Linguistic Development Research Paper (Page 16 of 37) in pdf

5 NORMAL AND DEVIANT DEVELOPMENT

Normal And Deviant Development

There are several reasons why deviant development is an important area of study within linguistics.

A full appreciation of normality requires an understanding of abnormality. in the case of language

development we are able to understand the processes that are at work within the language develop-

ment cycle by being able to look at situations in which those processes have been damaged or have

not occurred. Likewise, the study of normal development enables us to diagnose and often to treat

cases of abnormality.

The study of development provides linguists with a framework within which they are able to study

language as a whole. It is possible to see that the stages of development of phonology, morphology,

syntax and pragmatics creates a natural academic division. Maybe the localization of brain function

makes it possible to study one area of development without having to make recourse to knowledge

from other areas.

There are several debates going on within linguistics about language development. They relate to

the idea of progress within language. Is it that there are general stages of development that are

independent of each other? Is phonological development able to progress along its own schedule

regardless of the status of development of syntax? Is linguistic development entirely divorced from

cognitive development. In other sections I have discussed possible ways in which this is false. it

is known that in the majority of cases retarded linguistic development is associated with cognitive

retardation. It still remains in doubt because the cause for the two deﬁcits might be another

region that is itself critical for both. Damage to this region might cause retardation in language

and cognition, but the possibility still remains that language and cognition are capable of separate

development and retardation.

Another issue that is important for linguists is exactly at what ages should we regard linguistic

development to be occurring? The majority of signiﬁcant developments occur between the ages of 2

and 5. Other believe that the period from 0 to 16 years of age is a more signiﬁcant duration.

It has been shown in other sections that the child’s linguistic development begins from the very

ﬁrst days after birth. At that time the discriminatory capacities are developing. The myelination of

nerve cells within the cortex is also still going on. Linguistic development continues after the age of

5 in the development of more complicated structures. Further development of cognitive capacities is

also observed into puberty. Introspection about the structure of language is not possible until after

the age of 5.

If language is not independent of cognitive development then it could be argued that one of the

areas of study in linguistic development is cognitive development itself. Consequently the duration

of linguistic development will be from birth till puberty, and beyond. It has thus been argued that a

suitably loose scheme for the classiﬁcation of development in general is that of Piaget. The scheme

is shown below in table 2.

As a contrast to table 2 listed in table 3 is a scheme for the linguistic stages that have been observed.

Many of the major insights which enable further development in children are visible by comparing

the changes that must have occurred to pass from one cognitive stage to another.

The development of phonology in table 4 illustrates the development still further. The recognition

of the object concept heralds the development of noun words and the foundation for a morphological

system is laid.

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