Topic 4 Learnig Language 语言学习 Language is often considered as the most important component of culture because much of the rest of it is normally transmitted orally. It is impossible to understand the sutble nuances and deep meanings of another culture without knowing its language well. 语言常被视为文化中最重要的元素，因为文化的其他部分普遍是由口语传递。 若对语言了解不深，无论是文化的细微抑或是更深刻的意涵皆是不可能理解的。 Young children are inherently capable of learning the necessary phnemes, morphemes, and syntax as they mature. In other words, the have a genetic capacity to learn language. They come into the world as eager learning machines, and language acquisition is a major aspect of this learning. How children actually learn a language is not entirely clear, however. Most linguists believe that they do it primarily by listening to and trying to communicate with adult speakers. Initially, this means that they imitate the phonemes. Later they begin to learn grammar by imitaion as will. 幼儿在成长过程中，天生就有学习必要之音素、语素及句法的能力。也就是 说，他们在基因上就被赋予语言学习的能力。他们就像是个亟欲学习的机器 来到世上，而其中学习的最大部分就是语言的摄取。然而，我们并不完全清 楚儿童是如何学习语言的。大部分的语言学家相信他们主要是藉由聆听以及 尝试和大人们沟通来学习语言。一开始，他们先去模仿音素，接者也藉由模 仿来学习文法。 Question for discussion: 1. Why do people usually consider language as the most important part of culture? Please give two examples to illustrate your point. 2. How do children learn theri native language? Do they memorize all the sentences they hear? 1. 为何人们将语言视为文化中最重要的部分？请举两个例子来阐述你的论点。 2. 儿童如何学习他们的母语？他们是将所有听到的句子记下来吗？ Studies of average American chldren show that there is rapid learning of language in the early years of life. By age one, typically, they use about three words consisting of single morphemes(such as eat, mom, and more). By six years old, they use about 2500 morphemes. Simple sentence construction (such as "more milk") usually has begun by about age two. However, in the early stages, children may start by creating vocabulary and grammar largely of their own construction. They are trying to systematize and regularize theri own simple speech. Parents often enccourage this "baby talk" by imitating it. This provides positive reinforcement to the children to continue learning. 针对美国大部分儿童的研究显示，在他们的早年时期有段急速的语言学习期。 在一岁以前，一般来说他们使用由单语素组成的三个单字（例如eat, mom,和 more）。到六岁之前，他们大约使用2500个语素。简单的句子结构（例如 "more milk"）则通常是在两岁前开始使用。不过，在早期的学习阶段，儿童 大致上可能会用他们自己的排列方式来自创字汇或是文法，他们逐渐开始试着 组织和调整他们的说话方式。父母亲常会透过模仿的方式来鼓励他们的『牙牙 学语』。这种方式对儿童的持序学习有着正面的帮助。 However, some parents contunue to do this long after it ceasese to be useful because they think that is sounds cute. When children begin to learn standard grammar, they tend to over regularize it. That is, they learn a general rule and use it in all situations. (This is often known as overgeneralization.) For instance, the past tense of 97% of English verbs is indicated by adding the suffix ed, as in worked. Young children will often apply it to irregular verbs also. Give becomes gived, take becomes taked, eat becomes eated. Unfortunately for children in English speaking societies, their language has about 165 irregular verbs that must be memorized. 然而，有些父母即使在这种方法早已不再有帮助後仍然继续他们的模仿行为， 因为他们觉得听起来很可爱。当儿童开始学标准的文法时，他们常会过度注重 文法规则。也就是说，他们学习一种大概的规则并使用在各种情况上。（此种 情形就是所谓的过度广义化。）例如，英文百分之九十七的过去式动词是藉着 在单字後加上"ed"字尾来表示，就像是"worked"。幼儿亦常会将此一规则套用 到不规则动词上。於是，give变成了gived，take变成taked，而eat变成eated 。但，对於处在英语社会的儿童，他们的用语有大约165 个必须要背起来的不 规则动词。 Compounding the problem is the fact the 10 most frequently used verbs are irregular (be, have , do, go, say, can, will, see, take, and get). The irregular verbs are very old words in English. Changes in their conjugation have been resisted because they are constantly used in commom speech and most native speakers are comfortable using them. 有十个使用上最频繁的动词（be, have, do, go, say, can, will, see, take, get）都是不规则动词，使得这个部分更显重要。不规则动是英文中相当 古老的词汇，它们的动词便变化很难去改变，因为在日常对话中经常使用到这些 字，而母语人士也早就理所当然地使用这些不规则的词汇。 Question for discussion: 3. From your obeservation, when do children start to use single word for communication? When do they begin simple sentence construction? 4. What is "overgeneralization"? Please give 2 examples from English and Chinese for illustration. 5. Why are there irregular verb forms in English? 3. 就你的观察，儿童何时开始使用单一的词汇来沟通？请举出两个例子来阐述。 4. 何谓『过度广义化』？请从中文和英文中举出两个例子来说明。 5. 为何英文中有不规则动词？ --

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