Language Immersion

As Mike mentioned in the previous post, Holden has recently been surprising us everyday with a new word (or new primitive version of a word). He's also been demonstrating new signs at a fairly rapid rate, which is making me realize that WE need to learn some new signs to teach him. I also realized recently that only we can fully understand his developments--that is to say, when others see him babbling and flapping his hands about, much of it seems like, well, babbling. And when I'm around other kids whose parents SWEAR their child knows numerous words, I'm left wondering if they're imagining things.

I'm not bringing this up to belittle my or any other child's language process. Rather, I just want to highlight the collaborative process that makes language happen for a child. Scholars often liken the child's learning process to that of someone in a foreign land. First a person learns crude versions of the most necessary words ("si," "por favore," etc.), often using gestures to help make his/her intent clear. The longer one is immersed in the foreign land, the more their language, then tone and even sense of humor, develops. But I think in the case of toddlers, this goes both ways. Parents who are immersed in their toddler's world learn their child's particular quirks--their sense of humor, what bothers them, what makes them laugh. And they respond to their mumblings because they understand the context.

Thus, even if it sounds like "ba ba," the parents know it's "blackberries" (or "brown bear" in another context) because they have interacted in an intimate way with their child. Signs help, I think (even if they child creates his/her own unique version of the sign). They help the parents know when "mo" means "more" or when it means "milk". And incidentally, it helps the daycare provider or anyone else that might know sign language. But what makes language development so exciting and so magical is the intimate collaborative process between parents and child, the co-discovery of new ways to communicate. I LOVE that I know exactly what my child means when he says "mo" or "no" (which means "snow" not "no," in case you were wondering). And I love that he trusts me enough to try out new unsophisticated versions of words. And I thought learning to walk was cool. Not even close to this process.