Are children taught to speak or does it come naturally? In the article "How do children acquire language?" "Do their parents teach their children to talk?" Betty Binner discusses the fact that language happens naturally; furthermore, it does not matter whether parents teach them or not. As long as a child has interaction between another human being they can learn to speak, or is it predetermined by the brain that one can acquire language.
The most important role parents perform is talking to their children. Children cannot learn to speak from watching television or by listening to a radio. They need verbal interaction between family, friends, and other children to learn to speak. Children can learn 2 or more languages very easily as long as they receive the interaction with people who speak those languages.
Binner discusses that at different ages the language development changes. It begins when a child is born by crying then goes on by making vowels sounds. As a child grows; the sounds comes together to make sounds like da and ma. Later they begin to sort the sounds out and begin making words like mama and dada. Parents have a tendency to influence this by repeating and interacting with the child through baby talk which is still above the child's level of speech.
As the child begins to listen to conversations that go on around him, they begin to put words together to make simple two worded sentences. As parents and others correct and mimic the child they still instill the patterns of speech that will come as the child matures. Children continue to learn to speak correctly and understand the patterns of language way beyond puberty.
Binner discusses that linguist believe language is innate and the simple vowel sounds children make are the same vowel sounds spoken in all languages. All languages have some property that is common between them. Linguist also hope do discover if the brain is predetermined to have the properties of language in it before a child is born.
