Dispeling the Myth that Parents Teach Their Children to Talk

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Recommended: First and second language acquisition

In the article titled Nine Ideas About Language by Harvey Daniels, one of the fundamental ideas that he presents is Children learn their native language swiftly, efficiently, and largely without instruction. This dispels the myth that parents “teach” their children to talk.
Many linguist believe that the human brain is pre wired to learn language based on the theory that there are commonalities found in all languages which is "nature". Some include the way questions are asked or ways of referring to past times or past events. In addition, my personal thoughts are that on a very basic level of being we are all the same, no matter how vastly different the languages we speak are. Other linguist believe that we are "conditioned" to learn language by a stimulus response pattern which is called "nurture". I believe both are need for growth and development for a language. This fact causes the learning approach to any language to be the same.
We as human beings acquire language knowledge by listening, socializing and also touch. In the case of Genie, a young 13 year old girl from California that was kept in isolation by her father from infancy proved this to be mostly true. Genie was never spoken to by her family, she had not acquired a language because of this. Genie was every linguists, psychologists, neurologist and other doctors dream. She was a guinea pig of their intense curiosity about how she will acquire a language. Even though Genie has proven Eric Lenneberg wrong in a sense of that she can learn a language after the critical period. Genie was not mentally retarded, for Genie she was able to learn and say words but lacked grammar. Language is not only speaking individual words, it also consist of grammar in order to communicat...

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...down and not want to speak.
Another supporting fact that dispels the thought that language is “taught” at a young age is the vastness of the human language. If language was “taught” by a parent, for example, a mother who didn’t go to college vs. their Ph.D child, the child would have a greater bank of words to express ideas. This proves that language is not “taught” but it is acquired for necessary communication early on, then is transformed into a well of optional words and phrases.
Necessity, for example, hunger, pain etc is also a natural teacher of language in children. Crying is an early stage of language in children I personally believe. The burning sensation in a child's belly will cause them to cry. The older they get they begin realizing when they cry they receive different reactions like being fed, like pamper check, physical attention (rocking, singing).

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