the neural storehouse

the neural storehouse. At the biological level, human babies seem to
be prepared for language: They prefer the human voice to other sounds and
the human face to other figures. Some aspects of the language developmental
sequence appear to be universal—even deaf children start to coo and
babble at about the same ages as hearing children, despite of their lack of
language input, and later develop sign combinations that are very similar to telegraphic speech. Children’s language environment is indeed quite chaotic,
yet it takes them only four to five years to speak their mother tongue
like an adult without systematic, overt teaching. Furthermore, a critical or
sensitive period seems to exist for language acquisition. Young children are
able to pick up any language or a second language effortlessly, with no accent
or grammatical mistakes. After puberty, people generally have to exert
great efforts to learn another language, and their pronunciation as well as
grammar typically suffers. Reinforced language teaching in postcritical
years was not successful in the cases of “Victor” (a boy who had been deserted
in the wild) and “Genie” (a girl who had been confined in a basement).
Edward Kako’s 1999 study, a careful analysis of the linguistic behavior
of a parrot, two dolphins, and a bonobo, led him to conclude that no
nonhuman animals, including the language-trained ones, show all of the
properties of human language in their communication, although he respectfully
acknowledges all the achievements in animal language training.
Language is unique to human beings.
Although the neural storehouse for the universal grammar has not been
pinpointed yet, cognitive neuroscience has delivered some supportive evidence.
Infants’ brains respond asymmetrically to language sounds versus
nonlanguage sounds. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have indicated localized
brain regions for different word categories in native English speakers.
Research suggests possible specific brain structures that had registered a detailed
index for nouns. Brain studies have confirmed the left hemisphere’s
language specialization relative to the right hemisphere, even among very
young infants. Broca’s area andWernicke’s area are housed in the left hemisphere.
Damage to Broca’s area results in Broca’s aphasia, with a consequence
of producing grammatically defective, halting, telegramlike speech.
When Wernicke’s area is damaged, speech fluency and grammatical structure
are spared but semantics is impaired. This linguistic lateralization pattern
and the linguistic consequences of brain injuries are also true of normal
and aphasic American Sign Language users.

However, the nativist perspective is not immune to criticism. The universal
grammar cannot adequately explain the grammatical diversity in all human
languages. The growth spurts in brain development do not correspond
to language development in a synchronized manner. The importance of social
interaction, contextual factors, and formal education for knowledge
and pragmatic usage of complex rules, subtle expressions, speech acts and
styles has been neglected in nativist theories.

Dissatisfied with this nature-nurture dichotomy, interactionist theories
try to bring the two together. They recognize the reciprocal influences, facilitating
or constraining, dependent or modifying, among multiple factors
from the biological, cognitive, linguistic, and social domains. For instance,
the typical prenatal and postnatal mother-tongue environment will eventually
wean the infants’ initial ability to differentiate the speech sounds of any
language and, at the same time, sharpen their sensitivity to their native language. Deaf children’s babbling does not develop into words as does that of
hearing children. Babies deprived of the opportunity of social interaction,
as seen in the cases of “Victor” and “Genie,” will not automatically develop a
proper language. It is in the dynamic child-environment system that a child
acquires language. 471