LANGUAGE IN CHILDHOOD
Graphic language, comprising dictation and reading, contains articulate
language in its complete mechanism (auditory channels, central channels,
motor channels), and, in the manner of development called forth by my
method, is based essentially on articulate language.
Graphic language, therefore, may be considered from two points of view:
(_a_) That of the conquest of a new language of eminent social
importance which adds itself to the articulate language of natural man;
and this is the cultural significance which is commonly given to graphic
language, which is therefore taught in the schools without any
consideration of its relation to spoken language, but solely with the
intention of offering to the social being a necessary instrument in his
relations with his fellows.
(_b_) That of the relation between graphic and articulate language and,
in this relation, of an eventual possibility of utilising the written
language to perfect the spoken: a new consideration upon which I wish to
insist and which gives to graphic language a _physiological importance_.
Moreover, as spoken language is at the same time a _natural function_ of
man and an instrument which he utilises for social ends, so written
language may be considered in itself, in its _formation_, as an organic
_ensemble_ of new mechanisms which are established in the nervous
system, and as an instrument which may be utilised for social ends.
In short, it is a question of giving to written language not only a
physiological importance, but also a _period of development_ independent
of the high functions which it is destined to perform later.
It seems to me that graphic language bristles with difficulties in its
beginning, not only because it has heretofore been taught by irrational
methods, but because we have tried to make it perform, as soon as it has
been acquired, the high function of teaching _the written language_
which has been fixed by centuries of perfecting in a civilised people.
Think how irrational have been the methods we have used! We have
analysed the graphic signs rather than the physiological acts necessary
to produce the alphabetical signs; and this without considering that
_any graphic sign_ is difficult to achieve, because the visual
representation of the signs have no hereditary connection with the motor
representations necessary for producing them; as, for example, the
auditory representations of the word have with the motor mechanism of
the articulate language. It is, therefore, always a difficult thing to
provoke a stimulative motor action unless we have already established
the movement before the visual representation of the sign is made. It is
a difficult thing to arouse an activity that shall produce a motion
unless that motion shall have been previously established by practice
and by the power of habit.
Thus, for example, the analysis of writing into _little straight lines
and curves_ has brought us to present to the child a sign without
significance, which therefore does not interest him, and whose
representation is incapable of determining a spontaneous motor impulse.
The artificial act constituted, therefore, an _effort_ of the will which
resulted for the child in rapid exhaustion exhibited in the form of
boredom and suffering. To this effort was added the effort of
constituting _synchronously_ the muscular associations co-ordinating the
movements necessary to the holding and manipulating the instrument of
writing.
All sorts of _depressing_ feelings accompanied such efforts and conduced
to the production of imperfect and erroneous signs which the teachers
had to correct, discouraging the child still more with the constant
criticism of the error and of the imperfection of the signs traced.
Thus, while the child was urged to make an effort, the teacher depressed
rather than revived his psychical forces.
Although such a mistaken course was followed, the graphic language, so
painfully learned, was nevertheless to be _immediately_ utilised for
social ends; and, still imperfect and immature, was made to do service
in the _syntactical construction of the language_, and in the ideal
expression of the superior psychic centres. One must remember that in
nature the spoken language is formed gradually; and it is already
established in _words_ when the superior psychic centres use these words
in what Kussmaul calls _dictorium_, in the syntactical grammatical
formation of language which is necessary to the expression of complex
ideas; that is, in the language of the _logical mind_.
In short the mechanism of language is a necessary antecedent of the
higher psychic activities which are to _utilise it_.
There are, therefore, two periods in the development of language: a
lower one which prepares the nervous channel and the central mechanisms
which are to put the sensory channels in relation with the motor
channels; and a higher one determined by the higher psychic activities
which are _exteriorized_ by means of the preformed mechanisms of
language.
[Illustration]
Thus for example in the scheme which Kussmaul gives on the mechanism of
articulate language we must first of all distinguish a sort of cerebral
diastaltic arc (representing the pure mechanism of the word), which is
established in the first formation of the spoken language. Let E be the
ear, and T the motor organs of speech, taken as a whole and here
represented by the tongue, A the auditory centre of speech, and M the
motor centre. The channels EA and MT are peripheral channels, the former
centripetal and the latter centrifugal, and the channel AM is the
inter-central channel of association.
[Illustration]
The centre A in which reside the auditive images of words may be again
subdivided into three, as in the following scheme, viz.: Sound (So),
syllables (Sy), and words (W).
That partial centres for sounds and syllables can really be formed,
the pathology of language seems to establish, for in some forms of
centro-sensory dysphasia, the patients can pronounce only sounds, or at
most sounds and syllables.
Small children, too, are, at the beginning, particularly sensitive to
simple sounds of language, with which indeed, and especially with _s_,
their mothers caress them and attract their attention; while later the
child is sensitive to syllables, with which also the mother caresses
him, saying: "_ba, ba, punf, tuf!_"
[Illustration]
Finally it is the simple word, dissyllabic in most cases, which attracts
the child's attention.
But for the motor centres also the same thing may be repeated; the child
utters at the beginning simple or double sounds, as for example _bl_,
_gl_, _ch_, an expression which the mother greets with joy; then
distinctly syllabic sounds begin to manifest themselves in the child:
_ga_, _ba_; and, finally, the dissyllabic word, usually labial: _mama_.
[Illustration]
We say that the spoken language begins with the child when the word
pronounced by him signifies an _idea_; when for example, seeing his
mother and recognising her he says "_mamma_;" and seeing a dog says,
"_tette_;" and wishing to eat says: "_pappa_."
Thus we consider _language begun_ when it is established in relation to
perception; while the language itself is still, in its psycho-motor
mechanism, perfectly rudimentary.
That is, when above the diastaltic arc where the mechanical formation of
the language is still unconscious, the recognition of the word takes
place, that is, the word is perceived and associated with the object
which it represents, language is considered to have begun.
On this level, _later_, language continues the process of perfecting in
proportion as the hearing perceives better the component sounds of the
words and the psycho-motor channels become more permeable to
articulation.
This is the first stage of spoken language, which has its own beginning
and its own development, leading, through the perceptions, to the
_perfecting_ of the primordial mechanism of the language itself; and at
this stage precisely is established what we call _articulate language_,
which will later be the means which the adult will have at his disposal
to express his own thoughts, and which the adult will have great
difficulty in perfecting or correcting when it has once been
established: in fact a high stage of culture sometimes accompanies an
imperfect articulate language which prevents the aesthetic expression of
one's thought.
The development of articulate language takes place in the period between
the age of two and the age of seven: the age of _perceptions_ in which
the attention of the child is spontaneously turned towards external
objects, and the memory is particularly tenacious. It is the age also of
_motility_ in which all the psycho-motor channels are becoming permeable
and the muscular mechanisms establish themselves. In this period of life
by the mysterious bond between the auditory channel and the motor
channel of the spoken language it would seem that the auditory
perceptions have the direct power of _provoking_ the complicated
movements of articulate speech which develop instinctively after such
stimuli as if awaking from the slumber of heredity. It is well known
that it is only at this age that it is possible to acquire all the
characteristic modulations of a language which it would be vain to
attempt to establish later. The mother tongue alone is well pronounced
because it was established in the period of childhood; and the adult who
learns to speak a new language must bring to it the imperfections
characteristic of the foreigner's speech: only children who under the
age of seven years learn several languages at the same time can receive
and reproduce all the characteristic mannerisms of accent and
pronunciation.
Thus also the _defects_ acquired in childhood such as dialectic defects
or those established by bad habits, become indelible in the adult.
What develops later, the _superior_ language, the _dictorium_, no longer
has its origin in the mechanism of language but in the intellectual
development which makes use of the mechanical language. As the
articulate language develops by the exercise of its mechanism and is
enriched by perception, the _dictorium_ develops with syntax and is
enriched by _intellectual culture_. Going back to the scheme of language
we see that above the arc which defines the lower language, is
established the _dictorium_, _D_,--from which now come the motor
impulses of speech--which is established as _spoken language_ fit to
manifest the ideation of the intelligent man; this language will be
enriched little by little by intellectual culture and perfected by the
grammatical study of syntax.
[Illustration]
Hitherto, as a result of a preconception, it has been believed that
written language should enter only into the development of the
_dictorium_, as the suitable means for the acquisition of culture and of
permitting grammatical analysis and construction of the language. Since
"spoken words have wings" it has been admitted that intellectual culture
could only proceed by the aid of a language which was stable, objective,
and capable of being analysed, such as the graphic language.
But why, when we acknowledge the graphic language as a precious, nay
indispensable, instrument of intellectual education, for the reason that
it _fixes the ideas_ of men and permits of their analysis and of their
assimilation in books, where they remain indelibly written as an
ineffaceable memory of words which are therefore always present and by
which we can analyse the syntactical structure of the language, why
shall we not acknowledge that it is _useful_ in the more humble task of
_fixing_ the _words_ which represent perception and of analysing their
component sounds?
Compelled by a pedagogical prejudice we are unable to separate the idea
of a graphic language from that of a function which heretofore we have
made it exclusively perform; and it seems to us that by teaching such a
language to children still in the age of simple perceptions and of
motility we are committing a serious psychological and pedagogical
error.
But let us rid ourselves of this prejudice and consider the graphic
language in itself, reconstructing its psycho-physiological mechanism.
It is far more simple than the psycho-physiological mechanism of the
articulate language, and is far more directly accessible to education.
_Writing_ especially is surprisingly simple. For let us consider
_dictated_ writing: we have a perfect parallel with spoken language
since a _motor_ action must correspond with _heard_ speech. Here there
does not exist, to be sure, the mysterious hereditary relations between
the heard speech and the articulate speech; but the movements of writing
are far simpler than those necessary to the spoken word, and are
performed by large muscles, all external, _upon which we can directly
act_, rendering the motor channels permeable, and establishing
psycho-muscular mechanisms.
This indeed is what is done by my method, which _prepares the movements
directly_; so that the psycho-motor impulse of the heard speech _finds
the motor channels already established_, and is manifested in the act of
writing, like an explosion.
The real difficulty is in the _interpretation of the graphic signs_; but
we must remember that we are in the _age of perceptions_, where the
sensations and the memory as well as the primitive associations are
involved precisely in the characteristic progress of natural
development. Moreover our children are already prepared by various
exercises of the senses, and by methodical construction of ideas and
mental associations to perceive the graphic signs; something like a
patrimony of perceptive ideas offers material to the language in the
process of development. The child who recognises a triangle and calls it
a triangle can recognise a letter _s_ and denominate it by the sound
_s_. This is obvious.
Let us not talk of premature teaching; ridding ourselves of prejudices,
let us appeal to experience which shows that in reality children proceed
without effort, nay rather with evident manifestations of pleasure to
the recognition of graphic signs presented as objects.
[Illustration]
And with this premise let us consider the relations between the
mechanisms of the two languages.
The child of three or four has already long begun his articulate
language according to our scheme. But he finds himself in the period in
which the _mechanism of articulate language is being perfected_; a
period contemporary with that in which he is acquiring a content of
language along with the patrimony of perception.
The child has perhaps not heard perfectly in all their component parts
the words which he pronounces, and, if he has heard them perfectly, they
may have been pronounced badly, and consequently have left an erroneous
auditory perception. It would be well that the child, by exercising the
motor channels of articulate language should establish exactly the
movements necessary to a perfect articulation, _before_ the age of easy
motor adaptations is passed, and, by the fixation of erroneous
mechanisms, the defects become incorrigible.
To this end the _analysis of speech_ is necessary. As when we wish to
perfect the language we first start children at composition and then
pass to grammatical study; and when we wish to perfect the style we
first teach to write grammatically and then come to the analysis of
style--so when we wish to perfect the _speech_ it is first necessary
that the speech _exist_, and then it is proper to proceed to its
analysis. When, therefore, the child _speaks_, but before the completion
of the development of speech which renders it fixed in mechanisms
already established, the speech should be analysed with a view to
perfecting it.
Now, as grammar and rhetoric are not possible with the spoken language
but demand recourse to the written language which keeps ever before the
eye the discourse to be analysed, so it is with speech.
The analysis of the transient is impossible.
The language must be materialised and made stable. Hence the necessity
of the written word or the word represented by graphic signs.
In the third stage of my method for writing, that is, composition of
speech, is included the _analysis of the word_ not only into signs, but
into the component sounds; the signs representing its translation. The
child, that is, _divides_ the heard word which he perceives integrally
as a _word_, knowing also its meanings, into sounds and syllables.
[Illustration]
Let me call attention to the following diagram which represents the
interrelation of the two mechanisms for writing and for articulate
speech.
[Illustration: The peripheric channels are indicated by heavy lines; the
central channels of association by dotted lines; and those referring to
association in relation to the development of the heard speech by light
lines.
_E_ ear; _So_ auditory centre of sounds; _Sy_ auditory centre of
syllables; _W_ auditory centre of word; _M_ motor centre of the
articulate speech; _T_ external organs of articulate speech (tongue);
_H_ external organs of writing (hand); _MC_ motor centre of writing;
_VC_ visual centre of graphic signs; _V_ organ of vision.]
Whereas in the development of spoken language the sound composing the
word might be imperfectly perceived, here in the teaching of the graphic
sign corresponding to the sound (which teaching consists in presenting
to the child a sandpaper letter, naming it _distinctly_ and making the
child _see_ it and _touch_ it), not only is the perception of the heard
sound _clearly_ fixed--separately and clearly--but this perception is
associated with two others: the centro-motor perception and the
centro-visual perception of the written sign.
The triangle _VC_, _MC_, _So_ represents the association of three
sensations in relation with the analysis of speech.
When the letter is presented to the child and he is made to touch and
see it, while it is being named, the centripetal channels _ESo_; _H_,
_MC_, _So_; _V_, _VC_, _So_ are acting and when the child is made to
name the letter, alone or accompanied by a vowel, the external stimulus
acts in _V_ and passes through the channels _V_, _VC_, _So_, _M_, _T_;
and _V_, _CV_, _So_, _Sy_, _M_, _T_.
When these channels of association have been established by presenting
visual stimuli in the graphic sign, the corresponding movements of
articulate language can be provoked and studied one by one in their
defects; while, by maintaining the visual stimulus of the graphic sign
which provokes articulation and accompanying it by the auditory stimulus
of the corresponding _sound_ uttered by the teacher, their articulation
can be perfected; this articulation is by innate conditions connected
with the __heard speech; that is, in the course of the pronunciation
provoked by the visual stimulus, and during the repetition of the
relative movements of the organs of language, the auditory stimulus
which is introduced into the exercise contributes to the perfecting of
the pronunciation of the isolated or syllabic sounds composing the
spoken word.
When later the child writes under dictation, translating into signs the
sounds of speech, he analyses the heard speech into its sounds,
translating them into graphic movements through channels already
rendered permeable by the corresponding muscular sensations.
DEFECTS OF LANGUAGE DUE TO LACK OF EDUCATION
Defects and imperfections of language are in part due to organic causes,
consisting in malformations or in pathological alterations of the
nervous system; but in part they are connected with functional defects
acquired in the period of the formation of language and consist in an
erratic pronunciation of the component sounds of the spoken word. Such
errors are acquired by the child who hears words imperfectly pronounced,
or _hears bad speech_, The dialectic accent enters into this category;
but there also enter vicious habits which make the natural defects of
the articulate language of childhood persist in the child, or which
provoke in him by imitation the defects of language peculiar to the
persons who surrounded him in his childhood.
The normal defects of child language are due to the fact that the
complicated muscular agencies of the organs of articulate language do
not yet function well and are consequently incapable of reproducing the
_sound_ which was the sensory stimulus of a certain innate movement. The
association of the movements necessary to the articulation of the spoken
words is established little by little. The result is a language made of
words with sounds which are imperfect and often lacking (whence
incomplete words). Such defects are grouped under the name _blaesitas_
and are especially due to the fact that the child is not yet capable of
directing the movements of his tongue. They comprise chiefly:
_sigmatism_ or imperfect pronunciation of _s_; _rhotacism_ or imperfect
pronunciation of _r_; _lambdacism_ or imperfect pronunciation of _l_;
_gammacism_ or imperfect pronunciation, of _g_; _iotacism_, defective
pronunciation of the gutturals; _mogilalia_, imperfect pronunciation of
the labials, and according to some authors, as Preyer, mogilalia is made
to include also the suppression of the first sound of a word.
Some defects of pronunciation which concern the utterance of the vowel
sound as well as that of the consonant are due to the fact that the
child _reproduces perfectly_ sounds imperfectly heard.
In the first case, then, it is a matter of functional insufficiencies of
the peripheral motor organ and hence of the nervous channels, and the
cause lies in the individual; whereas in the second case the error is
caused by the auditory stimulus and the cause lies outside.
These defects often persist, however attenuated, in the boy and the
adult: and produce finally an erroneous language to which will later be
added in writing orthographical errors, such for example as dialectic
orthographical errors.
If one considers the charm of human speech one is bound to acknowledge
the inferiority of one who does not possess a correct spoken language;
and an aesthetic conception in education cannot be imagined unless
special care be devoted to perfecting articulate language. Although the
Greeks had transmitted to Rome the art of educating in language, this
practice was not resumed by Humanism which cared more for the aesthetics
of the environment and the revival of artistic works than for the
perfecting of the man.
To-day we are just beginning to introduce the practice of correcting by
pedagogical methods the serious defects of language, such as stammering;
but the idea of _linguistic gymnastics_ tending to its perfection has
not yet penetrated into our schools as a _universal method_, and as a
detail of the great work of the aesthetic perfecting of man.
Some teachers of deaf mutes and intelligent devotees of orthophony are
trying nowadays with small practical success to introduce into the
elementary schools the correction of the various forms of _blaesitas_,
as a result of statistical studies which have demonstrated the wide
diffusion of such defects among the pupils. The exercises consist
essentially in _silence_ cures which procure calm and repose for the
organs of language, and in patient _repetition_ of the _separate_ vowel
and consonant _sounds_; to these exercises is added also respiratory
gymnastics. This is not the place to describe in detail the methods of
these exercises which are long and patient and quite out of harmony with
the teachings of the school. But in my methods are to be found all
exercises for the corrections of language:
(_a_) _Exercises of Silence_, which prepare the nervous channels of
language to receive new stimuli perfectly;
(_b_) _Lessons_ which consist first of the distinct pronunciation by the
teacher of _few words_ (especially of _nouns_ which must be associated
with a concrete idea); by this means clear and perfect _auditory
stimuli_ of language are started, stimuli which are _repeated_ by the
teacher when the child has conceived the idea of the object represented
by the word (recognition of the object); finally of the provocation of
articulate language on the part of the child who must repeat _that word
alone_ aloud, pronouncing its separate sounds;
(_c_) _Exercises in Graphic Language_, which analyse the sounds of
speech and cause them to be repeated separately in several ways: that
is, when the child learns the separate letters of the alphabet and when
he composes or writes words, repeating their sounds which he translates
separately into composed or written speech;
(_d_) _Gymnastic Exercises_, which comprise, as we have seen, both
_respiratory exercises_ and those of _articulation_.
I believe that in the schools of the future the conception will
disappear which is beginning to-day of "_correcting in the elementary
schools_" the defects of language; and will be replaced by the more
rational one of _avoiding them by caring for the development of
language_ in the "Children's Houses"; that is, in the very age in which
language is being established in the child.