Editing 2839: Language Acquisition
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
+ | {{incomplete|Created by MY FIRST WORDS - This should be a bit longer. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
+ | {{w|Language acquisition}} is the process by which humans, generally infants, learn a language. | ||
− | + | There are many theories as to how this process works, but Randall takes this phrase literally, saying that infants learn languages one new word at a time. This may be true when learning a second language, but is typically not true for infants learning their native language (mother tongue). It is a common milestone to celebrate a child's "[https://www.parents.com/baby/development/talking/baby-talk-a-month-by-month-timeline1/ first word]", but typically these would be simple words, such as "mama" or "dada". | |
− | The child's sentence | + | The child's sentence is twelve words, all unique. This implies these are the only words known so far, which would be a very unusual set of words to be the first ones learned. Furthermore, the child appears to have learned some fairly advanced grammatical concepts in order to construct this fairly complex sentence. Learning grammar typically takes much longer, and only occurs once a child has learned sufficient vocabulary to recognise patterns in how the words are used. |
− | Interestingly if this sentence is true, the child has learned the word | + | Interestingly if this sentence is true, the child has learned the word for 12 before learning the words for any other numbers, and so could not have given a quantitative update on previous days. However, this would also imply that their counting is not yet as advanced as their language acquisition, which may mean that they are simply wrong about the number of words they have learned. |
− | + | Two letter blocks on the ground next to the child show capitals 'A' and 'B', and a third has an upside-down lowercase 'e'. The block with the 'e' may be placed upside-down, but it may also be a block with the phonetic symbol {{w|schwa}} on it. This would suggest the parents are teaching their child advanced linguistics concepts before they've fully learned to speak a first language, which might explain why the child's language acquisition is so unusual. | |
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− | + | The title text makes a self-referential joke about the concept of "first words", where a supposed child discusses one's own first words in a complete sentence. There are seven unique words in the title text, most of which do not appear in the comic image, suggesting the title text and comic image referred to two different children. | |
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− | The title text makes a self-referential joke about the concept of "first words", where a supposed child discusses one's own first words in a complete sentence. There are seven unique words in the title text, most of which do not appear in the comic image, suggesting the title text and comic image referred to two different children | ||
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[[2567: Language Development]] has had a similarly obscure take on language acquisition. | [[2567: Language Development]] has had a similarly obscure take on language acquisition. |