Doubletalk – The biological and social acquisition of language

Abstract

Abstract Natural language acquisition can be divided into two distinct phases. In the pre-competent language phase, early language acquisition, emphasis is on the direct experiences of the concrete surroundings. In this establishing phase of language, co-occurring sensory–motor activity is crucial for language acquisition to occur. Therefore, in the pre-competent language phase, the innate perceptivity to the surroundings dominates the character of the resulting neural correlate. In the second phase, in post-competent language acquisition, emphasis is less on the concrete surroundings and more on interlocutors in conversation. Based on competent language use, the relevance of perceptivity to online surroundings is reduced. Thus, the role of the interlocutor is to elicit vicarious ‘as-if’ experiences in the learner in a process named ‘derived embodiment’. Based on contemporary neuroscience, first I analyse why direct experiences are central to the establishing phase through the notion of ‘linguification’. Second, I discuss why later conversations in the post-competent language phase substitute for direct experiences. To demonstrate the challenges facing biologically inspired cognitive architectures, I propose a model pertaining to natural language acquisition in humans. The model asserts that: • Language acquisition is a continuous process in which the pre-competent phase grounds the later post-competent phase. • The character of the relevant online perceptions changes from the processing of concrete surroundings to the processing of words. • Human language acquisition depends both on innate perceptivity working bottom-up and social exchanges working top-down in which the interlocutor directs the attention of the learner.