The English Nerd

Many theorists have taken an interest in the process by which children learn to understand and speak a language. This subject is known as Child Language Acquisition (CLA).

What Is Babbling?

The linguistic nature of babbling has been widely debated throughout the studies of CLA, with different perspectives lending credence to different theories.

Some studies claim that babbling has no linguistic value and is purely a motor function, likening it to cooing or other previous stages of sound production in the stages of development with indistinguishable sound production (Jakobson, 1941). Previous antiquated studies, such as that of Holowka, define babbles as ‘vocalizations that contained a reduced subset of possible sounds found in a spoken language, and reduplicated syllabic organisations, […] produced without apparent meaning or reference’ (Holowka, 2002). While Holowka’s definition leans more towards the motor argument, such theories have since been disproven, with studies showing that babbling does indeed have linguistic value.

From around seven to ten months, a child may begin to utter phonemes in their exposed language – beginning with canonical babbling in which the child learns to use repetitive CV-syllables such as ‘mama’, ‘dada’, and ‘bababa’ (Oller & Eilers, 1988). 

The canonical stage ‘represents the point at which infants produce mature phonetic sequences that can function as the phonetic building blocks of words’ (Oller & Eilers, 1988).

Variegated babbling, however, entails a child producing phonemes with differing sequences of sounds, e.g. ‘munana’ (Stark, 1980).

Finally, intonation babbling occurs from around twelve months, whereby the infant produces longer strings of syllables, with varying intonational patterns. And yet, the infant still lacks the ability to produce linguistic content and/or grammatical structure (Hoff & Shatz, 2007). 

An Academic Approach With Study

In research of CLA, the inclusion of child participants in studies can form extenuating problems, such as attention span issues, physical limitations, etc. Due to these limitations, researchers have adapted their studies to accommodate the specific needs for children in a study, such as using a corpora to study child speech, allowing their caretaker to be present in the tests to reduce anxiety, and adapting physical apparatus to be as non-invasive as possible – using EEG caps to measure ERPs with gel-assisted conductivity.

Holowka demonstrated such accommodation through the form of video analysis; whereby babbling, non-babbling, and smiles were all sectioned into their own definitions with unique methods of identification (Holowka, 2002).

Cerebral activation is evidenced by activity in the left hemisphere of the brain, of which can be physically demonstrated through asymmetrical lip movements (Holowka, 2002). If babbling is deemed linguistic, this would be evidenced through the vocalisations that are identified as babbling where the given criteria have a positive correlation to the asymmetry in lip movements, differentiating between smiles and non-babbling vocalisations. The study found that babbles were indeed linguistic and had right mouth asymmetry, indicating that babbles had some cognitive process behind them through the activation of the left hemisphere of the brain (Holowka, 2002).

Nature Vs Nurture Debate

The nature vs nurture debate is one that has existed since the beginning of CLA research, one that is still argued to this day.

Chomsky’s Nativist Theory argues that a ‘Language Acquisition Device’ (LAD) in the human brain contributes to the innate ability to develop language (Chomsky, 1957). Conversely, Skinner’s Behaviourism Theory argues that imitation plays a key role in language acquisition, suggesting that children need environmental input and reinforcement to develop a language (Skinner, 1957). Boysson-Bardies’ study leans towards the nurture debate, as it found that ten month old babies babbled in vowels expected of their respective (adult) languages (Boysson-Bardies, 2001). Therefore, it could be argued that children do rely on environmental factors in order to acquire language.

Another example to back up this argument was that of a child (Orla) imitating her mother with a scouse accent (Jessop, 2024). You may have seen this video circulating social media.

Here, a mother recorded her (babbling) conversation with her daughter in the comfort of their own home. Not intended to be a scientific study, this recording provided an approach similar to Holowka’s video analysis, allowing linguists to later watch the video without any discomfort and/or bias to the child and her developing language. From this video, linguists were able to identify that, despite there being no semantic meaning in her babbling, Orla was able to recognise the prosody of question/answer pairs and showed examples of mimicking a back and forth conversation in babbles.

This therefore suggested that babbles do not need lexis in order to carry semantic meaning, as the child responded with the correct phonetic patterns in order to suggest an understanding and response in conversation – despite her inability to physically produce the lexical words required. These linguists suggested that, at her age of nineteen months, Orla will likely recognise hundreds of words, but ‘can say less than half of the words [she can] understand’. They also suggested that children in their early years ‘can understand a lot more words than they can say […] as their motor skills are not yet up to it’ (Jessop, 2024). This correlates to the idea that children learn from their environment around them (such as hearing and imitating her mother’s language with an accent), and can in fact babble under the circumstance that it carries linguistic meaning.

How Does Babbling Lead To Further Language Development?

Language development has many stages, of which babbling is but one. As the child grows and develops, so does their language. However, while the language development model is based on typical language development, atypical development (e.g. those with developmental language disorders) can deviate from this structure.

Babbling’s linguistic nature is important to consider in this aspect, because if a child is not meeting typical language development milestones, this could be a cause for concern for their caretaker to seek advice from professionals (such as speech and language therapists) to manage conditions as soon as possible. It can therefore be suggested that noting the stage of the babbling period can also aid caretakers in spotting any potential atypical development.

Some studies, for example, found that there were signs of babbling delay in children with (or suspected with) Cerebral Palsy between the ages of nine to twelve months (Nyman, 2022). Oller and colleagues’ study on telephone screening also suggested that infants with neurological disabilities, such as ADHD and autism, often showed delay within the canonical babbling stage (Oller et al., 1998). However, it should be noted not all delays with babbling are necessarily indicative of there being disabilities. Bilingual children being raised in a bilingual environment may show signs of later babbling milestones (Oller et al., 1998). Yet, this in no way indicates that bilingualism is detrimental to language development.

In conclusion, while there are differences in theories surrounding the phenomena, it is widely agreed that babbling is a crucial stage in language development as it allows infants to familiarise themselves with phonological patterns, motor systems and practice sounds of their native language. It is a key stage in CLA that introduces infants to their surrounding linguistic environment, as well as to the roles of conversation with turn takers (often caretakers).

Citations

de Boysson-Bardies, B. (2001). How language comes to children: From birth to two years. Mit Press, p58. https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=hNN8HENZ68kC&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&dq=Boysson-Bardies+2001&ots=8C7-ncyu1f&sig=BWsgCWIMIjjWs26CAR5PiToIvBQ

 Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton. https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/ling5700/Chomsky1957.pdf

Hoff, E., & Shatz, M. (Eds.). (2007). Blackwell Handbook of Language Development. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bangor/detail.action?docID=284247#

Holowka, S., Petitto, L. (2002). Left Hemisphere Cerebral Specialization for Babies While Babbling. Science v297, p1515.  DOI: 10.1126/science.1074941

Jakobson, R. (1941). Child Language, Aphasia, and Phonological Universals. The

Hague: Mouton Publishers.  https://monoskop.org/images/0/05/Jakobson_Roman_Child_Language_Aphasia_and_Phonological_Universals.pdf

Jessop, A. (2024). The science of baby babbling – and why it can take on accents. The Conversation, University of Liverpool. https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-baby-babbling-and-why-it-can-take-on-accents-233671

Nyman, Anna (2022). Babbling, speech and language in children with neurological disabilities : development, validity of measures and effect of intervention. Karolinska Institutet. Thesis. https://hdl.handle.net/10616/48134

Oller, D. K., & Eilers, R. E. (1988). The Role of Audition in Infant Babbling. Child Development, 59(2), 441–449. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130323

Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behaviour. Harvard University Press. https://www.behavior.org/resources/595.pdf