The Practical Linguist / 'Wild Children' and the critical period
Marshall R. Childs Special to The Daily Yomiuri
The winter of January 1800 was cold in Aveyron, France, especially if you lived day and night in the forest, eating what food you could find. on Jan. 9, out of the forest came a boy, naked except for the tatters of a shirt, wary of people, and above all hungry. Unable to speak human language, he appeared to be about 12 years old. He moved like a wild animal, ate like a wolf, and was not toilet-trained.
Had he been raised by wolves? He couldn't say, and no one else knew. Cultural historian Roger Shattuck (1923-2005), in his 1980 book The Forbidden Experiment: The Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron, described him thus: "He was unkempt, naked, totally isolated from all human society, unresponsive to any communication. Scars covered his body. He lacked fire, tools, weapons, and what we consider 'adequate' shelter. Yet every account agrees that he had survived several winters, as many as five or six, of this crude existence. He had adapted to his surroundings, even though he had in all probability been left in the woods to die, or had been given up for dead after getting lost."
Residents of remote villages in Southern France had known for several years that there was a wild boy in the forest. He had been captured at least once, but had escaped. He didn't hurt anybody, although in winter he sometimes took potatoes from people's gardens.
In 1800, there was a lot of scientific curiosity about the nature of human beings. The French Revolution, with the motto "Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood" had failed, and people wanted to know why. Learned men were asking, "What is the basic nature of man?" and "What is the ideal society?" In this intellectual ferment were the seeds of sociology, psychology and linguistics.
When the Wild Boy was captured, he was taken to Paris for scientific observation. People began calling him Victor, after the title character of the 1797 melodrama, Victor or the Forest's Child. Victor seemed an ideal subject to study in order to learn what a human being is like in a state of nature. What is innate? Language? Reverence for God? Cleanliness? A sense of justice?
The Society of Observers of Man, formed in 1799 by 60 doctors, naturalists, explorers, zoologists and philosophers, undertook to study Victor. They tried to teach him language, hygiene, table manners and literacy. But he learned only a little, and that with difficulty. He was more interested in food than in any other things they tried on him. He was more of a "blank slate" than the learned observers had thought. Gradually, they lost interest in him.
===
Critical period for language?
Is there a critical period specifically for language? And is the case of Victor an example of its effect? There is a small body of writing about what biolinguist Eric Lenneberg (1921-75) termed "wolf children, children who were denied human contact--and thus language--when they were young. Victor is an example, and so is "Genie," who was tied down in a back bedroom in California in the 1960s, essentially without human contact, until age 13.
After their discovery by authorities, these children were encouraged in their language development by the best teachers available, but never developed proper speech. Both of them learned a fair number of words but could never put them together except in the simplest patterns. Their voices had an unnatural quality.
The failure of "wild children" properly to develop language is sometimes interpreted as evidence that language occupies a separate "module" in the brain. Similarly, it is sometimes argued that children have a "language-acquisition device" in the brain, with which the child sets himself or herself up with competence in a language. Following this metaphor, it is proposed that the language acquisition device withers away if it is not used when the child is young.
With our increasing knowledge about brain function and mental development, it becomes difficult to sustain belief in the existence of a separate language module in the brain. Similarly, a "critical period" for language, is more metaphor than biological fact.
Writers about Wild Children always face the question of whether they can rule out general mental retardation as a prior cause of the lack of language development in their subjects. Prof. Susan Curtiss of the University of California, Los Angeles, who wrote extensively about Genie, decided that mental retardation was not a cause.
Shattuck was not so certain, but leaned toward a more holistic explanation, observing, "We could well say that it was just too late for Victor to assemble, become conscious of, and enact an idea of his self, of his identity as a separate person." Shattuck noted that descriptions of Victor often used the imagery of sleep. He said this imagery "stands for the incompleteness of his self-awareness; he never fully awoke to his individual existence."
It is certainly true that Genie and Victor failed to develop personalities that were well-integrated with the surrounding cultures, and that this failure was interpreted by some as mental retardation. As Shattuck suggested, however, causal explanations limited to general retardation or failure of a language acquisition device do not exhaust the possibilities.
===
Construction of self
It is particularly risky to distinguish sharply between language development and general social development. From all we can learn, it appears that language development--although genetically decreed--is played out in intimate relation with general mental maturation in a social environment. Specifically, language development is intertwined with apprehending a common definition of reality and mounting a personality for operating within a language community. You need a personality in order to interact as a competent member of a speech community.
Lenneberg's summary of the situation took into account the inseparability of the several factors: "The only safe conclusion to be drawn from the multitude of reports is that life in dark closets, wolves' dens, forests, or sadistic parents' backyards is not conducive to good health and normal development."
We need a comprehensive theory of language learning that will allow us to understand what happens to normal children, and what does not happen to Wild Children. Two threads that I am sure will eventually be woven into the complete theory are now available.
I am particularly impressed by constructivist accounts by the likes of Michael Tomasello, codirector of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. In Constructing a Language (2003), he outlines children's simultaneous construction of a self-image along with knowledge of the world, social skill and language.
An essential complement to social psychological accounts is a description of what happens in the brain--how sound-meaning patterns are created and changed. For that, the connectionist tradition is best, represented by Nick Ellis, professor of psychology of the University of Michigan, in various recent publications.
All things considered, it appears that the lesson to be learned from studying Wild Children is that there is indeed a critical period. But it is not a critical period for language; it is a critical period for the construction of a self as a human being in a society of human beings.
Language ability is an integral part of that construction, but is by no means the whole thing. There is not a separate module in the brain for language, nor even a separate process. Developing language skill is just a part of learning to be human according to local customs.
* * *
Send e-mail to childs@tuj.ac.jp. The column will return on Aug. 3.
Childs, EdD, teaches TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) and other subjects at Temple University, Japan Campus.
(Jul. 6, 2007)
Marshall R. Childs Special to The Daily Yomiuri
The winter of January 1800 was cold in Aveyron, France, especially if you lived day and night in the forest, eating what food you could find. on Jan. 9, out of the forest came a boy, naked except for the tatters of a shirt, wary of people, and above all hungry. Unable to speak human language, he appeared to be about 12 years old. He moved like a wild animal, ate like a wolf, and was not toilet-trained.
Had he been raised by wolves? He couldn't say, and no one else knew. Cultural historian Roger Shattuck (1923-2005), in his 1980 book The Forbidden Experiment: The Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron, described him thus: "He was unkempt, naked, totally isolated from all human society, unresponsive to any communication. Scars covered his body. He lacked fire, tools, weapons, and what we consider 'adequate' shelter. Yet every account agrees that he had survived several winters, as many as five or six, of this crude existence. He had adapted to his surroundings, even though he had in all probability been left in the woods to die, or had been given up for dead after getting lost."
Residents of remote villages in Southern France had known for several years that there was a wild boy in the forest. He had been captured at least once, but had escaped. He didn't hurt anybody, although in winter he sometimes took potatoes from people's gardens.
In 1800, there was a lot of scientific curiosity about the nature of human beings. The French Revolution, with the motto "Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood" had failed, and people wanted to know why. Learned men were asking, "What is the basic nature of man?" and "What is the ideal society?" In this intellectual ferment were the seeds of sociology, psychology and linguistics.
When the Wild Boy was captured, he was taken to Paris for scientific observation. People began calling him Victor, after the title character of the 1797 melodrama, Victor or the Forest's Child. Victor seemed an ideal subject to study in order to learn what a human being is like in a state of nature. What is innate? Language? Reverence for God? Cleanliness? A sense of justice?
The Society of Observers of Man, formed in 1799 by 60 doctors, naturalists, explorers, zoologists and philosophers, undertook to study Victor. They tried to teach him language, hygiene, table manners and literacy. But he learned only a little, and that with difficulty. He was more interested in food than in any other things they tried on him. He was more of a "blank slate" than the learned observers had thought. Gradually, they lost interest in him.
===
Critical period for language?
Is there a critical period specifically for language? And is the case of Victor an example of its effect? There is a small body of writing about what biolinguist Eric Lenneberg (1921-75) termed "wolf children, children who were denied human contact--and thus language--when they were young. Victor is an example, and so is "Genie," who was tied down in a back bedroom in California in the 1960s, essentially without human contact, until age 13.
After their discovery by authorities, these children were encouraged in their language development by the best teachers available, but never developed proper speech. Both of them learned a fair number of words but could never put them together except in the simplest patterns. Their voices had an unnatural quality.
The failure of "wild children" properly to develop language is sometimes interpreted as evidence that language occupies a separate "module" in the brain. Similarly, it is sometimes argued that children have a "language-acquisition device" in the brain, with which the child sets himself or herself up with competence in a language. Following this metaphor, it is proposed that the language acquisition device withers away if it is not used when the child is young.
With our increasing knowledge about brain function and mental development, it becomes difficult to sustain belief in the existence of a separate language module in the brain. Similarly, a "critical period" for language, is more metaphor than biological fact.
Writers about Wild Children always face the question of whether they can rule out general mental retardation as a prior cause of the lack of language development in their subjects. Prof. Susan Curtiss of the University of California, Los Angeles, who wrote extensively about Genie, decided that mental retardation was not a cause.
Shattuck was not so certain, but leaned toward a more holistic explanation, observing, "We could well say that it was just too late for Victor to assemble, become conscious of, and enact an idea of his self, of his identity as a separate person." Shattuck noted that descriptions of Victor often used the imagery of sleep. He said this imagery "stands for the incompleteness of his self-awareness; he never fully awoke to his individual existence."
It is certainly true that Genie and Victor failed to develop personalities that were well-integrated with the surrounding cultures, and that this failure was interpreted by some as mental retardation. As Shattuck suggested, however, causal explanations limited to general retardation or failure of a language acquisition device do not exhaust the possibilities.
===
Construction of self
It is particularly risky to distinguish sharply between language development and general social development. From all we can learn, it appears that language development--although genetically decreed--is played out in intimate relation with general mental maturation in a social environment. Specifically, language development is intertwined with apprehending a common definition of reality and mounting a personality for operating within a language community. You need a personality in order to interact as a competent member of a speech community.
Lenneberg's summary of the situation took into account the inseparability of the several factors: "The only safe conclusion to be drawn from the multitude of reports is that life in dark closets, wolves' dens, forests, or sadistic parents' backyards is not conducive to good health and normal development."
We need a comprehensive theory of language learning that will allow us to understand what happens to normal children, and what does not happen to Wild Children. Two threads that I am sure will eventually be woven into the complete theory are now available.
I am particularly impressed by constructivist accounts by the likes of Michael Tomasello, codirector of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. In Constructing a Language (2003), he outlines children's simultaneous construction of a self-image along with knowledge of the world, social skill and language.
An essential complement to social psychological accounts is a description of what happens in the brain--how sound-meaning patterns are created and changed. For that, the connectionist tradition is best, represented by Nick Ellis, professor of psychology of the University of Michigan, in various recent publications.
All things considered, it appears that the lesson to be learned from studying Wild Children is that there is indeed a critical period. But it is not a critical period for language; it is a critical period for the construction of a self as a human being in a society of human beings.
Language ability is an integral part of that construction, but is by no means the whole thing. There is not a separate module in the brain for language, nor even a separate process. Developing language skill is just a part of learning to be human according to local customs.
* * *
Send e-mail to childs@tuj.ac.jp. The column will return on Aug. 3.
Childs, EdD, teaches TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) and other subjects at Temple University, Japan Campus.
(Jul. 6, 2007)