language
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Mike
Language acquisition
"Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain."- Lily Tomlin
There are many things parents teach us (how to dress, how to eat with spoons, knives and forks, how to play the piano, etc). But some of the most important things in a child's life like walking and talking aren't taught. Well, not clearly, anyway. Clearly, we must learn to speak from someone. But it can be said that while we learn from our parents, they do not teach us. What I mean by this is that unlike many other things, speech comes to a child not by being shown flash cards of verb tenses, but by absorbing the speech that surrounds them, and by eventually imitating those sounds and random phrases.
Benedicte de Broysson Bardies in 1999 argued against the once popular theory that children are born a "blank slate." Just like birds instinctively knowing to travel south in winter, humans are also born with an instinct. She writes that that instinct is to learn language...