300 CHAPTER 7
Table 7. 4 Stages of Language Development- Cooing: At around 2 months of age, babies begin to make vowel-like sounds.
- Babbling: At about 6 months, infants add consonant sounds to the vowels to make a
babbling sound, which at times can almost sound like real speech. Deaf children actually
decrease their babbling after 6 months while increasing their use of primitive hand signs and
gestures (Petitto & Marentette, 1991; Petitto et al., 2001). - One-word speech: Somewhere just before or around age 1, most children begin to say
actual words. These words are typically nouns and may seem to represent an entire phrase
of meaning. They are called holophrases (whole phrases in one word) for that reason. For
example, a child might say “Milk!” and mean “I want some milk!” or “I drank my milk!” - Te l e g r a p h i c s p e e c h : At around a year and a half, toddlers begin to string words together to
form short, simple sentences using nouns, verbs, and adjectives. “Baby eat,” “Mommy go,”
and “Doggie go bye-bye” are examples of telegraphic speech. Only the words that carry the
meaning of the sentence are used. - Whole sentences: As children move through the preschool years, they learn to use
grammatical terms and increase the number of words in their sentences, until by age 6 or so
they are nearly as fluent as an adult, although the number of words they know is still limited
when compared to adult vocabulary.
The Relationship between Language and Thought
- 13 Evaluate whether or not language influences how people think.
As with the different views on the relative importance of nature and nurture, researchers
have long debated the relationship between language and thought. Does language actu-
ally influence thought, or does thinking influence language?
TWO THEORIES ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT Two very
influential developmental psychologists, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, often debated the
relationship of language and thought (Duncan, 1995). Piaget (1926, 1962) theorized that
concepts preceded and aided the development of language. For example, a child would
have to have a concept or mental schema for “mother” before being able to learn the
word “mama.” In a sense, concepts become the “pegs” upon which words are “hung.”
Piaget also noticed that preschool children seemed to spend a great deal of time talking
to themselves—even when playing with another child. Each child would be talking about
something totally unrelated to the speech of the other, in a process Piaget called collective
monologue. Piaget believed that this kind of nonsocial speech was very egocentric (from
the child’s point of view only, with no regard for the listener) and that as the child became
more socially involved and less egocentric, these nonsocial speech patterns would reduce.
Vygotsky, however, believed almost the opposite. He theorized that language actu-
ally helped develop concepts and that language could also help the child learn to con-
trol behavior—including social behavior (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978, 1987). For Vygotsky, the
word helped form the concept: Once a child had learned the word “mama,” the vari-
ous elements of “mama-ness”—warm, soft, food, safety, and so on—could come together
around that word. Vygotsky also believed that the “egocentric” speech of the preschool
child was actually a way for the child to form thoughts and control actions. This “pri-
vate speech” was a way for children to plan their behavior and organize actions so that
their goals could be obtained. Since socializing with other children would demand much
more self-control and behavioral regulation on the part of the preschool child, Vygotsky
believed that private speech would actually increase as children became more socially
active in the preschool years. This was, of course, the opposite of Piaget’s assumption,
and the evidence seems to bear out Vygotsky’s view: Children, especially bright children,
do tend to use more private speech when learning how to socialize with other children or
when working on a difficult task (Berk, 1992; Berk & Spuhl, 1995; Bivens & Berk, 1990).
LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY HYPOTHESIS The hypothesis that language shapes and influ-
ences thoughts was accepted by many theorists, with a few notable exceptions, such
Interactive