要了解人類學(xué)習(xí)一種語言的各種術(shù)語背后的概念中所涉及的認(rèn)知發(fā)展過程的秘密,，將利用不同大小的圓柱形容器所做的一個實(shí)驗(yàn)作為起點(diǎn)似乎不很合適，但它畢竟是一個起點(diǎn)。該實(shí)驗(yàn)表明,，來自一個講韓語環(huán)境中的5個月大的嬰兒,，把由運(yùn)動到接觸的一個動作連續(xù)體（即那些圓柱形容器的運(yùn)動）分成兩個類別,，即“緊”和 “松”,。這個概念區(qū)分是韓語的構(gòu)成部分，但不是英語的構(gòu)成部分,。來自一個講英語環(huán)境中一組5個月大的嬰兒也做了這種區(qū)分,，但講英語的成年人一般不做這種區(qū)分。在沒有語言支持時,，做這種區(qū)分的天生本領(lǐng)似乎消失了,。所以語言學(xué)習(xí)似乎涉及將語言形式與事先存在的對聲音和意義的表述聯(lián)系起來。
Nature 430, 453 - 456 (22 July 2004); doi:10.1038/nature02634
Conceptual precursors to language
Because human languages vary in sound and meaning, children must learn which distinctions their language uses. For speech perception, this learning is selective: initially infants are sensitive to most acoustic distinctions used in any language, and this sensitivity reflects basic properties of the auditory system rather than mechanisms specific to language; however, infants' sensitivity to non-native sound distinctions declines over the course of the first year. Here we ask whether a similar process governs learning of word meanings. We investigated the sensitivity of 5-month-old infants in an English-speaking environment to a conceptual distinction that is marked in Korean but not English; that is, the distinction between 'tight' and 'loose' fit of one object to another. Like adult Korean speakers but unlike adult English speakers, these infants detected this distinction and divided a continuum of motion-into-contact actions into tight- and loose-fit categories. Infants' sensitivity to this distinction is linked to representations of object mechanics that are shared by non-human animals. Language learning therefore seems to develop by linking linguistic forms to universal, pre-existing representations of sound and meaning.
Figure 2 Infants use the tight–loose distinction in predicting object motion. a, Test events in experiment 3. b, Test trial looking times in experiment 3. Preference for the unnatural motions was significant, both overall and in each condition (each F1,15 > 4.5, P < 0.05). Looking preferences in each test condition differed reliably from those of control conditions presenting the events of the test trials without exposure to the containment events. Error bars represent standard error.
