MOST children start speaking in sentences between the age of 18 months and two years. If they don鈥檛, and their parents bring them to a speech clinic, it usually transpires that the problem isn t about forming sentences. It鈥檚 about the more basic skill of uttering words. Indeed, the majority of such infants have yet to utter their first word, something that typically happens at about one year. This observation is just one of several that have led me to rethink in quite a profound way my views about the relationship between language and speech. (By 鈥渓anguage鈥 I mean our facility for grammar, syntax, vocabulary and so on and by 鈥渟peech鈥 our ability to express orally thoughts that have been encoded in language.)
Until now, the picture has been roughly this. We use the code and rules of language to represent thoughts; we use our capacity for speech to communicate these representations. According to this view, speech is nothing more than a mechanical process, a 鈥渕outhpiece鈥 which enables you to externalise the language that is in your head. But I believe this notion is wrong: speech is much more than just a mouthpiece for language. Findings in my own and other research laboratories, as well as observations of people caught in the act of talking, show that we don鈥檛 just use our ability to speak as a way of communicating our language-based thoughts to others. Babies babble for other reasons. The linguistic content of what adults say is often unimportant; in chitchat, for example, our speech becomes a series of vocal gestures similar to those used in body language. And neurological studies show that 鈥渒nowing how to speak鈥 isn鈥檛 the same as 鈥渒nowing language鈥. Perhaps the human brain has a 鈥渟peaking mechanism鈥 that exists quite separately from its grammar, comprehension and language centres.
But if speech isn鈥檛 just a mouthpiece for language then what else is it for? In a culture where the words 鈥渓anguage鈥 and 鈥渟peech鈥 are used almost interchangeably (perhaps wrongly so), the question may seem hard to comprehend let alone answer. Nevertheless it is important that we do, because the other, less obvious functions of speech may hold valuable clues to some enduring and much-debated puzzles, such as why most infants develop language easily (and why some do not). Indeed, once you stop seeing speech as indissolubly linked to language-based thoughts, and instead start viewing it as an autonomous channel for social communication and personal development 鈥 albeit one that is often pressed into the service of language 鈥 then your outlook on language changes too. Instead of seeing our capacity for language as the engine that drives speech, it becomes easier to see our capacity for speech as the driving force. Easier, too, to imagine language evolving in response to speech, as a system for policing its otherwise unruly output of sounds and babbling.
Advertisement
Despite all the contemporary confusion over the distinction between language and speech, the idea that they are distinct is not new. It was drawn more than a century ago by the French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. To Saussure, la langue was the grammar of language, the linguistic system of mental rules that allows speakers to continually produce sentences never before heard, even to make up new forms. 鈥淛ohn鈥檚 not faxable鈥 we say without the slightest fear of miscomprehension, 鈥渉e鈥檚 sabbaticaling on the Isle of Mull鈥. La paroLe, in Saussure鈥檚 terminology, referred to speech produced in the service of language, to the individual sounds from which all our words are made. Accordingly, speech was conceptualised as no more than a means of vocalising the words and sentences in our heads, of turning language into something social and communicative.
That view still prevails in linguistics and psychology today. Yet some of our talking is neither communicative nor particularly social. Indeed, even normal, healthy people can be caught talking to themselves. The utterances addressed to pets and house plants, and the vocalisations or speech emitted in reaction to pain, injury or mishap are common forms of self-talk. So are attempts to regain composure following an accident, reaction to traumatising news or frustration, revulsion, glee and sexual excitement. These examples 鈥 and the subvocal use of speech in counting, rehearsing phone numbers and the like 鈥 suggest that speech is not inherently social.
Let鈥檚 take a look at the developmental seeds of talking and ask about the sociability of early talk-like behaviours. Research by Kim Oller and his colleagues at the University of Miami, Florida, indicates that most infants begin to babble at about seven or eight months of age. Since babbling involves a rhythmic opening ancl closing of the mouth while vocalising, it produces syllabic forms that resemble real speech syllables 鈥 the familiar dadada and mamama 鈥 and parents typically refer to it as 鈥渢alking鈥. In development, babbling blends imperceptibly into speaking, and it is difficult to distinguish babbles from real words.
Infants鈥 disposition to babble is so powerful that even mental retardation, brain damage and structural deformities of the speech mechanism 鈥 such as a lack of a tongue 鈥 are unlikely to keep them from doing it. Surprisingly, even babies who are born deaf go through the normal stages of early vocal development and, following a slight delay, begin to babble, thus producing the syllables and sounds contained in speech. Why deaf infants would vocalise at all, much less produce complex speech-like sounds that they cannot hear, is one of the great unsolved mysteries of developmental linguistics.
Infant vocalisation is not inherently social. Babies tend to do it whether alone or accompanied. Like speaking, babbling seems to be an enjoyable form of play that is carried out by infants who are relaxed, healthy, rested and seemingly in a good mood. Just as depressed adults may not feel like talking, unhappy or unhealthy infants probably babble less than happy ones. And when infants learn words, they seem to feel no embarrassment in talking while alone. They talk while playing alone with toys, and chatter away to dolls or imaginary playmates.
All of which logically suggests speech is independent from language. But that should not be taken to mean that vocalising and speaking exert no effect on language development. Indeed, the sheer amount of sound-making by infants appears to be related to the rate at which they develop language. Several studies now suggest that, other things being equal, infants who babble more acquire vocabulary more quickly than others and may be more likely to avoid serious lexical delays. Several years ago, Carol Stoel-Gammon, a linguist at the University of Washington, reported that infants who were late to develop language had vocalised less frequently or typically during the normal babbling period than infants who acquired language on schedule. When babies begin to produce speech-like sounds, parental feedback can be important. Parents tend to treat babbling episodes as real conversations and respond accordingly. To 鈥渄adada鈥, the mother responds 鈥淒addy? Do you want daddy?鈥. When the baby says 鈥渂uh鈥, parents look around the room for an object that could be construed as the infant鈥檚 鈥渢opic鈥. This enables them to say, 鈥淥h yes, ball, that鈥檚 the ball, isn鈥檛 it?鈥.
Several different vocal variations 鈥 changes in pitch, timing and stress, for example 鈥 may help infants to discover words and clauses. Recent evidence for this has come from Peter Jusczyk at the State University of New York in Buffalo and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek at the University of Delaware. In their studies, English-reared infants listen longer to phrases that have a pause at the end, rather than in the middle, and to two-syllable English words that have the usual strong-weak stress arrangement, as in the word 鈥渘eighbour鈥, rather than the less common weak-strong patter, as in 鈥渃omply鈥.
This interest in vocal variations does not vanish with increases in linguistic sophistication. Warren Fay, a speech pathologist at the University of Oregon Medical School in Portland, intoned an unrecognisable utterance to some three-year-old monolingual speakers of American English. When he stated 鈥淓l camino real鈥, 24 per cent responded in the affirmative. But when he asked 鈥淓l camino real?鈥 with the rising intonation associated with American English questions, the frequency of affirmative responses rose to 62 per cent. The children appeared to regard Fay鈥檚 utterances as meaningful, even though they could not have made less sense.
More obvious expressions of our capacity for responding to speech are talking games. If talking is a highly developed characteristic of our species, it follows that individuals of all ages would enjoy doing it in its own right, quite apart from its functional value in the communication of thought. Those who have seen performances of 鈥淢ary Poppins鈥 may recall an utterance that confirms this 鈥 鈥渟upercalifragilisticexpialidocious鈥 鈥 a string of sounds that children love to sing and say. But the delight in absurdly difficult words does not stop at adolescence. Tourists annually flock to a rather unremarkable town in North Wales for one reason only 鈥 its name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch!
The infant鈥檚 movement into spoken language is encouraged by a desire to talk like the people with whom it shares emotional bonds. If children merely sought to speak intelligibly, they could well be excused for discontinuing the learning process when they had acquired enough language to satisfy their purposes. And we would all understand if they relaxed their efforts to speak intelligibly when they discovered that we comprehend their immature articulation just as it is. But they keep right on going, absorbing their parents鈥 conversational mannerisms along with the linguistically critical sounds, words and grammatical markers. This, by itself, suggests that children do not learn words just to express meanings, but also to act like adults.
As children approach adolescence they are urged not to speak unless addressing others, but some mature individuals involuntarily violate the ban on self-talk. Schizophrenic, demented, confused, or lonely people may 鈥渢alk to themselves鈥 or, perhaps more accurately in some cases, talk to no one present. Most of us think that people who do this 鈥渓ack control鈥, and that is precisely my point. Speaking is so natural that we need to have mechanisms that inhibit the activity when alone. When sensory deprivation experiments were in vogue in the 1950s, it was discovered that perfectly normal, healthy individuals may speak or sing on their own when denied the usual amount and range of environmental experience.
Talking, for most of us, is virtually the only way we have to show to others who we are (and by 鈥渢alking鈥 I mean not just speech but also body language and facial expressions). To demonstrate our earnestness, friendliness, sincerity and sense of humour, we must speak. But in many cases it is not what we say that is important but how we say it and how we look. With small talk and chitchat the meaning conveyed by our verbal language is usually subordinate to our so-called body language 鈥 and is often subordinate to the very fact that we are making an effort to vocalise. As Robin Dunbar, a psychologist at the University of Liverpool, has observed, in many circumstances we talk to interact rather than to inform. Dunbar even likens this form of talking to the grooming activities of nonhuman primates.
That analogy suggests nonhuman primates groom rather than vocalise 鈥 and that indeed seems to be the case. Although primates emit distinctive alarm calls when disputes occur over feeding, breeding, or self-defence, they seem not to vocalise when the biological stakes are low, but to gossip or whisper. In 1989, Allen Gardner and his partners at the University of Utah, commented that 鈥淐himpanzees are silent animals most of the time. A group of ten wild chimpanzees of assorted ages and sexes feeding peacefully in a fig tree at Gombe may make so little sound that an inexperienced observer passing below can altogether fail to detect them.鈥 Moreover, young apes and monkeys seem not to pass through a stage in vocal development that closely resembles babbling.
Apes and monkeys certainly do conduct important business vocally, but humans seem to make vocalisation a business.
Further insights into the distinction between speech and language come from pathologies of talking that leave language unscathed. There are many such disorders, including the excessive flow of speech called logorrhea, Tourette鈥檚 syndrome, and the complete cessation of talking in elective mutism. In 1962, Eric Lenneberg, then at Harvard, described the case of a severely impaired adolescent who was unable to form the sounds of speech because of a condition called anarthria. The boy nevertheless comprehended a normal amount of language.
Conversely, people can be good at speaking but know less than the normal amount of language. Several years ago, reports surfaced of a previously unrecognised condition called Williams syndrome. Sufferers have a reduced intellect but a very conversational style of speaking, much like Chancy Gardner, the lovable simpleton played by Peter Sellers in Being There.
Fluent in jargon
In aphasia, a stroke or other brain injury keeps people from retrieving the words and grammatical knowledge that they have stored. However, some patients鈥 disorders may not be immediately detectable because they retain control over the noncreative forms of language, continuing to use highly overlearned words and phrases such as 鈥渨ell, of course, you know鈥 and idioms such as 鈥渋f you can鈥檛 beat 鈥檈m, join 鈥檈m鈥. Cases such as these call our attention to the lack of creativity associated with many normal conversations. Some stroke victims have a particular type of impairment called 鈥渏argon aphasia鈥. These patients understand little or no language, but speak fluently, usually with normal conversational emotion, intonation, and facial expression, yielding the floor when interrupted, resuming the floor when appropriate. For all intents and purposes, they have no language whatsoever but their ability to talk is undiminished.
Many of us have heard or read about Genie, the little girl who was raised in near-total social isolation in Los Angeles from the time she was about two years old until adolescence. When she was discovered in 1970, Genie neither understood nor used language. After some years of social stimulation and language training, Genie still has not mastered the grammatical rules associated with language, but she does talk.
These findings suggest that humans have a purpose-built talking mechanism in the brain that exists just for the control of vocalising and talking, apart from other mechanisms that are needed for grammatical language, or the solution of complex cognitive tasks. These talking mechanisms function with very little encouragement from the infants鈥 environment, asserting themselves against a range of biological odds.
What, then, can be said of la langue, the system of grammatical rules from which language derives its flexible creativity? The cognitive operations associated with grammar appear to begin as expedient strategies that help infants deal with rapidly expanding vocabulary and thought. For language in the first instance is inherently organisational 鈥 a mental talent for making order out of lexical chaos 鈥 a means of handling all the utterances that are competing for slots in the infant鈥檚 expressive vocabulary. But this would be unnecessary without pressures supplied by the activity we have come to know, simply, as talking.
These pressures may have worked in evolution, too. To date, no one has explained an important fact about the world鈥檚 languages 鈥 every one of them is spoken. And yet, signed languages are learned very quickly by infants born to deaf parents, and used very efficiently by adults. Why are there no normally hearing cultures that sign instead of speak? The reason may be that when the benefits of symbolic communication through language became clear to our hominid ancestors, they were already talking. Language thus took advantage of, and arose within, this richly personal socially-binding and vocally-variegated activity.