the behaviorism, the theory of behaviorism. We have already this discussed
about behaviorism in the introductory part.

Behaviorism was one of the most important, most influential theoretical standpoint in
psychology till 1950’s, 60’s or so which believed that the human behavior is what we need
to study, and that behavioral output is a result of an input system. So, there is a stimulus-
response sort of a loop that is at the core of various learning processes of humans and that
included language.

So, language is taught; language is taught by the teachers, by the parents, by any other
caregiver and so on and so forth. So, within this larger umbrella term, we will discuss

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about Skinner, B F Skinner, the most well-known of them and of course, Albert Bandura.
And then, we will move on to nativist theory of language, which primarily owes its
existence to Chomsky, Noam Chomsky who opined that children are born with a language
learning faculty, the ‘Language Acquisition Device’ which he called language acquisition
device in the beginning, later on he called it Universal Grammar.

So, we are all hardwired to learn language, it cannot be taught to us. The environment may
be a supplementary input, but environment does not teach us to speak, we are already pre
decided predetermined to be able to speak, the mechanism, the grammar is already there.

And then, we will move on to talk about constructivists. So, language learning in as per
them is a part of cognitive, general cognitive mechanism and language learning is
‘constructed’ through interaction with various of various types. So, here we will discuss
Luria, Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner and so on.

So, let us start with behaviorism. As we have just said that B. F. Skinner was one of the
most well-known among the behaviorist theories theorists and who talked about language
in terms of stimulus-response systems. So, he says that language can be taught, children
are taught to speak by the primary caregivers, by the people around them, the teachers, the
parents and so on.

So, we teach children the ‘say this’ and the child says that and then when so, this is a
stimulus response. The stimulus is given by the teacher, the child gives the response and
then, there is also a feedback loop. So, if the child does correctly, if the response is correct
with respect to the stimulus, there is a positive reinforcement, the child is encouraged,
child is rewarded in some sense, child is you know praised and so on.

So, these are positive reinforcements. So, the child understands that this is how it is to be
done and then, if there is a wrong response to the stimulus, then there is a negative
reinforcement, the correction, the teacher will correct the child and then gradually, child
will learn not to utter that. So, basically this is a imitation, kind of a imitation process that
the child goes through.

So, language learning, as a result of this is like any other skill, any other skill that is learned
through observation, imitation, repetition, errors, rewards and punishments. So, this is the;
this is the entire frame within which language learning takes place as per the behaviorist

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theories. So, the child will observe, imitate and then, there is a repetition that the child will
make and if there is a correct repetition, he or she gets praised, if it is wrong, then he or
she gets punished and then, the cycle goes on and this is how language is learnt.

Skinner called it ‘operant conditioning’. So, this kind of conditioning is at the root of; at
the root of language learning. Also here, we can also mention Pavlov, the ‘classical
conditioning’ all of us know about the Pavlov’s experiment on the dog that there is a
particular time when the bell rings and the dog gets food and over a period of time, even
in even in absence of food, the dog still salivates when the bell rings. So, that is another
kind of conditioning. So, ‘conditioning’ is a an important aspect of behaviorism and in
terms of language learning, this is how the loop really works.

So, habit formation and imitation method of second language acquisition also is part of
this. So, while teaching second language, the same kind of methodology is used in the
teaching material to create a habit, as we have seen that habit formation and imitation is
the fundamental rule. So, same thing if you take to second language acquisition, this basic
idea has been imported there as well in the in terms of audiolingual method of language
teaching.

Yet another important scholar is Albert Bandura, who also largely speaking now, when we
say that both Skinner and Bandura can be understood as behaviorists, the we must
remember the one thing that they do not really agree on every point, on every aspect of
this methodology. There are finer differences, there are finer nuances within each of them,
but largely they can be; they can be considered to be part of behaviorist theory may be
behaviorist agenda so to say.

So, Bandura also believed that children can acquire language through ‘vicarious learning’
which is also it is his most famous theory is that of social learning theory which is the same
thing. So, social learning theory is quite similar to Skinner’s behaviorist theory because it
talks about reward and punishment. So, there is an output by the child and then, there is a
reward, and which means that if this behavior gets reinforced and if there is a punishment,
the behavior does not get to get reinforced.

So, though his theory is similar with behaviorist theory of learning, however, Bandura
makes a very significant contribution here and in terms of, there is a slight difference
between him and Skinner. Because Bandura talks about cognitive conditioning, cognitive

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processes, he includes cognitive processes as part of the language learning mechanism.
And he makes it very clear that internal brain mechanisms, internal mental mechanism,
cognitive mechanisms are at the root of language learning features, language and learning
mechanism that the children put into practice.

So, he added along with previously existing ‘classical conditioning’ and ‘operant
conditioning’, he added two more processes he called them ‘mediating process’ and
‘observational learning’ to the existing two types of conditioning. So, basically, there is a
mediation and there is also an observational learning which means that the person the
learner is given some amount of autonomy which is where one important difference
between him and Skinner lies.

Skinner does not give any autonomy to the learner, it is kind of a stimulus response system
entirely governed by the teaching method. But he firmly believes, Bandura firmly believes
that social learning is and very very is a very very important criteria and says that it has
four, it is a four stage process, it has and he names them attention, retention, motor
reproduction and motivation, this is how it can be reproduced.

So, these are the four stages of learning language, as per Bandura is concerned. So, you
may notice that there is attention is one important aspect here which as we will see as we
move on, that many many theorists, many cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists and
linguists have agreed on this aspect, that attention plays an extremely important role in
learning language as in as it does in all other language processing mechanisms.

So, observes the child, the learner observes others’ behavior, pays attention, observing
means you pay attention, so, that is when you observe so, paying attention and then the
child retains those information that is important for future reference. And then of course,
the motor reproduction, as in the output and then, motivation so, this is where the
motivation part is where Bandura and Skinner agree. However, in the in terms of the
cognitive representation, there is a slight difference. So, that is about behaviorism.

Now, we will talk about Noam Chomsky, the towering figure of modern linguistics. So,
Chomsky is credited with the creation of this generative school of linguistics. Chomsky’s
criticism, scathing attack on B F Skinner basically was one of the major reasons of behind
the gradual disappearance of behaviorism to a large extent, as we have seen in the
introductory lecture along with Lashley and others.

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So, Chomsky attacked the behaviorist theory by saying that there is something called a
‘poverty of stimulus’; one cannot possibly, it is not humanly possible to teach the children
all the possible utterances in a particular language. The child that grows up by the time of
it is at attains 5 years of age, the child starts speaking, child starts producing sentences that
it has never heard of.

So, if language is entirely dependent on stimulus and response system, how does it, how
does a child produce sentences that it has never heard of? How does it create complex
sentences? How does it give you know produce sentences that are you know in
formulations that that they have never been taught explicitly? So, that cannot be, stimulus
response system as a result of which is a cannot cannot explain how children are capable
of doing that.

And we all know that it is true, children are capable of, how often you will see we will be
astonished as you know when the child is beginning to speak, one fine day the child comes
up with a very complex sentence, with a very you know interesting formulation, sentence
formulation, syntactic structure which we nobody or none of us would have ever spoken
to him or her.

So, there are this kind of the he pointed out various such problems with the Skinner’s the
theory and he brought in the idea that it is ‘innate’, you cannot teach, all we can do is there
are certain stimulus in the environment that are probably important, but not as important
as the innate ability of the child to learn and speak language. So, that there is an in know
an ‘universal grammar’ that all of us are our brains are embedded with. So, there is a
structure, there is an algorithm that makes us learn language, though not somebody
teaching us, this is the primary understanding of Chomsky’s innateness hypothesis.

So, and this particular mechanism that what he called LAD in the beginning and later on
universal grammar is that this is responsible for language learning, nothing else. And he
also made a very important observation, very important standpoint in terms of language
functions that it is modular in nature. Meaning that, the brain, the that aspect of language
mechanism in the brain is insulated from other mental functions, it does not have to depend
on any other mental or cognitive functions in order to be useful. So, language function is
complete in itself, it has a modular structure.

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So, these are the two important, most important contributions of Chomsky in terms of
language learning. So, innateness hypothesis, that children are born with the capacity and
therefore, they will anyway speak with or without teaching, and secondly, language is
modular, it does not depend on any other mental mechanism. And he also gave primary
importance to syntax, sentence structure, not meaning, meaning was not really useful as
far as Chomsky is concerned.

Similarly, we also have Sellars, who is again there are differences between them, there are
not exact they do not talk about the same things, but largely, Sellars also believes in
Chomsky’s innateness hypothesis, however, he has his own way of presenting it. So, he
says that there is a prior abstract knowledge before the acquisition of language, this is
where that that is where the innateness hypothesis comes in.

Sellars compares language to games, in which thoughts, assertions etc. are positions and
communication, interaction, intelligibility etcetera are the goal. So, it is like a game,
language is like a game where there are there is a interaction of various kinds between
these two segments. So, what is important according to Sellars, is how we learn to move
from one position to another.

So, he suggests that the distinction between pattern governed and rule governed behavior.
A competent language user, without intention exhibits pattern governed behavior that is
what he says. Whereas a beginner language game player initially will recognize the rules
in the linguistic pattern and gradually becomes competent, as he understands, as he
acquires a clear understanding of the game of the rules and so on.

So, Sellars and Chomsky both agree on the innateness aspect of it, but Sellars gives a
different slightly different take on this in terms of language being like a game, where there
is a difference between pattern and pattern understanding and rule understanding. Now,
we come to the constructivists. The constructivists are those psychologists is primarily a
group of psychologists who have talked about how language is learned and what are the
mechanisms in terms of a kind of a construction theory.

So, the primary understanding of this standpoint is that the knowledge resides in the human
mind, knowledge is there. So, this is understood to be a cognitive mechanism, knowledge
is there in the brain, it but it is constructed. We are not we do not come prepared with all
the rules and everything in place, it is not we are not a finished product. Human beings

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have their brains where knowledge is stored, where knowledge originates. However, that
knowledge is constructed, it is a; it is a process, it is not a given so, it is neither innate nor
it is passively absorbed.

So, innate it when we talk about innateness of course, we go back to Chomsky and his
followers and if we talk about you know passively a passive absorption of knowledge, we
talk about the behaviorists. So, cognitive constructivists differ from both of these in the
sense that they talk about knowledge being constructed by the agent himself, agent as in
the human being, the learner, the person who is constructing knowledge. So, the learner
has an active role in this particular theoretical understanding.

The learner gradually builds up knowledge upon the foundation of previous experience.
So, as we go on and on, we on the first experience, we gain some knowledge, keep it
stored, there is another set of experience, we match them and then, build up on that you
know build up on that understanding on the, as we have from the previous experience and
so on and on. So, it is a gradual process, it is a continuous process where the learner has
an active role to play.

The psychologist supporting constructivism believe that cognitive development takes

place in tandem with the agent’s reaction with the world, whether it is the natural world or
the socio-cognitive, socio-cultural world and so on and so forth. So, there are slight
differences among them as well as we will see.

So, though not many actually consider Luria as among the constructivist, but we will still
include him in this group, because he also talks about how the understanding of a child, of
the children’s understanding of various kinds of skills also depend on many other factors.
So, it is something that you know there are mental mechanisms through which the child
functions and as a result of which it is also part of you know ‘constructing knowledge’.
So, that is why we have included Alexander Luria here.

So, he was a German neuropsychologist in fact, Alexander Luria is considered the father
of modern neuropsychology and a large part of his work was the result of his duty as a
doctor for his treatment of the injured soldiers of Second World War. So, the lot of soldiers
who were who had brain injury, he was treating them and this is when he realized, he was
this is when he actually did a lot of his studies on how the brain functions and brain regions
and the experiences and the interaction between them actually work out.

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So, his ‘functional organization of the brain is one of his major contribution to
neuropsychology and where he showed that there is a dynamic reaction between,
interaction between experience and the brain structure which is something that is taken as
a given today, but during Luria’s time, it was not. So, that is where his contribution makes
a lot of sense.

So, psychology of in terms of language, in term in terms of psychology of language, he

talked about he studied about the functions and dysfunctions in terms of language. And his
he has in fact, give his contribution is immense in terms of finding out various kinds of
aphasias, So, he gives a long list of aphasias of various types and in terms of sensory,
semantic and motor aphasia.

But what we are interested here in this particular segment, we are not talking about aphasia
as of now so, we are talking we will be talking about the cognitive processes, the model of
cognitive process that Luria gave us. So, he says that language and in general,
psychological processes, are represent brain functional systems. So, what we see, the
output, the language or any other mental function is basically a result of the functional
system in the brain, in the; in the physical brain.

So, brain areas, various brain areas work together to any for any particular function to be
carried out, including language. So, this is an important observation. Of course, again
today, we know it as a as almost like a common sense, but at that time, this was not so
commonly understood. So, he says that brain different brain regions, different neuronal
networks come together to carry out one simple, one single function, mental function, it
can be language, it can be any other function.

And he gives this types of, this is a structure that attention, arousal, motivation, planning
and processing as the finer aspects of that process.

So, there is that there is this you know the various nodes of particular process that attention,
attention is like when you, this is actually this model was of course, not given by Luria,
but it is based on his understanding, it came out slightly later by Naglieri and Das, he they
created the PASS model. This is the pass model basically refers to planning, attention,
simultaneous and successive processing as to how, what is the core of mental mechanism,
what is the core of any kind of psychological process, be it language, be it anything else,
you need to have certain, you know, the segmentation is like this.

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So, one the first and foremost is paying attention. Remember Bandura also retains this,
Bandura is a later psychologist so, he also retains the ‘attention’ part. So, attention, paying
attention is the first important, most important basic understanding, basic ingredient for
any kind of process to be initiated. So, first to pay attention, what is it and then, there is an
arousal as in what to do with it and then of course, there is a motivation and planning and
processing.

So, based on Luria’s idea, PASS model of cognitive assessment was created later during
his lifetime, but by some of his followers. So, this is how the PASS model looks, this is
from this the credit goes to Naglieri and Das.

So, the stages are like this. So, there is an input, from the sensory organs and then, there is
a processing where you have sorting, analyzing and interpreting and then, there is an output
which is the behavior of any kind of action. And arousal basically refers to the mind getting
alert as to asking for asking what is it? What is it that has to be done? So, it is questioning
the input.

And then, attention of course, it is orienting attention to the same thing and survey is the
surveys what is what has come in just now from the sensory input. And then, lexical
ambiguities can be processed simultaneously whereas, syntactic ambiguity of deep
structure and surface structure can be understood as successive processes. Remember
PASS models simultaneous and successive processes.

So, there are so, there is input, there is a processing with respect to arousal and attention
and then, there is a processes either it is simultaneous. So, in terms of language function,
some language functions can be considered simultaneous like for example, lexical
ambiguity understanding and syntactic ambiguity in terms of deep and surface structure is
considered to be successive. So, basically this is what; this is what Luria talks about in
terms of language function.

So, this structure remains same, some of the aspects may be highlighted in case of language
or some other aspects can be highlighted for any other kind of mental mechanism, but the
structure, the thematic structure remains the same. So, here he studied he actually studied
arousal, motivation and dialogue in spontaneous speech, to arrive at what is understood to
be ‘automatic verbal behavior’. So, what we see as an automatic verbal behavior has you
know and in the background, this kind of processes which he actually studied.

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And he also teamed up with Vygotsky and carried out a lot of work on social, cultural,
influences in language as well. However, after Vygotsky’s moved on, he concentrated on
other areas due to, also there were some other problems. So, anyways so, through these
investigations, he arrived at the conclusion that language cannot be a studied
independently but must be tied to understanding cognition, that is exactly why we are
talking about Luria.

Even though he has not been called a constructivist as such, he is one of the first
psychologist, neuropsychologist to talk about language in terms of other mental functions.
Remember, Chomsky does not agree, Chomsky says language function is complete in
itself. However, Luria going back to Luria he says that language cannot simply be
understood in terms of it itself alone, it has to be understood.

So, basically that is where the attention and the planning, these are not language, these are
not language independent functions, these are other mental functions like psychological
functions, cognitive functions that are not,(these are)nonlinguistic in nature. But the in
order to in order to give us what is considered automatic verbal output, we need the help
of these kinds of various other mental mechanisms.

Also, we need to look at the input system, input as in from the sensory input whether it is
visual or auditory or you know tactile or whatever all these kinds of input information is
also important and then, we need to collaborate with the output mechanism, sensory motor
mechanism, in order to have an output. So, those things need to be taken together if we
have to look at and if we have to really understand how language function works. So, that
is why that is what Luria talked about.

And then, we move on to yet another the towering figure, Jean Piaget. Jean Piaget was a
child psychologist and he stressed that language learning was an is an integral part of
cognitive development so, you see the similarity. And it is linked to biological maturation,
this is a very significant contribution of Piaget, he talks about that as a child matures
biologically, through stages of life, cognitive development also follows. And then,
language also figures in features in one part of that, during that developmental stage.

So, there are these 4 stages that Piaget talked about that is sensorimotor stage from birth
to 2 years of age and then, preoperational stage 2 to 7 years and then, it goes on like this.

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So, in the first stage, mental representation and schemas are formed. We did talk about
Piaget when we talked about image schemas that children when very small children,
infants in fact, when they interact with the world, the physical world, they their repeated
experiences do give rise to certain ‘schematic’ understanding of the world. So, there is a
thought process that is getting prepared, that is getting you know concretized at that stage,
when the child interacts with the physical world and forming those schemas of
experiences.

So, the child understands the world, understands the experiences through different kinds
of schematic representation that has already that we already have experimental evidence
now. And language starts to appear at the end of the first stage. So, all of us know that
children by the time they are 2 years of age, they are they are already in a in one or one-
word, two-word stages, they are already speaking. So, this is when the child realizes that
words can be used to represent those objects and feelings.

So, till now, it was prelinguistic stage, preverbal stage, it was only in terms of the
schematic representation. At the age of two onward, that representation gets a voice, so to
say it gets a label in terms of language. So, language now represents those very schematic
understanding that the child was already creating. So, thought in this case precedes
language as far as Piaget is concerned.

So, in this stage a child starts thinking, but the thought is egocentric, it is driven by self-
gain that is what as far as Piaget goes. Thus, according to Piaget, mental development
occurs before language development, a particular amount of mental development,
cognitive development is already in place before the child starts to speak.

He does not highlight the socio-cultural and environmental setting too much and because
thought is already thought precedes language so, language does not really influence
thought, as far as Piaget is concerned. So, according to Piaget, language is driven by
thought and mental development precedes language development. This is, in a nutshell,
what Jean Piaget talked about in terms of language development. So, that the schematics
structure is already there, thought processes are already quite to a large extent there and
then, the child starts to learn language when it is time.

Now, Vygotsky on the other hand, Lev Vygotsky based his theory on constructivist
learning, constructivist learning theory and put emphasis on culture and environment to a

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large extent. He stressed the importance of social environment in understanding human
interaction because the language is not spoken in a vacuum that we have already seen. So,
language is situated within a socio-cultural environment. And this is how the child learns
that this is; this is how the child’s the language development really takes place, with a
significant amount of input from the environment.

A child’s development appears on two planes as far as Vygotsky is concerned, social and
psychological plane and there is a strong relationship between these two. So, on the
psychological level, of course, there are those cognitive development that is happening
stage by stage, but the same time and at the social level at the social plane also, child is
constantly getting input from outside world and this strengthens his cognitive
development.

So, according to Vygotsky’s philosophy, language plays a crucial role in shaping the overt
behavior of an individual as well as influencing the covert behavior, that is thinking.

So, in fact, he talks about private speech and then, he says that private speech later on
develops into what is it kind of goes underground and it becomes ‘thought’ that is what is
covert behavior. Overt behavior is the language output and the covert behavior is basically
thought. And he also talks about, he gives various other kinds of ideas also in terms of ZP;
ZPD and scaffolding and so on and so forth, all these basically refer to the socio-cultural
conditioning that the child goes through.

So, this is a very crucial for skill development of a child, which the child can use for
developing higher mental functions on his own. So, this view expresses the idea that an
individual’s experiences form and shape the behavior of that particular person.

So, this is inner and private speech. Vygotsky also gave an importance to the inner speech
of the person, the private speech of a child and he says that there is the transition between
social and inner speech is very important and this private speech diminishes as the child
grows gradually after a period of time and then, it kind of becomes his thought process.
So, it becomes the inner speech or the verbal thought.

So, we have already seen that within the, within the constructivist theory, there are many
people however, they all are not, they do not all talk about the same thing in the same way.
Of course largely, there is a there is a common understanding, that knowledge like any

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other knowledge language also, language learning is also a constructive mechanism, it is
the learner constructs the knowledge of language in terms of both psychological and social
input.

So, psychologically there are cognitive developments of stages and then, the child actively
interacts with the natural world as well as with the social world. And in it is a an interaction,
dynamic interaction, between these various inputs that the child constructs, is his own
understanding of a particular skill, the skill development whether it is language or
otherwise. However, there are some finer nuances, some finer differences, though they
have been mentioned before, but this gives you this is a chart form that gives better that
highlights those points.

So, biological maturation in terms of Piaget is what leads to cognitive development, but
Vygotsky thinks society and cultural environment leads to cognitive development and so
on, there are many of these things. Activity as far as Piaget is concerned should be
individual, but Vygotsky stresses on the social activity that the child interacts with the
other people in the environment, with other you know socio cultural aspect of his
environment not just himself and the natural environment and so on.

Similarly, there are differences between Sellars and Bandura and so on.

And then of course, there is Jerome burner, who again has given us a three-stage
developmental trajectory of children. So, in the first stage, it is inactive stage which is
psychomotor stage followed by iconic stage when the visual imagery emerges and then,
the symbol symbolic stage that is when abstract image and language comes in.

So, basically to summarize, that there are of course, this is the list is not exhaustive here
even there are many more scholars, Lenneberg for example. But roughly, if we look at the
primary take-away from these various theoretical standpoints, there is on the one hand the
universal grammar, the proponents of universal grammar that says, that believes that
language is a task too demanding to acquire without specific innate equipment.

So, there must be a language component in the brain, which is enough, you know it has
there has to be, because it is too complex a mechanism without a dedicated equipment for
this. On the other hand, constructivists underline the importance of linguistic input along

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with general cognitive mechanism and social interactions. So, the this is the primary
difference between the two types of theories.

However, let us not forget that Chomsky also agrees that the social environment, the
linguistic environment is also important, it is not that it is not important at all, but he gives
more importance to the mechanism that we are born with. But on the other hand,
constructivists do not believe in an innate grammar, they believe that this is constructed,
the child’s language learning, the child’s understanding of language and its usage and so
on, all the different facets of a complex mechanism called language is constructed, actively
constructed by the learner by these kind of various interactions.

Now, yet another important aspect when you talk about language learning in case of
children is the notion that of ‘critical period hypothesis’.

What is critical period? Critical period is basically a biological thing, a biological notion
that there is a very small, temporal window in the postnatal, early postnatal life of
biological entities, where certain specific skill sets should be in place. For example, birds
that the chicks of birds must learn to fly at a particular within a particular short span of
time, after hatching. Similarly, the hunters the should also learn to hunt in at a very within
a specific time so, this is the critical period.

So, this is a temporal time window in early postnatal life, when specific experiences are
crucial for the development of certain skills. And for many other less complex nervous
systems, like animals with less complex nervous system, behavioral repertoire, like
foraging, fighting strategies etcetera are developed by intrinsic developmental
mechanisms and are in place early.

So, because these are innate mechanisms, it is understood that any innate mechanism, so
for a bird to fly is an innate mechanism, for a predator to be able to hunt is ah is an instinct,
it is innate. So, those innate capacities must be in place at a very early stage of life, this is
what is what critical period is all about. And nervous systems of complex mechanism,
complex animals like with higher animals, are influenced by particular circumstances and
these experiences are crucial for the development of those innate capacities.

For example, birds, in case of birds, imprinting happen in a severely restricted time
window in early postnatal period of life.

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In terms of humans, in case of humans, because language is understood to be one of those
innate capacities in like many other animals have. So, we have language as an innate
capacity so, it must also be following a particular critical period, critical period of learning
beyond which it is not possible. So, language learning, because it is already innately
guided, it is dependent on this time of type of time window and this is what is so called
critical period hypothesis.

But it is slightly more difficult in case of humans to delimit, as to what is exactly the time
window. There is no pinpointed time that we get, there is a lot a lot of disagreements, some
scholars agree that the critical period for language learning ends at 10 years of age, some
says pre-puberty so, 12 years of age and so on and so forth. But beyond so, it is there is a,
but there is a time window, within which the children must be able to have the entire
language skills in skill set in place.

So, but is it really the case, how do we know that there is a critical period in terms of
learning language for children? There were some cases of feral children which have
strengthened this idea of critical period hypothesis that if the children do not learn language
within a particular specific point time window, they will never learn it.

One the most famous cases of feral children are that of Genie and Isabelle. Genie of course,
is not her real name, in the story of Genie is very famous, it happened in 1970’s, a severely
abused girl child, of an abusive father, who was brought up in a dark room without any
human contact till she was 13. So, she was discovered at the age of 13 so, she was already
in the teenage bracket, and she had as a result of which as a result of the abusive
upbringing, she did not learn any language.

So, nobody was allowed to talk to her and if she made any sound, any vocalization, she
was beaten very severely. So, after she was rescued, there were efforts to teach her
language, to teach her to speak and though she eventually learnt some aspects of language,
but she never ever mastered it. So, there are in fact, there are this case is has been so
complicated that initially, the scientists were allowed to work with her, but later on they
were not allowed and so on.

So, there are lots of controversies with respect to the claim that she even learnt anything
at all. But everybody agrees, all the scholars agree that even if she had learned the basics

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few words here and there, but she never was a proper, like good speaker of the language,
English language. This was one case, and she was discovered at 13 years of age.

Now, there was another case of Isabelle. Again, an abusive upbringing where she was
present in a dark room till the age of 7. So, her only human contact was her deaf and mute
mother and as he as a result of which she had no language. So, when she was found, she
was thought to be deaf and mute, like her mother because she could only make some sort
of noises and had an extremely low IQ and so on. So, her mental age was you know placed
somewhere around one and a half years of age.

However, after being rescued, she was put through an intense amount of training and she
later on got up and learned to speak. So, the success of Isabelle and the failure with respect
to Genie actually have strengthened the critical period hypothesis to a large extent.
Because Genie was discovered after at 13 so, which is beyond the critical period of
learning language, critical time window of learning language and Isabelle was discovered
before that so, at age 7, so, she could still be taught.

So, this was these this these instances had strengthened the idea that there is, in fact, a
critical time window within which language must be understood. So, that it so, that is that
means, there is a certain amount of rigidity in the human brain with respect to language
learning capacity.

So, the we also find out later on that language dependent on auditory vocal loop are found
to be represented in particular cortical regions for all of us, auditory vocal loop as in when
language is spoken and heard. The same cortical regions, same areas in the brain, same
areas in the surface of the brain, in the cortex of the brain, are also found to be representing
language for native speakers of sign language, American sign language.

So, language, not only the spoken language, the verbal language, but also the sign
language, are represented in a particular brain region, meaning that there is an abstract
representation in the brain of language, rather than the ‘kind of language’. So, this points
to the fact that the left hemispheric specialization is a characteristic feature of language
itself, language in its abstract form.

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Like what Chomsky said that there is an abstract form, there is an algorithm sort of thing
that is there in the brain and not a byproduct of sensorimotor factors. So, this is the brain,
the rigidity of the brain structure, that we are referring to.

However, there is also a you know plethora of data coming in from neuroscience;
neurosciences and neuropsychology where we see that the brain is also capable of showing
remarkable amount of plasticity. So, where do we find those? One of the most critical
proof of this was found in the study by Sadato et al 1996, where they found that blind
individuals who are asked to discriminate Braille dots, have significantly higher blood
flow compared to sighted controls in the visual cortex.

What is happening here is that primary visual cortex is useful, it is the area, it is the brain
area that processes visual information coming in through the visual apparatus, from our
eyes. So, whatever information we get from our eyes is getting process, does get processed
in the visual cortex. In case of blind individuals, that part, of course, is not useful for the
same kind of stimulus.

So, what is happening in this particular case was that when those same the people who are
visually challenged, were asked to discriminate Braille dots, basically reading Braille
something in Braille, those that particular experience, the tactile input, tactile sensory input
was getting processed in the visual cortex. Now, how is it possible that the visual cortex
which is not any more useful for visual input is being used for tactile inputs.

If the brain was rigid, if the brain regions are rigid, this could not be possible, but this has
been possible. This the study showed that this is the case so, the visual cortex was getting
activated by touch which means the brain is plastic, brain can show a lot of plasticity.

In the domain of language, research has proved brain plasticity with regard to learning
languages as well. So, there are many various outputs, we will discuss only a few here one
of them is Tallal et al’s study, that shows that extensive training in rate modified speech
and temporal discrimination to language learning impaired children, resulted in them
learning language.

So, if you modify the rate of speech and the temporal segmentation, temporal
discrimination, it is possible to teach children who are otherwise you know who are
otherwise showing impairment in language learning. And that and she has her group

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showed that this is possible even in case of children, who have crossed the critical age of
learning language, the critical period or time window.

Similarly, there was another study, that reported where a child had her damaged left
hemisphere removed, our left hemisphere, we speak with our left hemisphere so to say.
So, the language areas are situated in the left hemisphere of our brain. Now, there was a
child who had her left hemisphere was severely damaged and it had to be finally, surgically
removed, the left hemisphere is removed.

This child goes on to learn language at the age of 9 years, like after the age of 9 years that
is that was that is that when the experiment had the surgery happened. So, this suggests
that see when the left hemisphere, which is responsible for language learning is removed
entirely, which means that this child learnt language with her right hemisphere which is
not the traditionally believed domain of brain that is responsible for learning language.

So, if the brain is not you know does is not capable of plasticity, this will not happen. But
it has already happened, the study has already proved that. So, this suggests that language
can be learnt with the residual abilities of the right hemisphere if the inhibitory effects of
damaged left hemisphere is removed, even at an advanced stage. In terms of language
learning ability, age 9 is quite late, because till then, she had not learnt anything because
the left hemisphere was damaged.

So, which means that inability to learn a new language at a later stage in life may be
because of reasons other than critical periods. So, there are some proof coming from this
kind of various studies that show that it is possible, it is possible to learn language at a
later stage of life and it is possible to master the language probably also. However, they
may not be the reason may not be a critical period, reason may be somewhere else.

In this case, in this child’s case, it was the brain the damaged left hemisphere, in some
other case something else, which can be corrected because the brain is remarkably plastic,
it cannot be. Because the plasticity we will discuss in the next in yet another segment in
more detail where we will see that brain is remarkably plastic, it has it can adapt to a lot
of demanding scenarios so, it is it cannot be possible that language cannot be learnt, it is
another skill set, it can be certainly learnt.

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However, latest findings, but research in this domain is still going on and we have new
evidence every other day that informs us about finer nuances in within this domain. And
latest some latest findings suggest that critical period may not hold for language learning
as a whole, as in one will not be able to learn language at all, that kind of position is too
strong to take.

However, there might be some aspects of language, some grammatical aspects of language
that might get affected. So, it might so, ultimately critical period might hold, but only for
certain grammatical aspects, what not language learning as a whole. So, within even within
grammatical aspect, a smaller, some smaller aspects of grammaticality that might get
affected. So, this is about critical period hypothesis which is a very important notion in
terms of language learning.

Another understand, another theoretical standpoint with respect to children’s development,

because we are looking at language and development language line learning, acquisition
in children in terms of various other kinds of developments as well. It is almost in it is not
possible to differentiate that from other mental abilities. So, there is another notion called
theory of mind.

So, what is theory of mind? This is a very very important socio-cognitive skill, this is
something this is at the root of human behavior, at the root of human mental capacities and
it involves developing a sense of what others are thinking. We automatically know by
looking at another person, what he or she might be thinking and what we can predict the
behavior of others and so on. So, this helps us form our responses in a given scenario. So,
this is critic and this is a theory of mind.

So, this is not something we are born with, humans are not born with the understanding
that people have unique beliefs and thoughts, this is a learnt behavior. In that in childhood,
children do not know, very small children do not understand that what she is thinking is
not the same as what another person is thinking. So, this is a learnt behavior. Hence,
‘Theory of Mind’ is learnt.

This stage is arrived at through various developmental stages that a child goes through.
This includes the notion of attention, that is something we will bring up again and again
attention and intention of others as well as imitation of others’ mental states.

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First stage is that of attention. Children learn very early that looking is not just seeing, but
also a tool to be selectively used for to gathering information. In fact, remarkably
remarkable findings in this domain has come out that children who are very small like
infants, 4 to 6 months old infants, understand that attention is a crucial. So, they know that
how to channel others’ attention as well. So, they know that looking is not just seeing, but
also a tool that can be used for getting more information about that particular aspect in the
scene.

So, they have been found to be utilizing this mechanism to in their parents to get attention
to themselves. As early as 7 to 9 months of age, children are capable of understanding
attention in others, the behavior shows that. The development of this social skill is an
important predecessor to developing ‘theory of mind’, ToM as we call them and Simon
Barron Cohens contribution in this domain is immense.

So, this is the beginning part. So, children start understanding that there is a mechanism of
attention, they understand their own attention that they can actually get more information
by paying attention to certain things, they can also modulate their parent’s attention
towards themselves by using those skills. And this is on which the later on theory of mind
is built upon.

This stage is followed by acting and knowing that people can act on that, catches their
attention so, goal directed behavior starts from that particular aspect. This behavior is
dependent upon intention so, attention followed by action and intention and people can
have various different kinds of intentions and therefore, different behaviors. These are the
components that gradually give rise to what we understand as theory of mind.

So, imitation is often understood to be another important aspect; however, there are
disagreements among researchers on this. Children use pretend play, all of us have seen
children playing know like kings and queens and teachers and students. So, pretend play
is a very very important and integral aspect of children’s development, this is the time that
reflects, that shows us that they have developed the understanding that different mental
states are related to, attributable to, different characters.

So, they know how a teacher will behave and how the teacher’s behavioral output is
depends on the intention and attention mechanism of the teacher. So, the teacher
understands things like this, which is different from the students in the same given bigger

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scene. So, by the time, children are capable of pretend playing, we understand that that
they have the ‘theory of mind’ in place. This is something that is common and taken for
granted however, this does not happen all the time.

So, theory of mind refers to the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and to others.
The idea that others have intents, beliefs, pretentions, knowledge etcetera and that these
can be different from one’s own. So, we have a mental state, another person has another
mental state which includes all these attributes, pretension, belief, knowledge and so on.

In normal population, this grows by the time the humans are about, human child is about
5 years of age. This is when they start and the pretend playing. However, atypical
population, like children suffering from ADHD, autism spectrum disorder etcetera are
shown to have delayed development of this attribute.

So, it entails what critical what theory of mind basically entails is that other people have
thoughts, beliefs etcetera. In short that mind that can be different from our own. So, mental
states there are differences in mental states, as a result of which mental states because
mental states cause behavior so, this difference in mental states can also cause difference
in behavior. And once one understands that one can also predict the behavioral output in
another person. This is not just human, this is not exclusively human, this is also found in
many other primates, even birds and rodents.

So, we will look at the some experimental details of theory of mind development in
children in the next part.

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 Language, Culture and Cognition: An Introduction
Prof. Bidisha Som
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati

Module - 05
Part - 02
Lecture - 12
Language acquisition contd

Welcome back. We are in the module 5. In part 1 of module 5, we have looked at various
issues with regard to Language acquisition. Primarily, first language acquisition and
various factors that are integral part of language acquisition at that particular stage. So, we
talked about critical period hypothesis, we talked about how the stages of language
development are, and then what are the theoretical standpoints and so on.

We have also introduced the idea of the Theory of Mind, what is a theory of mind? And
we have seen that Theory of Mind basically is a precursor to a properly developed social
cognition in children. Social cognition is the understanding of faiths and belief system,
and intention and you know, predicting the behavior of others and so on and so forth.

Understanding oneself within a larger domain of constantly interacting individuals,

constantly interacting organisms, and with respect to certain kinds of rules and regulations
and so on and so forth. So, being aware of your circumstances, surroundings and so on is
what basically refers to social cognition. So, we have seen that Theory of Mind is the
primary building block of that particular aspect of cognitive mechanism in human children.
And also that theory of mind is developed pretty early in life.

So, now, we will take on we will move on with the same discussion and look at certain
other aspects of Theory of Mind. So, we have talked about what is theory of mind. Theory
of mind is about understanding that oneself, one’s own our mind has its own ideas, belief
system, behavioral pattern and so on and so forth. Similarly identifying that others also
have a set of belief, understanding and so on and so forth.

And, most crucially that these two can be different. So, my idea of a particular thing, my
belief about a particular thing can be different, my schema of understanding a particular
notion, particular event, people name it you name it anything else can be different from
the other person this is a very fundamental understanding with respect to human cognition.

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So, we have talked about the presence of this particular aspect in human children, but how
do we really check, how do we really find out whether a child is capable of exercising his
Theory of Mind. That the child is having a theory of mind of its of his own and how do we
really go about it in terms of research.

So, whether a child is developing normally can be ascertained from various factors; we all
know when we see children developing through stages of, you know linguistic
development, whether it is social development and so on and so forth. It is not very difficult
to tell that a particular child is typically growing and we can also differentiate between a
typically growing child and a non-typically growing child.

So, what are those factors that we immediately ascertain? Even if you are not a researcher
we all are capable of kind of pointing out the factors. So, what are those factors? Most
importantly one of the most important pointers for differentiation between typical and
atypical children will be language development.

So, language development we have seen that by the age of two, children are beginning to
speak in words and very fast, very quickly of after two years of age they will go on to the
sentence stages. So, language is one important aspect here, and another is social behavior
and there are of course, multitude of other factors as well.,

Now, we have already seen theory of mind as a precursor to social cognition. So, because
theory of mind precedes a fully developed social cognition as a result of which theory of
mind also gives us a very important indicator as to whether the child is growing normally
or not. Now Theory of Mind is an abstract notion it is a mechanism of the mind that makes
us do things, that makes us create self belief as well as understand others’ believe and so
on and so forth.

So, theory of mind per se cannot be checked. So, there are tasks that are designed around
that idea to check whether the child has developed his Theory of Mind or not; that is why
theory of mind is important even in this aspect. So, one of the most important test of theory
of mind for children is what is called the ‘false belief task’.

False belief task, typically, is designed to check if the child is and the child can show his
or her understanding of false belief, as in what is the belief system that he has can be

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different and the other person can be attributed a false belief, even when the child knows
it not to be true.

So, this false belief tasks are various, basically various versions of the initial false belief
task which was the Sally and Ann story. So, what is a Sally and Ann story? This is a
depiction of Sally and Ann story.

The child is shown these the this the picture cards and a series of events that takes place.
So, what happens is that there are two characters; there can be two dolls initially there were
two dolls, but now it can be also animated. So, there is a person called Sally and there is a
person called Anne.

As you can see that Sally puts her doll puts her red ball in the basket. So, there is a basket
and there is a box. So, Sally puts her red ball in the basket and then leaves the room, Ann
sees it happening, and once Sally goes out of the room and takes the ball and places it into
the box.

So, replaces the ball from the basket to the box. Basically what is happening here is, in
absence of Sally, Anne has moved to the location of the ball ,of the referent here which is
the ball. Now Sally comes back. Till here the child is shown the pictures and the event
series of event that is happening and then the question that will be put to the child is ‘where
do you think Sally will look for her ball?’ This is the question.

It is a very simple story very simple thing that is happening here, but the remarkable
finding in this kind of story in this false belief task is that children at age of 3 cannot pass
this task whereas, children at 4, can. So, basically what is happening here what do we mean
by passing the test? The test the child will pass the test, when he says he or she says that
the place where Sally will look for her ball is the basket.

Because Sally does not know the ball has moved, but children who are very small like 3
around 3 years or before 3 years of age they will say that the that she will look for the ball
in the box, because the child sees the box as the container of the ball right now. And he
she cannot ascribe the false belief in on to Sally.

So, taking off the belief system from one’s own self and imposing it on others is still there
and. So, this is a point where the child has not been able to differentiate between the mental

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states of the observer from the mental state of the other person, in this case Sally. So, Sally
has a different mental state as opposed to the child. Child has seen the ball moving, Sally
has not.

Very simple thing, very simple task; however, the remarkable finding is that irrespective
of language, cultural background or any other criteria children aged 4 can perform this task
correctly and flawlessly; however, children at around 3 years of age cannot, which tells us
that the understanding, the Theory of Mind basically takes place in children around the
age of 4. So, if a child cannot perform the false belief task correctly at age 4 then there is
something to be probed, that is the point here.

So, white why is there a particular age which is almost universal, that is at around age 4
children tend to develop the theory of mind. So, why is it like that? What is it about so,
what is it so special about age 4, that makes children grow up um makes children develop
theory of mind at that particular stage.

So, there are two primary theoretical assumption,s as to why it happens one has to do with
the language development. One school of thought, one particular theoretical aspect of it is
that children, this change from 3 year to 4 year in terms of acquisition of theory of mind,
is dependent on the child’s language development.

Because this is the age when the child starts mastering grammatical rules. In fact, complex
grammatical rules, that includes embedding in a sentence, embedding in tense,
complement clauses and so on and so forth. So, that is the complex grammatical structure
that the child masters as a result of which, it also has a an impact on the understanding of
belief. So, ‘I said to Ram that he was not capable of passing this exam because….’ and
like this; this kind of a complex embedded sentence. So, that each embedded clause has
its own subject object and a verb and so on and so forth and there is also a matrix clause.

So, by the time the child has mastered these grammatical rules of understanding the matrix
clause along with the embedded clauses and they are you know finer nuances it means that
is when the child is able to negotiate complex relationship between various agents and
their actions. And this is understood to be a reason why children develop theory of mind
also at the same time.

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This was the theory. However, we also have some counter to this theoretical standpoint;
there are some recent findings do not support this link between understanding sentence
complements and theory of mind. In fact, there have been studies that checked on young
children, who are very well, who do very well on syntax and semantic tasks are still not
able to pass the false belief task if they are around 3 years of age.

Because some children have faster language development as opposed to others. So, even
when children have mastered the complex grammatical rules of, you know, embedding
and difficult complex clauses, even then they are not able to pass the theory of mind task
I mean the false belief task at that age. So, this has to be something else. This is probably
not dependent on the language development, stages of language development.

So, the second theory is that; theory of mind develops at a time which is in conjunction
with other cognitive developments. So, this is the what are the other cognitive
developments? this is typically has to do with the inhibitory processes and pragmatic skills
of general purpose cognitive mechanism.

So, basically when the child, as we have seen by the theories of Jean Piaget that children
go through various stages of cognitive development. So, at this age, they are developing
the their inhibitory skills their executive function mechanism and other pragmatic skills.
So, that is when it goes, it is it goes without saying that this also has a result in developing
their theory of mind.

And there are of course, there are many final nuances in each of these theories, but this is
roughly the two assumptions with respect to why children develop theory of mind at a
particular age.

Now whatever the theoretical account is, it seems that the child’s performance on story
based theory of mind reasoning, depends on the child’s exposure to language exposure to
verbal communication verbal and non verbal communication systems that teaches them
that people have beliefs that are different from their own.

Now, this is a very big claim to make; what we are trying to say here is that irrespective
of whatever theory you go by, it is the it is certain that children do develop Theory of
Mind-based reasoning skills at a particular age. However, one interesting twist to is that,
language does have an impact even if it is not the grammatical aspect of language, but the

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exposure to conversations in the environment, its seems to be a very important pointer
towards developing of this kind of a reasoning system.

The reason being that conversations typically, more often than not humans talk about other
humans. More often than not only sages and great intellectuals will talk about great things,
but at a normal level, most people lesser mortals like us, we talk about other humans. So,
while we talk about other humans, what we are basically doing is we are talking about
different mental states as different from us or as similar to us.

So, we will talk about human agents as carrying different mental states, different belief
system, different understanding, different knowledge base and so on and so forth. So, this
is the important takeaway that children understand from those conversations and hence
conversations around children is extremely important to develop their theory of mind.

Now this is not entirely a just a speculation there is ah there is a very strong support
empirical support for this kind of a reason line of reasoning. This one of the strongest
support comes from data on, data that is from the work on deaf children from different
kinds of backgrounds. Deaf children from sign language environment versus deaf children
from verbal language environment.

So, deaf children from sign language environment have been found to be doing better in
theory of mind-based reasoning as opposed to deaf children from verbal language
environment. The reason is that deaf children from sign language environment have early
exposure to other’s conversation about peoples belief and so on.

And that is the reason they are understood to be doing better. In contrast deaf children of
hearing parents commonly do not are exposed to conversations early. The reason is that
the parents who are you know who have who are not deaf and mute, will be using verbal
language among themselves.

So, a lot of conversation that small children are exposed to are not directed at them. That
is a large number of it is the conversations that are happening around them, without
including the children. So, in case of deaf children with speaking parents, parents will be
talking among themselves or with other members of the family or whoever is their
environment; the deaf children being unable to take part or you know being included in

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the in that conversation, misses out on those crucial input of how humans talk about one
another and that is one reason.

So, that findings, finding has proven that this is the case. So, deaf children are doing
considerably worse in signing in the environment of spoking speaking parents as opposed
to deaf children in the sign language environment. Because sign language environment for
the other case where they are not doing well is an environment that they get only when
they go to school, special needs school for example. So, that is that delays the
conversational input for those children.

So, this is a very important domain from where proof for conversational, the language
environment in terms of conversation having a role in development of theory of mind has
been shown. So, to connects theory of mind and language we can say that mental states
cannot be observed directly, that is true for any kind of mental state. Whether it is theory
of mind or any other kind of state. So, nor there is any simple correlation between mental
states and observable behavior, there is no one-to-one mapping.

So, only valuable way to learn about this elusive content is to listen how people talk about
the mind, what we what do we say about what are the workings of the mind. So, research
in developmental psychology suggests the importance of verbal communication in
developing a theory of mind that we have already seen. Of course, this the data had spans
a all kinds of different domains of research. We have only given the example of deaf
children, but there are various other domains.

So, language ability seems to predict success in false belief task, independent of age. So,
there is this particular angle also; though in typical cases it is 4 years of age, but if you
will; if you will take other variables into consideration, then language ability is a very
crucial predictor of the theory of mind in irrespective of age also.

So, if a child who has not developed language as at par with his or her other children of
the same age, may also lack the development of theory of mind appropriate for his or her
age. So, it is not just the conversational input, but also language, the resultant language
developmental stages of the child that predicts the theory of mind relation theory of mind
development. So, this is how the relationship has been seen. And a similar correlation was
also found in both healthy children and children with autism and other developmental
disorder.

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So, language, there are two things here; one on the one hand, the environment in which
conversational input is a constant thing for the child, growing child that is one input which
results in development of language and which is a important predictor of the theory of
mind, of the development of theory of mind in children. And this is consistent in findings
across normal as well as atypical children. Atypical children as in children who have
certain kind of developmental disorder.

So, this is about Theory of Mind.

Let us now move on to yet another extremely important um aspect of language

development, in both children and adults. But we are mostly focusing on children here that
that is of joint attention. What is joint attention? It is very simple thing; joint attention
refers to the eye movement in which two people use their gaze or gestures to show an
object or event in the space, for the purpose of interaction.

So, basically when the there are two people or more than two people, they are talking about
the same thing they have to talk about the same thing. So, one person refers to it and the
other person’s attention is also drawn towards it. How do we know that the attention is
drawn? Primarily because of the eye movements.

So, if both the participants in a conversation is are looking at the same object and then they
engage in a conversation on that object, this is what is basically showing us that they are
jointly attending to that particular referent. So, it is not only about eye movement, there is
also there is also other ways to achieve joint attention, such as gesture, pointing, verbal
and as well as non-verbal means, all those non-linguistic means when we talk about a
particular object.

So, when a typical example would be in a classroom, the teacher will be showing the slides
and you know point with a pointer the we will be pointing towards certain aspects of the
slides and basically trying to draw the attention of the students to the same thing. So, where
the same the teacher and the students are jointly attending to the same object because we
have to interact on that particular topic.

So, this is just this is the notion of joint attention. It has been said that the ability to share
a common point of reference develops the in the first year of life. In fact, there is a lot of

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interesting research happening in that, we have already talked about it before while talking
about developmental stages.

The children develop, the attentional mechanism in children develops remarkably early in
life. In fact, by 6 months, 9 months and so on. So, joint attention behaviour basically falls
into two categories, there are two kinds there are two aspects of joint attention; one is
responding to joint attention, another is initiating joint attention.

So, while other conversation partners are talking about a particular object, the third
participant also responds to the joint attention or in some cases it can the participant can
initiate a joint attention. So, both are crucial in any conversation set up or any you know
getting for any goal detected behaviour.

So, RJA refers to the ability of infants to follow the gaze or gestures of others in order to
attain the common point of reference. So, the mother will be showing to some showing
some toy or something to the child and then the child responds by looking at the same
object a very simple example of RJA among infants.

Similarly, IJA refers to the infants’ behaviour in which they themselves initiate the post
gestures or the gaze to direct others attention towards that object or event. This is
something this is this has been a very interesting area of research on infants of late. So,
how do what are the mechanisms children put in place, infants put in place in order to
engage others attention.

So, that is what the initiating joint attention refers to. So, this looks somewhat like this.
So, it is identified at the early stage of language learning. Any kind of learning, any kind
of engagement of a participant in a scenario automatically presupposes joint attention. So,
if you are learning language, it is also dependent on joint attention. So, this is one of the
earliest stages of language learning. In order to learn a novel word; novel word, as the new
word infants follow the gaze of their parents to know about the reference.

So, this is kind of a setup where you have the infant and the child sitting you know for
looking at each other and the parent is trying to teach him or her the name of a particular
object and then this the parent will be pointing towards the object in this case, let us say it
is a; it is a ball. So, this is the referent and child also follows the gaze of the parent and
therefore, both of them are, you know they are engaging their joint attention on the referent

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of the word, the ball or the bat or the flower or whatever. This is at the very core of learning,
in this case language learning.

So, until and unless the child is shown what it means to what is the referent of an of an of
a word, the child will not be able to learn the what it means, the meaning of it. So, several
studies directly relate joint attention to language acquisition; that is frequency with which
children engage in joint attention, shows the ability, their ability to of language acquisition,
that is understood because if the child does not engage their attention.

So, basically the finer nuances of engaging and disengaging and re-engaging their
attentional mechanism, with respect to the caregiver is what is at the core of learning
mechanism, which is also true for language learning mechanism. So, if the child is not
capable of directing attention, it will automatically hamper his or her learning trajectory.
It is also related to mental and behavioral process and facilitate learning ability and
development as has been pointed out by these researchers.

And it is also said to be an outcome of integration of posterior attentional mechanism and

anterior attentional mechanism. These are just some details, posterior attentional
mechanism and anterior attentional system, which and each of them are related to either
RJA or to the to IJA.

So, Posner’s work in this area has been very influential. This is what in a graphic way this
will look at. So, this is what is cognition, the attention is one part of cognition and then
there are these two kinds of systems that are coming together to create joint attention in
these two domains.

And ultimately it this whole process that is taking place in your in the mind of the child,
gradually will lead to a social behavior, social cognition resulting in behavior as in whether
it is linguistic behavior or non-linguistic social behavior and so on. So, basically engaging
the whole thing ultimately comes down to engaging with other agents in the same
environment.

Engaging in a way, the you know that is geared towards a goal directed behavior, whether
in whether the goal directed behavior is with respect to learning language or you know in
engaging in a conversation or some kind of an interaction and cooperation, it can be
anything any of these things, but basically it is a social sort of an interaction. And so,

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basically if your attentional mechanism is geared towards these processes, then it will
gradually give rise to what we call social cognition and social behavior.

So, that brings us to another important part. These are not different from one another, they
are intertwined with each other. So, theory of mind is the precursor to social cognition on
the one hand, and we have already seen the attentional mechanism in terms of joint
attention is also at the core of creating social cognition. So, these are smaller parts of the
larger picture of what is called social cognition.

Social cognition focuses on the mental and behavioral process of people about other people
and circumstances. So, basically an a social awareness sort of thing. So, the awareness of
oneself and one’s belief system activities and behavioral output and so on and
understanding the others the same things in others in a particular given circumstance, that
is the that is what is called social cognition. So, it includes the role of cognitive processes
in social interaction, that is what we just saw.

So, if this entire gamut of things, which is actually not very simple as we have just seen it
includes it requires for the child to develop social awareness at the very early age in terms
of TOM, as well as you know gearing that attentional mechanism, all these processes start
at a very early age of they have been already found in children around 9 months of age
infants. It starts to develop even earlier the latest research shows that it probably develops
even earlier, but 9 to 12 months by 9 to 12 months definitely it is in place.

So, both joint attention is in place and theory of mind gradually develops by the age of 4
and so on. Social cognition model argues that as an infant monitor and represent their own
goal related intentional activities, they also monitor and represent the goal related activity
of others, this is what if you bring it down to the particulars.

So, not only their activities and their goal related behavior, but also the same in others.
Like infants understand their own feeling, they also become able to comprehend the mental
state of others. This is fundamental; until and unless the child is aware of its own goal that
she wants the attention of the mother. What does we think children are crying for no
reason, small children they have only one output, right? that is whether they are hungry,
they are thirsty, they want attention, they want to play, they want whatever that the output
is the same children crying.

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But what is happening here is that the child is utilizing the only system that it has at its
disposal, for its goal for whatever the goal at that particular moment is. So, by crying or
certain kinds of hands and legs movement or cooing, depending on what stage of life it is
in, they will try and attract the attention of the primary caregiver.

So, which means the moment you are trying to attract attention of others; that means, the
child’s brain is already aware that it has a, you know it has its own goals, it has its own
intentions and there are behavioral outputs that might affect those mechanisms in the other
human being, until and unless the child is aware, the brain of the child is aware of these
activities they will not engage in this kind of in this kind of activities. So, they are capable
of understanding these fundamental things at a very very early age in the in infancy.

So, joint attention and social cognition then we will talk about it in case of typical and
atypical children. So, social coordination is the outcome of joint processing of information,
as we have just seen about the attention of self and others. Social cognition is necessary
for the development of functional joint attention in infants. Thus it has equal it has
importance in both categories of joint system, which as we have also seen.

So, there are two kinds of attentional mechanism both has to be in place for a proper
development of social cognition in children. It has been characterized in clinical research
that impairment in initiated joint attention, that is IJA, leads to diseases such as autism in
children. So, the one of the reasons, one of the let us say precursor to what is ultimately
called autism, basically can be traced back to the true and into to an impairment in IJA,
they are not capable of initiating joint attention.

So, such children, it means that the child is not capable of initiating attention, such children
are referred to as atypical children. Atypical as in children who are not developing typically
in a normal circumstances. So, there is a lack of the social cognition, but which we
understand as the result of not being able to initiate IJA.

So, atypical child then refers to the children who are different from the same age children
in terms of behavior, development and so on. So, development leads to the differential
behavioural pattern. So, whereas, typical child exhibits the normal generic behaviour
generic behaviour and development compares to the peers of the same age.

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So, we will see that all children start you know engaging in pretend play around the same
time. Then language development happens on the same trajectory more or less, roughly
there is a pattern. But a child who is not part of that general generic pattern is typically
called the atypical child.

So, autism is one of the most common disorder of neural development, primary cognitive
deficit in social cognition defines all features of autism. So, if you notice an autistic child
the most tell-tale sign is the lack of social cognition and that is of course, connected to
what we have just seen as IJA.

So, these are some of the pointers some of the symptoms that atypical children will be
exhibiting in early childhood. Severe difficulty in social interaction difficulty, in verbal
and nonverbal communication, lacks in initiating attention and so on. So, because of joint
lack of joint attention they will also lack the ability to share common point of reference
and they will also not have you know there is a limited eye contact and so on.

So, all these basically take us back to the theory of my development of theory of mind and
the joint attentional mechanism. So, this is what and both of which are connected to
language at different levels. So, even typical growth of a child and that atypical population,
also has a link to language in this way. Now since we have focused mostly on first language
acquisition.

We will quickly go over language acquisition in the in second language, L2 here refers to
second language acquisition. So, second language acquisition is second language
acquisition, refers to the language that we learn after the first language. So, this is different
from first language in many many ways, it is not the same the processes are not same, the
trajectories are not same; however, as we will see some of the important pointers are still
similar.

So, learning an L2 typically is done after you have learnt L1, that is first language. So,
learning of L2 follows the learning of first language, as a result of which it is also learned
at a later age. So, learning an L2 by children is, that is why qualitatively different from
childhood bilingualism as well. Childhood bilingualism refers to those children who learn
two languages simultaneously in the same environment.

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So, for example, a child growing up in a multilingual household where parents speak
different languages or maybe there are other caregivers, who speak another language. So,
that is the; that is the scenario where the child can learn two languages simultaneously.
That is again a different type of scenario.

So, first language and second language following one another versus two languages being
learned together, there is a difference as in the case of L2 being learned after L1. So, there
are three kinds of language acquisition we are talking about here. A majority of work in
second language acquisition that is SLA, has focused on adult learners primarily, but also
the same theories are now being utilized for children for child L2 learners and there are
similarities, there are differences and there are also of course, a lot of agreements and
disagreements on this.

But however, there is a new focus on children learn children SLA, childhood SLA as well.
So, the main issues with adult SLA like childhood SLA centered around the two primary
criteria of age and input.

Age; let us let this will take you back to the ‘critical period hypothesis’. Age the refers to
at what age the second language has been learnt by the learner. Adult learners as a result
of which often fail to acquire native-;like competence in the second language this has
always been a very important point of discussion in language acquisition research, second
language acquisition research that adult learners, that is the learners who have who are
adult, who started learning their L2 at an adult age, they failed to attain native like
competence. So, native-like competence was considered the hallmark of your proficiency
level. So, if are you a good enough speaker of second language with me will mean that
your second language competence, fluency is as good as the native speaker of that
language which of course, now has been discredited, that native like competence it cannot
be the goal of a of a bilingual.

Because a bilingual is not two monolinguals, you know, somehow fused together.
Bilingualism is a very completely different mental state altogether; the second language
has a different status here, its not like native speakers of two language.

However, this the and that is why this has now been discredited. So, ultimately what we
now call this is called ‘ultimate attainment’. So, now, we now researchers are not talking

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about native-like competence anymore it is called ultimate attainment, that is the best
approximation of competence that the adult SLA learner can have in the second language.

However, there has been a lot of research in terms of why the second language learner,
adult second language learner is not able to learn certain aspects of the second language;
is it because of the age? Because by virtue of being an adult learner he has he or she has
automatically crossed the critical period hypothesis.

So, as a result of which a lot of these research the different kinds of research will attribute
those ah so called you know defects or failures in adult SLA learners to the age factor that
is the critical period that which takes us back to the ‘critical period hypothesis’. So, they
put it like you know because they have crossed the critical period.

So, as a result of which the adult learners have incomplete access to the ‘universal
grammar’. Remember we talked about universal grammar of Chomsky. So, after the
critical period the learners do not have adequate access to the universal grammar. And also
because,, after that age less effective procedural learning takes place, as a result of which
these two factors have been attributed.

On the other hand, quality and quantity of input have also been pointed out as a serious
problem. Because the child learner has a larger span of time for language input to come in
as opposed to an adult learner, simply because he has started learning the language much
later. So, the amount of input that the adult learner receives, is significantly less.

So, this could be yet another reason as to why the adult learners will not probably learn
the language to the ultimate extent. And yet another notion that has been put forward
recently is the identification with the L2 community.

Because when you are learning the first language you are part of the community; that is
why you are learning it as a first language. This is the language in which you are born into
which you are born. So, this is your own community. In case of L2, it may not always be
the case. So, once when you do not identify with the speech community, this might also
be a reason as to why we are not able to attain that native like competence in second
language.

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However, there have been many recent studies which have refuted the claims that the L2
learners cannot do as well as native speakers on various grammatical tasks. So, there has
been a plethora of studies, comparing native speakers of a language and with the L2
learners of the same language. So, let us say English speakers, who are native speakers of
English versus then non-native speakers of English, like Indians.

So, we speak English as our second or the third language. So, comparing a British speaker
of English with an Indian speaker of English and on various grammatical tasks and on
under various conditions, by manipulating various kinds of paradigms, they have found
that this may not be always the case.

There are differences sometimes found, but there are also sometimes there are also some
very important research findings that point to the fact that the in there are in some
grammatical aspects, in some grammatical cases, in case of certain kinds of tasks native
speakers and non-native speakers do almost similarly. So, non-native speakers are able to
match the native speakers in certain grammatical tasks.

Which means it is not entirely true that L adult learners of L2 will not be competent
competence speakers of the language. However, there are differences in certain cases and
these differences are basically explained through the nuances of grammatical aspects and
other factors related to the learners like motivation, like input, like interactional context
and so on and so forth.

So, yes there are differences but there are also similarities between native and non-native
speakers of the second language. So, the other variables of course, will be input, the kind
of input. So, for example, if the L2 is learnt as a foreign language as opposed to a second
language. So, English taught as a foreign language versus English taught as an second
language: EFL versus EFL versus ESL learn teaching mechanisms also will be important
in this case.

So, the input is very important and also because the when you talk about second language,
it is more often than not, taught. It is taught in a formal surrounding, but also sometimes
people do pick up second language in the social environment. So, that brings in another
you know angle to it.

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So, the interactional context in which the second language is learned, is it a formal context,
is it an informal context,, what kind of input are given and then the motivation of the
learner motivation is a very very important factor in second language acquisition research,
that why should the person learn a second language. For example, the motivation to learn
English in Indian context is very very important.

Because this is a language of opportunities, whether it is job, it is you know social security
and so on and so forth economic betterment and so on. So, these are other variables it is
not always the age which decides.

So, we see that in case of second language learning also there is a mixture of various kinds
of pointers; on the one hand, you have social aspects on the other hand, you have the
grammatical aspects on the on simultaneously age and other cognitive apparatus as well.
Now, we move on to yet another important aspect of pragmatic competence in terms of
language acquisition. So, pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning, rather than the
lexical meaning.

So, a sentence may be meaningful in its own right as in lexical meaning might be perfect,
but it is not contextualized properly. So, the meaning in context refers to pragmatics. So,
pragmatic meaning can be different from lexical meaning often. So, this is the notion from
where pragmatic competence comes in.

What we mean by pragmatic meaning versus lexical meaning is ah one good example
would be that in grammar, in Hindi grammar; we are taught that, you know for children,
small children you can say… there are there is these three-way pronoun system in Indian
languages /tu/, /tum/ and aap/. So, /aap/ is for, /aap/ is reserved, it is an honorific term,
/aap/ is reserved for people who are older to you or somehow more respectable to you by
virtue of some kind of a social system, or you know respectable in whatever way, in many
ways. So, if /aap/ is reserved for that kind of people. /tum/ is more like friendly kind of a
gesture and /tu/ is reserved for smaller children, people who are younger to you very close
friends and so on and so forth.

So, it will be perfect to say to a child /tum kha lo/ or /tu kha le/ and so whatever. But if
you see so, it is grammatically fine, it is lexically fine to tell a child to eat /tum khana kha
lo/, but in pragmatically speaking in certain parts of the country, it is not so common to

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use /tum/, it is very common to use /aap/ with children, in many parts of Uttar Pradesh for
example.

So, it is very common for mothers to use /aap/ with their children in the same circumstance.
So, that is pragmatic competence. So, that brings us to what is pragmatically more relevant
more and more context appropriate. So, the notion of pragmatic competence refers to the
ability to use language appropriately in its socio- cultural context. This is something that
we have been talking about from the beginning.

That language is a complex thing, language is not just a set of rules as Chomsky would
have us believe, that it is just a set of rules that the native speakers know how to manipulate
and that is all about language; it is not. Language is not spoken in a vacuum, language is
spoken in a context in a socio-cultural context. We have to not only convey the meaning
we are trying to convey, but also we have to convey it in an appropriate way, appropriate
as in socio-culturally appropriate way.

So, that is where the pragmatic competence comes in. So, pragmatic competence is one of
the effective way, most effective way of communicating. In fact, it is the only way of
effective communication; that is why often we see that the comic relief used in Hindi
Bollywood Hindi films that make fun of Bengali speakers of Hindi or Guajaratis or
Punjabis; these are the communities were always targeted. So, and that the use is always
language. So, the way they socio-culturally inappropriate way of using language or so and
so on and so forth.

So, it is very in order for your communication to be effective, you need to be it needs to
be socio culturally put, socio culturally appropriately boxed. So, in case of second
language it has to be, it has to be very carefully the target language has to be understood
very carefully in these contexts. Pragmatic competence is also useful notion in first
language, it is not only in case of second language. Because language socialization is what
we are looking at, language and the relationship of the society in which it is used.

And only when and when we do not use it in an appropriate fashion is when we have a
comic some usually comic, but sometimes it can even go beyond that scenario. So, in
second language acquisition, it is defined as the ability to produce and comprehend the
language appropriately in the social context. It is, it may not be you know I mean if you
say if you are new to UP and you just or as it is very often the case, Bengali speakers of

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Hindi who often omit the honorific in while referring to the father or the husband and so
on and so forth. Primarily because that does not exist in Bengali.

Bengali husbands will not use /tu/ for wife nor the wife will use /aap/ for the husband; this
exists in some other languages, but not in Bangla. So, in Bangla it is /tum/ for, in both
ways. Now the same thing if you transport to Hindi speaking scenario it will create a lot
of problems, you will almost appear like you are not respecting your husband enough.

So, these are the situations. So, in target language, one has to be always careful about what
is socially appropriate in that language, not just translate the L1 situation to the L2
situation. Thus in the case of both L1 and L2 learning and use, the knowledge of social
norms and cultural schema are very very crucial. And underlining the social cognition and
language relationship. So, that is yet another way of looking at the language and cognition
relationship; in this case the social cognition.

So, we have looked at the cognition in terms of mental mechanisms like attention and so
on and then social cognition. Some latest to in order to take care of, you know, the whole
meta system here what is happening what happens in case of language learning, some
recent developments have taken place which has taken a step ahead in terms of how to get
the data, child language acquisition data.

So, what all our findings still now, one of them one aspect of them are referring to the
recordings of the child’s developmental stages by typically a linguist, who is also the
parent of the child. So, they will take down they will note down you know they maintain
a diary of the stages of development of their own child, now that is one. And on the other
hand, there will be experimental studies.

So, in both cases what happens is that, these are observations and they are more like
snapshots in time. So, you know, after a brief period of time, then again after a gap, then
again after a gap. So, you do not see a sequence of events as it unfolds in real time. What
we see is snapshots of different stages of the different developmental trajectories.

So, to take care of these, to take care of such a problem in the lack of naturalistic
observational recording, naturalistic as in when the child is growing up in its own
environment and how the all the other, you know surrounding aspects of his development

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also has an impact on the language development of the child, it is very very difficult to
record.

So, there is very less information in that domain, all we have is the observation from the
other people. In order to take care of this there is now latest there is now a different take
on this whole problem altogether. One of them is the well-known speechhome corpus from
MIT media lab by Debroy. What this particular researcher who has done is that he had
fitted his whole home with the with multitude many cameras and microphones and so on
and so forth.

And recorded the data of his own child’s development from 0 to 3 years of age, which has
resulted in a huge amount of audio visual data, but this is natural data, as the child was
moving you know growing from one, from infancy to 3 years of age and what are the
linguistic developments, what all also happened around him, what are the conversational
input he got, what are the other kinds of you know inputs and so on and so forth. So, studies
like this, the ‘speechhome corpus’ one can look up just look up Debroy.

The data I am referring to here is a little old, by now he might have he would have
definitely gone ahead with all the analysis done also. So, is this a way forward this is
another important way to look at it. Is this so, the data till now whatever we have, is already
you know its very fascinating it the findings are very interesting. But is this a move this is
this kind of a move is a way forward? do we need more of this kind of recordings in order
in natural setup, in natural setup that gives us good observational recording?

Because only then we will be able to find out the interactions between the child between
the child as a growing organism and its surroundings and how the developmental trajectory
in cognitive, neurocognitive as well as sociocognitive and linguistic terms interact in real
time.

So, to summarize what we can say from this entire, segment in this module about language
learning, in various scenario whether it is first language or second language learning what
we can say is that language acquisition research proves the intertwined nature of language
with other cognitive mechanisms as well as socio pragmatic concerns. This is where we
started with.

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So, neurocognitive mechanisms, like attention, attention in terms of joint attention. And
then cognitive developmental stages and also how we interrelate these functions with
socio-pragmatic concerns, the kind of input that we get and the way the eco the growing
child interacts with the environment, in terms of either being a passive listener to
conversations in the environment or engaging the attention of other people and thereby
growing and so on and so forth.

So, these are, language learning like any other language function, cannot be understood in
a vacuum it has to be understood, it has to be studied and in terms of its relationship with
many other mechanisms like these.

So, this is about language acquisition. These are the references.

Thank you.

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