Starting with One Language

The pattern is familiar: cries evolve to babbles, babbles are shaped into words, and words are joined to create sentences. This sequence describes the path taken by all children as the language they hear around them is examined, internalized, and eventually developed into native-speaker competence. Although recent research has shown the immense variability in both rate and achievement for children learning their first language (Fenson et al., 1994), the process nonetheless has an enviable consistency about it, especially compared with the erratic and idiosyncratic variability of second-language acquisition. But these visible landmarks of progress in themselves reveal little of the internal complexities and mental revolutions that are propelling the child into linguistic competence. How do children learn language? We begin by trying to understand how a child learns one language in a relatively simple cognitive and social environment, so that when the stakes are raised, we have a basis for describing and interpreting a child's experience with multiple languages in complex social circumstances.