Post your reflections on the article about how babies develop language.
6 Comments
Gabriella Freeman
1/24/2013 12:17:50 pm
The BBC report, Babies ‘cry in mother’s tongue’, was a particularly intriguing subject to read, although I’m not completely sure I believe it. It is interesting that the researchers managed to tell a rising accent from the French babies in differentiation to the German babies, and I believe that much could actually be true. Many parents talk to the woman’s stomach when she is pregnant, and even sing to it, as it is believed that the baby can hear and ‘understand’ or get familiar with the parents’ voices. It may even be possible that they can pick up a slight accent, as it would be the most common accent they hear from inside the womb, so it would, to the babies, be the ‘norm’. However, I’m not sure if I believe that the babies can be so aware from such a very young age. Regardless, the read was highly interesting. It could very well be completely possible that babies pick up their parents’ accents, although, what if the mother has a stutter or a lisp? Then will the child pick that up too? The report is very plausible and I am genuinely interested in knowing about any more discoveries relevant to that specific topic.
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Athavan Balendran
2/13/2013 01:28:46 pm
I think people often underestimate the power of evolution and the human brains capacity to learn. Out of all the different animals on Earth, humans take care of their offspring more than any of them. One top of that, many animal mothers are reluctant to care for a new born baby while others don’t raise their offspring at all. It is a great amount of work taking care of babies and many mothers end up dying as result of saving food only for their offspring. The interesting part of this article to me was that the doctor explained that the babies were trying form a bond with their mother and attract their mother too them. A high percentage of humans will take care of the child no matter what, but in the wild, some animals will give up their offspring if they feel they don’t live up to their full standards. Here in this article is an excellent form of evolution, where the baby is trying to prevent being given up by forming a bond with its mother and trying to attract her. Gabriella seems to not be sure as to whether or not this information is true. I however, feel that it boils down to simple logic. As kids we often learn new things, and pick up language from the people around us. New born babies’ brains grow faster in their early years than at any other time period in their lives. Where else would a baby learn to cry or make the sound of a cry than by listening the things went on in its surroundings? It may be a naturally born instinct, but this instinct is only triggered because of the influence of the mother therefore concluding that in the later stages of pregnancy the baby can begin its learning process. It is possible that babies could be trained prior to learning words, to cry in a different way for certain things, whether it be changing the pitch, volume or tone. Not only are these discoveries important for understand how our brains comprehend and evolve, but also shows how simple it is to learn language. So many other animals are capable of their own forms of sounds that have meanings, but if a pre-born human baby can learn accent, what would happen to a dolphin in the later stages of pregnancy exposed to different sounds of its future prey, how would these help it to evolve faster than ever?
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Mari Teixeira
2/15/2013 05:37:50 am
The article about how babies imitate the sounds their mothers make when crying was really interesting and made me think; however, I am not completely sure that I am convinced by it. Although it is very interesting I don't really understand how a baby crying the tone close to those which their mothers talk is in anyway going to affect how the mother is going to respond to the cry. I agree that all times babies are picking up what they are listening and trying to understand what is being said and trying to repeat it to learn a certain language, but not to make certain sounds or pitches. It is very interesting for babies to learn languages, since they are trying to repeat what they have heard, but that is simple referring to other words and sentences and not sounds that they have heard. Even though I find this research very interesting I do not completely believe that this is true, but that most likely babies are simply trying to imitate the words said, not the sounds and pitches that are being made.
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Anna Pearson
2/17/2013 09:26:53 am
I never realized a baby’s cry had different intonations. Before reading this article I thought that an infant’s cry was a universally similar noise. Yet it is interesting to think that babies can hear and interpret sounds as soon as they are born and even inside the womb. An infant’s brain must subconsciously interpret the sounds it hears to train the vocal chords to have different intonations. The article stated that vocal intonation is used to imitate the mother to form a bond. This natural instinct is similar to other animals in the wild. It is a common stereotype that animals such as birds will think that the first thing they see is their mother. They will then try to imitate the mother. Many other mammals also try to form bonds with their mothers by copying their movements. It is a natural instinct to try to make sure the mother cares and looks out for them. However, what if the first language the baby hears is different than the mother’s natural tongue? Does this cause a change in dialect? Later in life would this make a second language easier for a child? Perhaps this research could lead to further developments and would increase the ability of humans to learn different languages.
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Sarah Godoy
3/3/2013 07:31:10 pm
This BBC article is very interesting because it brings up the dilemma of when does the process of learning begin. By affirming that babies from different places have different cries based on their mother’s cultural background, the essay suggests that babies produce sounds they have heard in the womb and therefore it means that learning is not an innate behavior; however, in another moment, the article suggests that early babies’ behaviors are only reflexes since their brains are not able to fully operate in the first days of life. Instead, these reflexes are believed to go away after the first month and then come back later in a different form. I have doubts if I fully agree that a French baby will have a cry that fits into the French language or that a Portuguese baby’s cry will have a Portuguese accent, but I do agree that bonding between the mother and the fetus causes the baby to inherit not only its mother’s physical characteristics, but also behavioral.
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Thiago Gatto
3/31/2013 10:46:23 am
The article "Babies 'Cry in a mother's tongue" shows how incredible it is the capacity of the human brain to absorb information and process it in a way that it will help the organism to create bonds or relations with beings of the same species. It is said that humans only use 10% of their brains capacity on a daily basis, and I believe that! Imagine the amount of information that the human brain is capable of absorbing, processing and storing during the lifetime of a person, from when she is a feto up to when she is dying. It is an unmeasurable amount of information regarding all areas of human development that will affect the person and the person doesn't even know she is using it. The example of the babies that "cry in their mother's tongue" is but another exampe of how human mind is capable of using several types of information, which, on an evolutionary aspect, might lead to the sucess of the organism as a part of the community. By crying in the same tone as their mother, the baby is sending a message that he belongs with her and the rest of this population, and that he should be united with her, thus creating a bond between mother and son, which will further develop in a much stronger feeling as they start to interact with each other after the feto is born.
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