Topic 4 Learnig Language 語言學習 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. 語言常被視為文化中最重要的元素，因為文化的其他部分普遍是由口語傳遞。 若對語言瞭解不深，無論是文化的細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. 幼兒在成長過程中，天生就有學習必要之音素、語素及句法的能力。也就是 說，他們在基因上就被賦予語言學習的能力。他們就像是個亟欲學習的機器 來到世上，而其中學習的最大部分就是語言的攝取。然而，我們並不完全清 楚兒童是如何學習語言的。大部分的語言學家相信他們主要是藉由聆聽以及 嘗試和大人們溝通來學習語言。一開始，他們先去模仿音素，接者也藉由模 仿來學習文法。 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. 為何人們將語言視為文化中最重要的部分？請舉兩個例子來闡述你的論點。 2. 兒童如何學習他們的母語？他們是將所有聽到的句子記下來嗎？ 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. 針對美國大部分兒童的研究顯示，在他們的早年時期有段急速的語言學習期。 在一歲以前，一般來說他們使用由單語素組成的三個單字（例如eat, mom,和 more）。到六歲之前，他們大約使用2500個語素。簡單的句子結構（例如 "more milk"）則通常是在兩歲前開始使用。不過，在早期的學習階段，兒童 大致上可能會用他們自己的排列方式來自創字彙或是文法，他們逐漸開始試著 組織和調整他們的說話方式。父母親常會透過模仿的方式來鼓勵他們的『牙牙 學語』。這種方式對兒童的持序學習有著正面的幫助。 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，有些父母即使在這種方法早已不再有幫助後仍然繼續他們的模仿行為， 因為他們覺得聽起來很可愛。當兒童開始學標準的文法時，他們常會過度注重 文法規則。也就是說，他們學習一種大概的規則並使用在各種情況上。（此種 情形就是所謂的過度廣義化。）例如，英文百分之九十七的過去式動詞是藉著 在單字後加上"ed"字尾來表示，就像是"worked"。幼兒亦常會將此一規則套用 到不規則動詞上。於是，give變成了gived，take變成taked，而eat變成eated 。但，對於處在英語社會的兒童，他們的用語有大約165 個必須要背起來的不 規則動詞。 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. 有十個使用上最頻繁的動詞（be, have, do, go, say, can, will, see, take, get）都是不規則動詞，使得這個部分更顯重要。不規則動是英文中相當 古老的詞彙，它們的動詞便變化很難去改變，因為在日常對話中經常使用到這些 字，而母語人士也早就理所當然地使用這些不規則的詞彙。 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. 就你的觀察，兒童何時開始使用單一的詞彙來溝通？請舉出兩個例子來闡述。 4. 何謂『過度廣義化』？請從中文和英文中舉出兩個例子來說明。 5. 為何英文中有不規則動詞？ --

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