GENDER DIFFERENCES IN CHILDREN LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Rahma Dini Warastuti*
Abstract
Pada umumnya, para ibu sering mempertanyakan mengapa
anak laki-laki mereka tidak dapat memperoleh bahasa
pertamanya secepat anak perempuan seusianya. Kita tentu
harus menyadari bahwa sesungguhnya mereka adalah makhluk
sosial yang juga butuh berkomunikasi. Beberapa penelitian
menunjukkan bahwa perkembangan bahasa setiap anak
berbeda-beda, hal ini karena adanya faktor-faktor tertentu
yang berpengaruh secara langsung terhadap pemerolehan
maupun perkembangan bahasa mereka, yaitu faktor
sosial/lingkungan ,kognitif, linguistik, serta keterampilan
persepsi dan konseptual. Selain itu kita harus mengetahui
bahwa terdapat perbedaan kemampuan pengembangan bahasa
anak laki-laki dan perempuan yang mendasar, yaitu bahwa
perkembangan bahasa anak perempuan lebih cepat
dibandingkan anaklaki-laki; anak perempuan menggunakan
bagian otaknya yang berbeda dengan bagian otak anak laki-lak
idan ternyata bahwa otak anak perempuan berkembang lebih
awal dan lebih besar dibandingkan anak laki-laki.
Keywords: language acquisition, language development, gender differences,
Introduction
The most frequently questioned by mothers is why their son cannot
communicate as fast as their neighbor's daughter. They always complain
about their son who cannot speak as fast as the girls. Children born with the
ability to learn speech and language have the need to communicate because
children are human beings who are social creatures that live together with
other creatures. In life, we frequently find interrelationships among humans
when they live with others in their environment. Sometimes, in this
reciprocal relationship emerge a demand that the child should be able to
talk as fast as other children ─ kids on her or his own age. This writing will
222 Musawa, Vol. 3, No. 2, Desember 2011: 221-234
try to reveal the reason why they have different language acquisition and
language development ability. This communicate needs "demands" them to
master a language, then the term acquisition come.
Language Acquisition Definition
The term acquisition , namely, the process of language acquisition by
children naturally when he learned their mother tongue (native language).
What is language acquisition? Language acquisition is the process by
which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to
understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of
diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary.
This language might be vocal as with speech or manual as in sign .
Language acquisition usually refers to first language acquisition, which
studies infants' acquisition of their native language, rather than second
language acquisition, which deals with acquisition (in both children and
adults) of additional languages.i 1
Possessing a language is the quintessentially human trait: all normal
humans speak, no nonhuman animal does. Pinker (1987) says, ‚Language is
the main vehicle by which we know about other people's thoughts, and the
two must be intimately related. Every time we speak we are revealing
something about language, so the facts of language structure are easy to
come by; these data hint at a system of extraordinary complexity‛2.
Nonetheless, learning a first language is something every child does
successfully, in a matter of a few years and without the need for formal
lessons. With language so close to the core of what it means to be human, it
is not surprising that children's acquisition of language has received so
much attention. Anyone with strong views about the human mind would
like to show that children's first few steps are steps in the right direction.
Here, there are some children's language acquisition stages.
The History of Language Acquisition Studies
Actually, interesting of knowing how children acquire their first
language has been started thousands years ago.
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition
Pinker Steven..Mechanism of Language Acquisition.(Cambridge,MA:
MIT Press, 1987), 1
2
Rahma Dini Warastuti, Gender Differences in Children Language
223
Acquisition and Language Development
Psammeticus, an Egyptian Pharoah during the 7th century BC,
believed language was inborn and that children isolated from birth from any
linguistic influence would develop the language they had been born
with. He isolated two children, who were reported to have spoken a few
words of Phyrgian, an IE language of present day Turkey. Psammeticus
believed that this was the first, or original, language.3
In the 15th century, King James V of Scotland performed a similar
experiment; the children were reported to have spoken good Hebrew. He
told that the kids spoke "verieguid Hebrew."4
Akbar, a 16th century Mughal emperor of India, desired to learn
whether language was innate or acquired through exposure to the speech of
adults. He believed that language was learned by people listening to each
other and therefore a child could not develop language alone. So he ordered
a house built for two infants and stationed a mute nurse to care for
them. The children did not acquire speech, which seemed to prove Akbar's
hypothesis that language is acquired and does not simply emerge
spontaneously in the absence of exposure to speech. 5
In 1877, Charles Darwin responded to an article by Taine in the
journal Mind on early language acquisition by 'looking over a diary' he had
kept thirty-seven years before on his own son's development6 . The result,
'A Biographical Sketch of an Infant', was one of the first English infant
psychology studies and a methodological innovation, being based on regular
recordings of observations over a period of years. Darwin's article
motivated others in England to carry out research on child development, an
area that had previously received little attention in that country. The diary
and related article reveal Darwin's reflections on child language acquisition
as a key to understanding the mental development of the child, as well as
the development of language in mankind, which was of vital importance to
evolutionary theory.
Only in the last 40 years after the invention of the tape recorder was
child language recorded carefully and studied in any systematic
3
Dardjowidjojo,Soenjono. Psikolinguistik: Pengantar Pemahaman Bahasa
Manusia. (Cet.1.Ed.1, Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesi, 2003), 226
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Gleason, Jean Berko and Nan Lernstein Ratnereds. Second edition.
Psycholinguistics. (New York: Harcourt Brace College Publisher, 1998).
224 Musawa, Vol. 3, No. 2, Desember 2011: 221-234
fashion. Sophisticated recording machinery of all sorts are now used to
monitor language proficiency in infants and small children.
Child language acquisition studies often attempt to map out the stages
of language acquisition. Such studies are of two types:
longitudinal-- development of speech in the same group over time. Most
studies of child language acquisition are of this form.
cross sectional-- search for a certain type of data in a broad spectrum of
different children, such as a study of the language of two-year olds across
the country.
In his Journal of Child Language, Ingram (1989) 7 divided studies
development of language acquisition into three periods. They are diary
period (1876-1926), big sampling period (1926-1957) and longitudinal
studies period (started when Chomsky's 'Syntactic Structures' appeared). In
this first period, he said, some researchers noted whatever the children say
in the diary. This note is analyzed and finally he gets the summary result.
The second period related with the behaviorists' orientation which said that
the environment has a big role of children's language acquisition, so
quantity method is the best one in doing any research. The main evidence is
showed by Templin (1957)8. He tested 480 children, 3-8 years of age, of
representative socio-economic background. The last period , longitudinal
period, was started by Chomsky's 'Syntactic Structure or nativism
orientation. It said that the children were born with a set of rule.This brings
the children using the same strategies in acquire their first language
wherever they are.
The main characteristic of this period is the studies need very long
time because they examines the development of something that is being
studied from one period to another. Four months or more is not enough
giving out an idea of how things were developing in languages. Beside that,
the number of object study is usually much less, and even one person . It is
quite like that done by the Weir (1962), Dromi (1987), Tomasello (1992).
Their object researches are their own family, their own kids and
Dardjowidjojo (2000) researched his own granddaughter.
7
Ingram, David..‛An Historical Observation on ‘Why Mama and Papa’.‛
Journal of Child Language, Vol.18, 1991
8
Templin, M. Certain language Skills in Children: Their Development and
Interrelationship. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press Publisher, 1957), 2
Rahma Dini Warastuti, Gender Differences in Children Language
225
Acquisition and Language Development
Acquisition VS Learning
The term acquisition is distinguished from learning. Learning is an
equivalent word in English learning. Learning is a process of language
acquisition that is done formally in the classroom and taught by a teacher.
Thereby the acquisition is the process of mastering their mother tongue,
while learning is the process of mastering the language of people (generally
adult) which occurs in the classroom. The term acquisition namely, the
process of language acquisition by children naturally when he learned their
mother tongue (native language). The term is distinguished from learning.
Learning is an equivalent word in English learning. Learning is a process of
language acquisition that is done formally, that is, learning in the classroom
and taught by a teacher. Thereby the acquisition is the process of mastering
their mother tongue, while learning is the process of mastering the language
of people (generally adult) which occurs in the classroom. Human beings,
wherever they are, may be definitely be able to control acquire language
when they grew up in a community because of language acquisition in
humans is strongly influenced by the environment. Some studies show that
language development is different for every child. There are many factors
that influence language development in each child. Before discussing these
factors, we have to know how a child acquires language.
How Does a Child Acquires Language?
There are three main approaches towards the first language
acquisition of children, the behaviorism, nativism and the cognitive.
According to behaviorist, language acquisition is a process of imitation and
reinforcement. Children learn speak by copying the utterance which is heard
around them and having their responses strengthening by repetition.
Nativism argued that during the process of first language acquisition ,
children gradually opened up the language ability are genetically
programmed. So the environment has no influence in the process of
acquisition at all. The last approaches said that language is one of several
capabilities derived from cognitive cognitive maturity, so the development
of language is determined by sequences of cognitive development.
According to Piaget's complex structure is not a natural gift and not
something to be learned from the environment but structure was inevitably
226 Musawa, Vol. 3, No. 2, Desember 2011: 221-234
arise as a result of continuous interaction between the level of cognitive
functioning of children with the linguistic environment.9
Linking to children acquiring and learning language approaches
above this is a list of psychologists/ theorists
(1) Noam Chomsky, he stated that children are born with an innate
knowledge of language when they are born and learning of their native
language is at high speed when hearing it from others. This links to children
over regularizing and putting grammar into utterances when they are not
needed. Chomsky is one of the most famous theorists on child language
acquisition, but because his theories were based on his own intuitions about
English and not actually studied on real children, many theorists find flaws
within his theories and statements
Chomsky created the LAD- language acquisition device
a.
Baby already knows about linguistic rules, as they are born with an
innate knowledge of language.
b. The baby hears examples of his/ her native language
c. The linguistic rules help the baby make estimations and
presumptions about the language it is hearing.
d. From these estimations and presumption the baby works out
grammatical sets of rules. As more language is heard the grammar
becomes more and more like adults.
(2) Skinner. He based his theory of children acquiring language
through behaviorism. Skinner stated that all behavior is conditioned e.g.
punished or rewarded until it becomes natural and automatic. Babies
imitate their parents/carers and are either reprimanded or praised according
to their accuracy. This was Skinner going against Chomsky, as he believed
biology plays almost no part in the way children learn language.
(3) Piaget- His theories on children learning language is mainly
focused around "cognitive development," meaning language is controlled by
the development of thinking. If a baby can use sentences involving phrases
such as, "more than", "less than" it is obvious that the concepts of "more
than" must have been grasped, before the child uses the phrase in an
utterance.
9
Piaget,Jean. The Language and Thought of The Child. (New York: The
World Publishing, 1924/55), 167.
Rahma Dini Warastuti, Gender Differences in Children Language
227
Acquisition and Language Development
(4). Bruner- As a way of responding to Chomsky's LAD learning
system. Bruner theorized the language acquisition support system (LASS)
Bruner states through lass that parents often use books and images to
develop their children naming abilities and their ability to get involved in
conversation.
(LASS)
a.
Gaining attention- drawing the babies attention to a picture
b.
Query- asking the baby to identify the picture
c.
Label- telling the baby what the object is
d.
Feedback- responding to the babies utterances.10
There are definite factors that influence the development of
language. Social, cognitive processes, linguistic, as well as perceptual and
conceptual skills are factors that directly influence language development in
children.
Here, these factors will be discussed more widely.
1. Language development is different for every child. There are many
factors that influence language development in each child. While many
argue that language development is a matter of nature versus nurture,
there are definite factors that influence the development of language.
Social, cognitive processes, linguistic, as well as perceptual and
conceptual skills are factors that directly influence language
development in children. Whether these factors are controlled by
parents or nature, they are a serious factor in the development of your
child's language.
2. A child's social environment directly affects her or his language
development. Interaction with the child is crucial in developing social
and language skills. According to the Literacy Encyclopedia, "The
verbal environment influences language learning. From ages one to
three, children from highly verbal 'professional' families heard nearly
three times as many words per week as children from low verbal
'welfare' families." It is imperative to not only speak to your child but
10
Cited in comeflywithme18,‛Theorist on Child Language Acquisition‛,
http://comeflywithme18.hubpages.com/hub/Theorists-on-child-language-acquisition
January 23,2012
228 Musawa, Vol. 3, No. 2, Desember 2011: 221-234
also maintain conversation when your child is around. In addition to
income, television also affects language development. When the social
environment of the home is centered around watching television,
language and verbal expressions, "talking" decrease.
3. The way the child processes language cognitively affects the way her
or his own language develops. How often the children hears someone
else speaks affects their cognitive processes in learning language.
Children who are exposed to an unusually high proportion of examples
of a language form learn at a faster rate than those who are not.
4. Child's linguistic ability directly influences his language development.
In formulating his own vocabulary, it is not uncommon for the child to
associate a new word with a current object she or he does not have a
label (or word) to associate with it. It is also common that verb
endings, such as --ing, infer a meaning to the toddler. It is common
that the child will infer that this "meaning" is related to an activity,
such as swimming, playing or running, rather than a completed stage
or state, such as push off.
5. Conceptually speaking language skills are related to word knowledge.
If your child has difficulty recalling a word, it is likely that she or he
will know less about the object itself. In perceptual terms, your child's
auditory perceptual skill's at 6 to 12 months is a predictor of their
vocabulary size and syntactic complexity at 23 months. 11
Whether these factors are controlled by parents or nature, they are a
serious factor in the development of child's language. In the contrary, the
cognitive approach emphasizes the role of learning in behavior, but unlike
behaviorism, does not exclude the possible role of inherited mechanisms.
(For example, Gestalt theorists like Kohler believed that perceptual
organization was based on innate principles.) This duality of learning-withheredity is well-illustrated in the area of language development. As
discussed in the text, Noam Chomsky believed that language development
depends on an innate mechanism that he called a "language acquisition
device" which processes grammatical rules. While controversial when first
proposed, Chomsky's idea has gained support over time--even though we
still do not know the precise nature of the underlying mechanism. It was
11
Romo Sandra, Factors that Influence Language Devlopment, http://www.
ehow.com/list_6122997_gender-differences-child-language-development .html.
(January,23,201)
Rahma Dini Warastuti, Gender Differences in Children Language
229
Acquisition and Language Development
discovered by studying two-year-olds that females acquire new words at
faster rate than males during he two-year-old vocabulary spurt, independent
of exposure to vocabulary. Here, the role of a child's gender in language
acquisition will be discussed.
The Role of a Child's Gender in Language Acquisition
Talking about gender, it is not something we are born with, and not
something we have, but something we do or perform. The famous statement
by Simone de Beauvoir to the effect that women are not born but they are
made is applicable to the making of men as well. This process begins even
before a baby is born. 12Newborn babies cannot easily be identified as girls
or boys if they are dressed identically. Therefore, in many cultures, babies
are dressed in ways to make their gender clear. Gender assigning process
takes different forms, starting with the tradition of providing pink caps for
girls and blue caps for boys. In addition to the visual, color-coding sign,
another early attribution of gender is the linguistic event of naming the
baby. Moreover, from early childhood girls and boys are interpreted and
interacted with differently. People usually behave more gently with baby
girls and more playfully with baby-boys. Parents and even strangers talk to
them differently. Thus, while addressing girls more diminutives (doggie,
sweetie etc.) are used, whereas more direct prohibitive (don’t do that!)
occur while talking to boys (Gleason et al. 1994; Protassova, Voeikova
2007; Korecky-Kröll, Dressler 2007).
Children can see gender distinctions everywhere and start following
gender imposed patterns of behavior very early, thus continuing to learn to
be a girl or a boy. As for linguistic aspects, there is enough evidence to
claim that girls are usually more advanced in language development than
boys (it is obvious, though, that individual differences exist). Girls begin to
talk earlier; they articulate better and acquire a more extensive vocabulary
than boys of the same age. Studies of verbal ability have shown that girls
and women surpass boys and men in verbal fluency, correct language usage,
sentence complexity, grammatical structure, spelling, and articulation.13
12
Eckert Penelope; McConnell-Ginet, Sally. Language and Gender.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 10
13
Karmiloff, Kira;Karmiloff Smith,Annete. Pathway to Language, (Harvard
University Press, 2002).
230 Musawa, Vol. 3, No. 2, Desember 2011: 221-234
The statement above tells about the course of language development
at an early stage. It means that for the boys might be more difficult to
grasp and acquire the structure of their mother tongue. Extensive research
in the field allows us to state, however, that even though in some aspects of
language acquisition boys might be considered to lag behind or experience
more difficulties than girls, they, as a rule, reach the same level of linguistic
competence as girls already during the preschool years . 14 The article
explores the relationship between the process of language acquisition and
gender. It concentrates on the following research questions: Does the
child’s gender help her to acquire the structure of the native language faster
and easier? How do children acquire grammatical gender of the target
language?
Gender Differences in Child Language Development
In child language development process, there are real differences in
the development of language skills between boys and girls. A babbling
toddler is most often a girl and the 'little boy wiggles' in school signify
more than just high energy. Beside that, girls consistently have score higher
on tests of verbal ability, read earlier, speak in more complex sentences and
understand abstract ideas faster than boys. Research over decades, today
using sophisticated medical imaging devices, is pointing to differences in
brain development and activity to explain anecdotal gender differences in
children's language development as scientific fact.
1. Girls Develop Language Skills Sooner Than Boys.
Girls experience the cognitive changes that affect language
acquisition at age 14 to 20 months while boys exhibit these changes later,
between 20 and 24 months of age. This can explain why girls often speak
sooner than boys, use larger vocabularies and speak in multiple-word
sentences or phrases.
Related studies compiled by the University of Michigan Department
of Psychology in "Children and Primary Language Acquisition," show that
fathers tend to play physically with their boys but talk and otherwise
communicate socially and verbally with their girls, which may contribute to
age differences in language skills.
14
Ibid.
Rahma Dini Warastuti, Gender Differences in Children Language
231
Acquisition and Language Development
2. Girls Use Different Parts of The Brain to Process Language.
In controlled tests, brain-scanning MRIs show that girls use the
abstract thinking and language areas of the brain very actively when
processing language either verbally or visually. Boys, however, show
increased brain activity in visual areas when seeing words and in auditory
area when hearing words.The researchers found that girls still showed
significantly greater activation in language areas of the brain than boys.
The information in the tasks got through to girls' language areas of the
brain -- areas associated with abstract thinking through language. And their
performance accuracy correlated with the degree of activation in some of
these language areas.
To their astonishment, however, this was not at all the case for boys.
In boys, accurate performance depended -- when reading words -- on how
hard visual areas of the brain worked. In hearing words, boys' performance
depended on how hard auditory areas of the brain worked. 15
Researchers from Northwestern University and Haifa University who
conducted a joint study on gender differences in brain activity proposed
that the distinctions may date to early human history. The evidence of early
civilizations indicates that men relied on a limited, immediate signal to
make instant fight-or-flight decisions while women used context and
abstract thinking in decision-making, skills that are still highly relevant in
contemporary culture.
3.
Girls' Brains Develop Earlier and Are Larger Than Boys'.
According to an article published in Educational Leadership 2004,
the pre-frontal cortex (the part of the brain that controls expression, verbal
skill, cognitive and social behavior) in adolescent girls develops earlier and
is larger than that of adolescent boys. The neural connectors in girls' brains
that facilitate communication between the right and left brains are 25
percent larger in adolescent girls. This means better focus, better listening
skills, better memory and better multitasking--in short, more areas of the
15
Boys’ and Girls’ Brain are Different: Gender Differences in language
Appear Biological.[ News] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/ 03/ 080303
120346.htm. (January 23,2012)
232 Musawa, Vol. 3, No. 2, Desember 2011: 221-234
brain devoted to the skills required for reading and writing and verbal
fluency.16
Conclusion
All of the above discussion have revealed a few universally accepted
facts about child language acquisition. Mothers frequently questioned why
their son can not communicate as fast as their neighbor's daughter.They
always complain about their son who can not speak as fast as the girls. We
have to know that children ,who have the need to communicate, and as
social creatures , born with the spesific and different ability to learn speech
and language. It is because of some definite factors that directly influence
the development of language. They are social ( forinstantce the different
treatment ), cognitive processes, linguistic, as well as perceptual and
conceptual skills . Beside that, we have to relize that In child language
development process, there are real differences in the development of
language skills between boys and girls. Girls develop language skills sooner
than boys; girls use different parts of the brain to process language and girls'
brains develop earlier and are larger than boys'.
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