So while language could be said to be a single system used for two purposes, namely representation and communication (Astington and Baird 2004), these two purposes interact with one another, with acts of communication serving to support representation and vice versa. How does this happen? What is the relationship between language and thought?
The relationship between language and thought
In order to explore this relationship, it is worth looking very briefly at the main theories of how children come to learn to speak in the first place. Flavell’s assertion that ‘Draconian measures would be needed to prevent most children from learning to talk’ (Flavell in Thornton 2002:44, emphasis in original) reflects Trevarthen’s (1995) views considered in Chapters 2 and 3. Theoretical perspectives about how this drive to communicate is built upon fall into approaches which place varying emphases on the role of innate properties and environmental experience. Behaviourist approaches in the 1950s suggested that language was acquired as a result of conditioning with children imitating the speech they heard around them. If that were the case, however, we should not expect to see children generat-ing their own grammars and the kinds of expressions with which we are all familiar.
Children’s comments such as ‘my stick breaked’, or ‘the bath’s unfilling’ demonstrate the application of grammatical rules which are, in many instances, correct, but which, as here, cause problems in the face of irregular forms, common in English. Partly in response to the behaviourists’ ideas, a variety of theorists, of whom Noam Chomsky is best known, sug-gested that language is too complex to learn from experience alone, so there must be some innate, pre-existing structure that enables young children to acquire it. Chomsky calls this the Language Acquisition Device or ‘LAD’, and it relates to the modular ideas of cognition referred to in Chapter 2 as well as to some of the current thinking about brain development looked at in Chapter 4. This perspective, known as a nativist approach, proposes that there is a universal grammar (UG) or set of unconscious rules common to all languages, that humans are pre-programmed with this and that they are innately predisposed to learn language (Chomsky 1957).
Chomsky’s theories have undergone considerable development and reformation since they first appeared (Trott et al. 2004) and have been taken forward, most notably by Pinker, in his claim that we all have a ‘language instinct’ (1994). Thornton, however, refers to a range of studies which may suggest that, while predisposed to be social and to interact with others, babies may not be born with an innate predisposition to learn grammar, and that overgeneralizations like ‘breaked’ are not evidence of a specific focus on grammar rules but part of ‘the very much more general cognitive tendency to extract generalizations from a collection of concrete examples’ (Thornton 2002:58).
A more general criticism of the nativist viewpoint is that it does not take sufficient account of the part played by pre-verbal communication, of the communicative aspect of language and of the parts played by babies’ relationships with the important people around them. This more interactionist viewpoint has much in common with sociocultural perspectives on children’s cognition and positions language learning more within general ideas of cognition.
Siegler (1998:169) outlines three possible relationships between language and thought:
1 language shapes thought;
2 thought shapes language;
3 language and thought influence each other.
108 Language, communication and thought
Language shapes thought
The first of these positions, the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, represents an approach known as linguistic determinism. It is based on the idea that language moulds thought so profoundly that ‘the “real world” is to a large extent unconsciously built up by the language habits of the group’ (Sapir, cited in Siegler 1998:169). For young children, then, the lan-guage they learn will determine the thoughts that they have, and initiation into the lanlan-guage uses of their community will be an initiation into the ways of thinking and living in that community (Whitehead 2004). A ‘weaker’ version of the hypothesis suggests that language
‘influences’ rather than ‘determines’ thought (Lee and Das Gupta 1995). Evidence for the linguistic determinist view derives largely from studies of language acquisition across dif-ferent language communities. Sapir, for example, noted that Native North American Wintu speakers must pay attention to whether the knowledge they are talking about comes from hearsay or direct observation in deciding whether to put a suffix onto verbs. In English such a decision is based upon tense and time of occurrence (Pinker 1994). Motluk (2002) discusses a range of other studies.
The linguistic determinist view has been strongly challenged by psychologists such as Pinker (1994) on several grounds. Methodologically, Pinker suggests that Whorf and Sapir provide circular arguments to make their claim: ‘Apaches speak differently, so they must think differently. How do we know they think differently? Just listen to the way they speak!’
(Pinker 1994:61). He also argues that the linguistic practices they set out may not be accurate reflections of the cultures they claim to represent, and cites critical studies conducted since formation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. In his view, and that of the majority of psycholo-gists and linguists today (Motluk 2002), the idea that language determines thought has little to recommend it. Pinker points out that people think in images as well as words and in abstract logical propositions. He suggests that people are well able to distinguish in their thinking between different meanings for the same word (spring, hop, key . . . ), or even for different strings of words, and, that being so, ‘if there can be two thoughts corresponding to one word, thoughts can’t be words’ (Pinker 1994:79). In his view, people do not think in English or any other language, but in a language of thought which he calls mentalese, richer in some ways than any spoken language, and simpler in others. Donaldson seems to be sug-gesting something similar:
Thinking is an activity in which we engage. We need our representational resources to make the activity effective, but the resources are varied, and they are not the same as the thought they sustain.
(Donaldson 1992:104) The children in Box 7.1 would appear to demonstrate this idea, as they struggle to put their thoughts into words. One possible practical implication here must be that, in any sphere of learning, if thought does proceed without language, rote verbal approaches to teaching and learning will not be sufficient to develop understanding.
Thought shapes language
What, then, of the two other propositions, that thought shapes language, or that language and thought influence each other? These two represent the most fundamental disagreement between Piaget and Vygotsky, who devotes a considerable part of Thought and Language Language, communication and thought 109
(Vygotsky 1986) to arguing against Piaget’s position. For Piaget, language is a system for representing thought (see Chapter 2) with the processes of thought having been derived from action. He argues that language is a medium, or way of representing, which ‘exerts no form-ative effects on the structure of thinking’ (Wood 1998:28). As a result, children’s language will always be unable to convey what is not already established as a thought. Thus, for Piaget, thought shapes, or leads, children’s language. He also argues that early language is egocentric, and only becomes socialised with the advent of concrete operations, that is, at the age of about 7 years. The early conversations of children, he says, are more like mono-logues than diamono-logues, and when a child uses egocentric talk ‘he does not bother to know to whom he is speaking nor whether he is being listened to’ (Piaget 1959:9). As with Piaget’s general view of development, this is ‘chiefly because he (the child) does not attempt to place himself at the point of view of his hearer’ (Piaget 1959:9). Only with the development of concrete operations does speech take on a genuinely communicative function, and egocentric speech then dies away, to be replaced by socialized speech.
Language and thought influence each other
Vygotsky asserts that his own ‘theoretical position (is) in exactly an opposite direction’ to Piaget (Vygotsky 1986:11). For Vygotsky, ‘the true direction of the development of think-ing is not from the individual to the social, but from the social to the individual’ (Vygotsky 110 Language, communication and thought
Rachel:
Sian, Rachel and John (the teacher) were having a discussion about a picnic.
JOHN: If it’s nice we’re going to have it outside but if it rains we’re going to have it on the carpet.
SIAN: Yeah if it rains we don’t want to have soggy sandwiches.
JOHN: Or soggy crisps!
SIAN: Or soggy drink!
RACHEL: Drinks won’t get soggy, they’ll . . . they’re . . . just, they’ll more drink.
Rabi, at fruit time in a small group:
RABI: John, John, the apple . . . can I have two pieces? (Rabi takes a piece of apple and also a piece of orange. He lingers over eating the orange, sees John looking and grins.)
RABI: I like orange, it’s got (pause), it’s got, taste!
Pinker (1994) maintains that higher order thought processes are independent of lan-guage, He says they are conducted by a different process which he calls mentalese.
These two observation would seem to support that. Rachel knows that the quality of sogginess doesn’t change with the addition of more liquid but, as the hesitation shows, she can’t find the right words to explain dilution. In the end she does very well. Rabi is also a victim of the same problem – he knows that oranges have flavour, but can’t find that word to describe it.
Reproduced with permission of John Griffiths Box 7.1 Rachel, aged 4 years, and Rabi, aged 4 years 3 months in the nursery12
1986:36). Childhood speech, in Vygotsky’s model, is not a personal, egocentric matter but social and communicative from the outset. He argues that children’s speech is intended to communicate, even if they are not always successful in this aim. A baby’s gestures and speech help him to control his world, through the agency of other people. In addition, Vygotsky believes that what Piaget saw as children’s egocentric speech is an instrument of thought: ‘it serves mental orientation, conscious understanding; it helps in overcoming dif-ficulties’ (Vygotsky 1986:228). He points to evidence from his work which shows that ego-centric speech is most prolific when children are struggling with symbolic representation.
For Vygotsky this speech does not disappear, but becomes internalized, to form inner speech, or verbal thought, and may also resurface in spoken form when older children and adults are thinking through problems. Thus, egocentric speech is a tool for representing the world and a means of self-regulation or metacognition. In this way, speech comes to form what Vygotsky terms the higher mental processes. Box 7.2 shows a small, but typical, snippet of egocentric speech. It is worth taking the time to reflect on whether you see it as a display of thought, entirely for the self, as Piaget suggests, or whether you see it as having a role in helping to shape Anna’s thinking, and communicative in intent.
For Vygotsky, then, in ‘an inspired compromise between the views of Whorf and Piaget’
(Whitehead 2004:74), language and thought influence each other. Vygotsky outlines what he sees as the developmental path here:
We consider that the total development runs as follows: The primary function of speech, in both children and adults, is communication, social contact. The earliest speech of the child is therefore essentially social. At first it is global and multifunctional; later its func-tions become differentiated. At a certain age the social speech of the child is quite sharply divided into egocentric speech and communicative speech . . . Egocentric speech emerges when the child transfers social, collaborative forms of behaviour to the sphere of inner-personal psychic functions . . . Egocentric speech as a separate linguistic form is the highly important genetic link in the transition from vocal to inner speech.
(Vygotsky 1986:34–5) Language, communication and thought 111
Anna is standing at a sand tray with three other children and a nursery nurse. She tries out different play items before settling on two spades. She quietly transfers sand from the spade in one hand to the spade in the other by pouring, repeating this action over and over again. Every few minutes she spontaneously speaks out loud, seemingly to herself, repeating the words:
Pour, pour, pour Catch it, catch it Careful.
Anna’s verbalizations during the task can be defined as egocentric speech. She appears to be ensuring her success by giving herself reminders about how to conduct the activity. Furrow (1984) defines this as ‘self-regulatory’ utterance.
Reproduced with permission of Rachel Spencer Box 7.2 Anna, aged 1 year 8 months in the nursery
It is this interactionist perspective which has assumed the most influence in recent years, and the view that the role played by language in children’s thinking is both communicative (cultural tool) and sense-making (psychological tool) is reflected in the work of, among others, Jerome Bruner (see Chapter 2), Tizard and Hughes (2002) and Wells (1987). Wells suggests that children are active seekers of meaning:
In learning through talk – as in learning to talk – children are active constructors of their own knowledge. What they need is evidence, guidance and support. Parents who treat their children as equal partners in conversation, following their lead and negotiating meanings and purposes, are not only helping their children to talk, they are also enabling them to discover how to learn through talk.
(Wells 1987:65, emphasis in original) Wells takes Vygotsky’s ideas further, suggesting that language is more than just a cultural and psychological tool. Rather, we should conceptualize it as a whole tool-kit, because of the great range of functional varieties it serves in order to meet our cultural needs (Wells in Mercer 2000).
Thinking about language: the path to metalinguistic awareness
At the same time as children are, in Wells’ (1987) words, learning through talk and learning to talk, they are also thinking and learning about talk. Children’s attempts to make sense of spoken language, of its structure, content and functions, reveal much about their thinking.
The ability to reflect and talk deliberately, and knowingly, about language, is called metalinguistic awareness. Conclusions about when this occurs in young children vary.
Barratt-Pugh and Rohl suggest that many researchers ‘agree on somewhere between the ages of three and seven’ (2000:67), while Thornton (2002) suggests it occurs at about age 6.
She cites evidence of studies from Karmiloff-Smith which suggest that, before this age, children have difficulty in reflecting either upon language as a thing in its own right or on the structural properties of language.
While this explicit reflection on language may not be available to very young children, there are, though, many ways in which they are both developing and displaying their understanding of language from the very beginnings of life, in ways which show clear evidence of their thinking. Bilingual children may have a particular advantage here. Their experiences of code ‘switching’ and ‘mixing’ (‘Maman, I’ve trouved the book’, as my bilin-gual nephew said to his mother), and of manipulating language as a formal system, are just the kinds of characteristics associated with metalinguistic awareness (Romaine 2004, Whitehead 2002, 2004).
Grammar
The way in which young children develop an understanding of grammar provides a good demonstration of their implicit thinking about language. I pointed earlier to the very familiar ways in which children seem to overgeneralize their understanding, making errors such as
‘my stick breaked’, which uses a regular past tense ending for an irregular verb, or creating a plural form such as ‘childs’. Clearly, in most instances, a child has not heard an adult using 112 Language, communication and thought
these word forms, so it cannot be just imitation. Similarly, children may create one part of speech from another, in this case, a verb from an adverb: ‘Shall I off the lights?’ as one 3-year-old said to me. Children are, in so doing, revealing their understanding of aspects of language, such as the rules for creating past tenses and plurals. Wood cites Karmiloff-Smith’s view that such over generalizations serve an important diagnostic role in that they are impor-tant indicators of conceptual change and reorganization (Wood 1998). It is not, as Chukovsky (1963) says, the children’s fault that language does not adhere to strict rules of logic. This may have very important practical implications in that it suggests that children’s receptive ability (to listen and understand) may often be in advance of their productive ability (to speak) (Wood 1998). If this is so, then evaluation of a child’s understanding and competence based solely on the ways in which they can talk about something may not be entirely reliable.
Language play
A key way in which young children may be displaying their understanding of language is in the ways in which they play with it. Crystal (1998) suggests that language play begins very early in life, and is at the core of babies’ interactions with their carers, in the form of motherese (see later in the chapter), songs and rhymes, all of which are accompanied by non-verbal ways of communicating, including eye contact, and physical interactions such as tick-ling and cuddtick-ling. As he says, the message given to babies is that these sorts of interactions, and the verbal exchanges that go along with them, are fun. It is not long before babies are spontaneously engaging with this play with language on their own, at first as a kind of ‘vocal play’ with noises which may serve a symbolic function (car and telephone sounds, for exam-ple), and then, at around the age of 2, more explicit manipulation of language (Crystal 1998). These monologues, of which those recorded by Ruth Weir (in Garvey 1977) are the most famous, reveal children taking language apart and reorganizing it in ways which demonstrate their awareness of language as a system.
In the same way, children then engage in verbal play with others. This social language play necessitates that each player is able to interpret the meaning of the other(s). Telling Language, communication and thought 113
ELLA: My mummy says that I am her little princess
EMILY: My gran says that I’m her carrot top
ELLA: You can’t wear a carrot, you have a stripey top on
EMILY: No, she calls me carrot top because my hair is red
ELLA: But your hair isn’t red, it’s not carrot either
EMILY: What colour is my hair then?
ELLA: I know, it’s like a penny, isn’t it
EMILY: No, it’s like a carrot
ELLA: Ok, penny carrot
EMILY: Ok, Ella bella wella
ELLA: Ok, penny carrot silly billy
EMILY: Ella bella wella annabella
ELLA: Penny carrot silly billy Emily
EMILY: Ella bella wella silly billy princess annabella
Box 7.3 Ella and Emily, both aged 2 years 8 months at the playdough table
your friend a joke, at whatever age, is an indication of your awareness of the other person’s mental state (Lee and Das Gupta 1995), which is an important aspect of the development of theory of mind, discussed in Chapter 5. Garvey categorizes children’s social play with lan-guage in three ways: ‘spontaneous rhyming and word play; play with fantasy and nonsense;
and play with speech acts and discourse conventions’ (Garvey 1977:69). The first and third
and play with speech acts and discourse conventions’ (Garvey 1977:69). The first and third