Language is one means of communication are most prevalent. It is based on a symbolic activity. Indeed, we talk and we learn to speak because we need to communicate.
Language development is very complex. Talking requires the control and coordination of movements acting on the air in the respiratory tract and vocal. These movements change the path of the air in the lungs, throat, nose and mouth to produce the articulatory configurations allowing for the sound desired. Every second production requires several hundred events neuromuscular.
Learning is twofold. On the one hand involved programming capabilities of the sequence of articulatory gestures, gestures associated with particular segments of speech. On the other hand, control of these gestures, their coordination and their temporal organization should implement. The influence of parents, support structures (nursery and kindergarten) and the environment is really crucial. It is in this context that the child learns to communicate orally and in a non-verbal, well before the emergence of language.
Gradually, as the infant grows, different "language levels" follow each other and combine.
The wailing, crying and screaming
These are the first means of expression of the newborn. Beginnings of language, these sounds are an appeal and a first draft of exchange. The child experiences the emission of sounds which evoke a response appropriate to the surroundings. The tone of the cry is varied and distinguished early mother cries of anger, fatigue, pain, hunger and joy of her baby. She gives these cries the appropriate response:
Crying is the baby the safest way to get help. They worry about the mother and are coming soon. This reflex reaction occurs in situations of discomfort that the child can not control himself. It is therefore not yet crying intentional. The significance of crying can however be very different depending on the case. The volume, tone of voice and rhythm of the breath sounds are clues. Some are visual: facial expression, sucking movements, grimaces, smiles, gestures and posture can also decrypt the message.
Experiments have shown that the first cries are asexual. The only criterion hearing does not recognize the sex of the child during the first months. Moreover, esearchers have succeeded in isolating several kinds of cries depending on the tone frequency (from 1000 to 4000 hertz) and intensity. They then tried to establish experimentally that the parents discover, in general, quite spontaneously. The shouting turns to express needs, desires, fears, sorrows and joys.
The cry of hunger is the best known. The first sound "ar", shortly acute, lasts a second. It is followed by an "inspiratory whistle" - very short and more acute - and resumed after a moment's rest. It can trigger a wave of milk in nursing mothers.
The cry of rage is the amplified version of the preceding: its tone is more acute, the higher intensity and the sequence of cycles faster.
The cry of pain, which causes the immediate arrival of the parents, is also characteristic. It begins with a cry of more than 4 seconds followed by a complete cessation of expiration in 7 seconds. The cries then resume, just a short inspiration before the howling.
The cry of acute pain is intense, shrill, piercing and proportional to the intensity of pain.
The cry of pain is still severe and monotonous.
The cry of frustration is the same type as the previous one. It begins with a cry and ends in a long pause in breathing. It may, a few months later, turn into the impressive spasm of sobs.
The cry of postprandial sleep (which occurs after meals) resembles the cry of hunger.
The cry of pleasure is more personal. Tone and intensity variables, it is unique to each child.
Around the age of 2 months, along haunting moan is, apart from disease states, a real appeal. At this point, the reflex was transformed into intentional behavior. The baby has recorded the responses of his relatives to his cries and he began to qualify the term.
The cooing and babbling
The chirping has a phonetic meaning and emotional. It reflects a state of satisfaction and demonstrates the acquisition of different phonemes. The vowels are acquired in the first, at 8 weeks ("a", "e" and "or"). Between 12 and 16 weeks, the child is, in its way, great conversations with her mother. At 4 months, the child begins to vary his vocalizes. At 5 months, it is increasingly interested in the different intonations of voice that surround it. To 20 weeks, he delivered the famous "reuh ah!" At 28 weeks, he said "ba", "ca" and cries by "mm". All infants babble of the world the same way: it is an international language!
Next step, the chatter, which varies depending on the language. Thus, for example, the dialect Cantonese (Chinese dialect spoken in Guangdong and Guangxi) implies a higher voltage of the voice in the production of high tones.
Learning to babble through the loss of innate potentialities. Certain language skills, "gifts of the universal childhood", in fact decrease with age. Initially, young children can communicate - by cooing - with any verbal community. Even babies were deaf until the age of 4 or 5 months, the same types of vocal production. They stop at an age when started babbling in hearing children.
The appearance of syllabic sounds
Around 6 months, children control their breathing and respiratory activity and their use to produce laryngeal phonatory patterns. They vary intonation, dynamics and duration of sound production. Control of fine movements of the tongue and lips allows the precise articulation of syllables. This technique is acquired gradually.
In the beginning is the syllable. Syllabic sounds, very different from cooing, to appear six months. They are repeated sequentially. The syllable is then doubled by the child ("baba", "dada", "poo" ...) and adopted by the entourage. Thus was born the "first word" generally "Dad". In all languages of the world, the name of the father has an easy syllable ("baa" in Arabic, "pa" in Chinese, etc..) That makes sense to 44 weeks
As explained Danielle Rapoport, this is not the child who will give meaning to that first word: it is the parents and others who belong to an object. The language becomes symbolic. This phenomenon leads to:
"Repetition is the royal path to the language. If there are universal phenomena, what are those phonemes, the vocalization of repetition. This is nothing universal is the direction we're going to put on these phonemes that the child repeats; this sense is unique to each family. Vocalizations of a baby are influenced by the sounds he received intra-utero. Depending on what his ear has heard, the baby has already selected some phonemes. It is already steeped in the music of the language. But it is far from conquering the senses: he still speaks a language common to all babies in the world, that of the vocalization. The myth of the Tower of Babel comes from there. It refers to the golden age of humanity who knew that language. "
Jargon
To 10 months, children can produce strings of nonsense syllables repetition. Jargon appears to 14 months. Consists of simple phonemes recalling words, his tone is so marked that it becomes almost like a foreign language.
That's a game that the child has an exchange value. The children range from 12 to 18 months have absorbed the fundamentals of language. They understand and use, still limited, some words of jargon family. Understanding these terms and their translation is limited to cell members and friends.
Between 18 months and 2 years, is the "no" which marks the accession of the child to the symbolic function of language. The "no" is neither an object nor a person or even a specific situation: the concept of negation .. The child can now handle abstractions in thought.
This 'no' also marks the entry in the "negativity" or opposition phase during which the child who says his personality. The regularity and rapidity of the evolution of vocal productions between birth and the period of the first words is striking. Several years are needed for the child to learn to make laces. By cons, two years, sometimes even less, are sufficient for that same child is capable of linguistic productions requiring the control of a motor system very complex and a "knowledge" already developed phonological and syntactic rules.
The increase in vocabulary
The average child says 3 words at 1 year. Slow up to 18 months, vocabulary development is phenomenal between 21 and 24 months. Each child develops at its own pace. This is usually around 18 months, the child says, awkwardly, his first words and includes all the words of its environment. To acquire new words, the child goes through imitation can not learn much for talking to a child by making him repeat words but by appointing him to what interests him.
While accepting his language "baby", it is better for adults to use the exact words when he speaks. Parents should also provide the ability to touch objects, manipulate them, to grasp all the characteristics (heat, weight, touch, etc..) And to study their use. When that contact with real objects is impossible, we may use picture books as "The picture book of Pier Castor" who from 18 months, is very useful for learning. In this initial phase of communication truly spoken, the child uses only one word to which it assigns the meaning of a sentence (or word-word sentence holophrastic).
These first words are also "portmanteau words" polysemic. "Lolo", for example, means both the milk, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, hunger, thirst, the pleasure of drinking, the mother who gives food, etc.. "Bobo" indicates the pain, the painful area, be responsible ... Then the child juxtaposes two words that have their own meaning to form "sentences contracted": "baby bobo", "give water", "daddy party", etc.. At first, the child hardly say more than two words at a time, usually a verb followed by a name denoting a concrete object, all without article or conjugation, or prepositions or auxiliary: "want ball".
The appearance of language does not mean the disappearance of sign language, nonverbal, and extensive pre-existing. Gestures and words go hand in hand then. Body language is associated with speech. To 2 years, with the progression of verbal language, some body language signals are phased out. Others are reinforced and possibly used with increasing frequency. Children use words to give more strength to the messages conveyed by body language and not vice versa. A child wants the toy example of another will first use gesture to clarify its application on its nonverbal code. If it does not get what he wants, he pronounces words like "give" and "want".
The appearance of sentences
The first sentences contain a verb in the infinitive: this is the stage of agrammatism. At 2 years, the child has little phrases of 2 or 3 words. It does not use pronouns or articles.
The young child is all the more fun to "talk" that is understood by his parents. This understanding of the environment is paramount. By giving these sounds a meaning and value of communication, parents will result in children the desire to speak. Gradually, he made connections using prepositions (of, for ...) and adds adverbs. It will also introduce the pronoun verbs but still dominant and still uses the words of jargon family. Gradually, vocabulary grows to form its linguistic heritage. To 27 months, the sentence is refined, is imperfect and introduces the child understands the negation and details, the nuances. To 3 years is the avalanche of adjectives.
He then said his name and surname, describes an image, use items and questions. The language is better organized, sometimes well developed. The "I" appears about three years. At 4 years, enriched the vocabulary of adjectives of nuances of linking words. The child can then be compared. At 48 months, the verbal outburst dominated by incessant questions. At 5 years, relative pronouns and conjunctions appear, combines the child, known as color naming. The language is easily handled even if small imperfections associated with grammatical blunders, persist. They disappear around 6 years.
Gradually, the child uses more nouns, verbs, adjectives.
The child will arrive in three or four years to master the complex structure of language. Each family is expressed in different ways. Each parent stimulates the child by talking in a manner all its own. However, all children will eventually acquire the same grammatical structure. They will thus become members of a linguistic community. The structured language has two functions of communication: communicating with others, obviously, but also communicate with oneself. The young child is indeed talking to himself. It accompanies and greatly facilitates the development of his thought and intelligence. The language was then involved in cognitive function, that is to say a function of analysis, synthesis, abstraction, development of memory and reasoning. The language itself allows for clarification of ideas.