First Draft

  'Language' is the most quotidian and natural thing among many things human has. It is so natural that most people can't recognize it. However, think about it-does human have spoken language since they were born or since  the beginnings of human? Well, if we thought more carefully, we could notice that we didn't speak language as soon as we were born. In my case, I speak Korean 11 months after I was born. Then, how can human speak language? Does human speak language by learning or innate ability? It has been very  interesting question in linguistics. There are various theories about it. From now on, I will introduce and compare two theories among those-inborn theory and behaviorism. Then I will conclude my thinking, using comparison of those two theories. I think language is the most important difference between animal and human, and human can speak language by innate ability. As a result, I support my opinion-Parents should make their babies listen many languages since they are young, using the theory.

Perhaps one of the most important things to human is language. Think about the world without language. You won’t be able to do many things. You can’t read, write, speak, and so on. And because it is very important part in human life, many people have researched about it for many years. Among these researches, the most interesting and important and mysterious thing is how human have language. There has been many argues about it. ‘Language Learning’ and ‘Language Acquisition’ are very famous hypothesizes about it.

‘Language Learning’ is that human can have language by learning. In contrast, ‘Language Acquisition’ is that human acquire language by their innate abilities. Nowadays, the second one is thought to be more reasonable. It says that human has language acquisition ability which is genetically handed down and acquires languages by the ability. Noam Chomsky started this hypothesis with language acquisition device. It is the system of human brain which is the base of language acquisition.

There are many supports to this hypothesis. First support is animal research. If human got language by learning, animals could get language by learning. However, almost researches show that animals can’t learn languages, except very few animals. Second support is critical period. It is a specific time which is prepared to develop certain abilities or skills and it is determined by biology. There is a critical period in human language development. If children missed critical period when they are sensitive to language, they could not acquire language very well. One of the examples about it is Genie (Curtiss, 1971). She was not exposed to language, living closed life by her parents. After she was discovered (when she was 13), she was educated by language learning system, but she could only recite some words, like ‘I like hear music ice cream truck (Curtiss, 1981, p. 21).’ Another example is a research which shows that the relationship between USA migration age and English skill becomes different, having special age as a base point (Johnson & Newport, 1). People who migrated 16 years old have deep relationship between USA migration age and English skill. The older when they migrated, the lower their English skill is. In contrast, people who migrated before 16 years old have no relationship between them. Third support is our brain. In brain, there is a special area which is related to language. This is approved by various brain shooting skills, such as MRI, PET, and so on. Several areas of the cerebral cortex are involved in understanding of language and calculation. First, especially Broca's area and Wernicke's area in the left hemisphere, which is closely related languages, ​​are important areas that are responsible for calculating and understanding of languages. Broca's area is in the frontal left hemisphere and a function for calculating the end adjacent the parietal responsible for exercise capacity. Therefore, when Broca's area is damaged, There is no problem to understand the meaning of a word or a sentence, so losing the ability to structure the words stutter stutter by word and does not fluently (Goodglass & Geschwind, 1976). Our text book ‘Harvard Sampler’ also supports this hypothesis. It says ‘humans have an innate ability to acquire spoken language in childhood without needing formal lessons, since complex language has been documented in every human society, including all hunter-gatherer societies.’

 Because of this theory, I think parents should make their babies listen many languages since they are young. Humans acquire languages by their innate abilities, so parents should make their children be exposed to various languages to make them learn languages more easily.

 My opinion might be ambiguous and irrational according to ‘Nativist Theory.’ Also, some people might say that parents don't have to make efforts to learn language, because humans language naturally. However, there are many evidences that language exposure is very important to language acquisition. In USA, researchers have two months babies listen US sentence and French sentence in opposite direction. Then they calculate the time which those babies look direction where one sentence is told. As a result, babies look direction in which US sentence is told. It is because those babies are more exposed to US English, so they are skilled to it. Another evidence is a research which shows that US babies distinguish ‘r’ and ‘l’ better than Japanese babies do. The reason is same with first evidence. As you see, the exposure of language is important to acquire language. Although humans have innate ability to acquire language, but humans can’t get language if they weren’t exposed to language. The story of Genie can support it.

 Language is very important, interesting and mysterious part of human. There is no organism which speaks various and certain languages, except human. It is because human has innate ability to acquire languages. It is a theory named ‘Nativist theory.’ This theory is supported by three things-animals, critical period, and brain. Because of this theory, I think parents should make their babies listen many languages since they are young. Of course, some people might say that parents don't have to make efforts to learn language, because of ‘Nativist theory’, but language exposure is one of the important parts in language acquisition. In conclusion, parents should make efforts to make their babies learn language more easily.