Ending “The Scientist in the Crib”

             From Chapter 1 to 4 help us understand what babies do, and from chapter 5 to 7 are analysis of experiment results and what scientists did. Chapter 5 is about children’s mind. Children are similar with scientists. Children reprogram themselves in the same way. They formulate theories, make and test predictions, seek explanations, do experiments, and revise what they know in the light of mew evidence. These abilities are at the core of the success of science. (161) Also, children are influenced by people. Children use imitation such as motherese to learn important new things and together the children and other children are helpful to learn the real world.

             Chapter 6 is about children’s brains. Children’s brains are much busier than ours. Until the nine or ten years old, their brains are fast. Every part of body is connected to the brain. But, if you don’t use some parts, that parts are disconnected to the brain. So, a few months later babies could discriminate their own language. Early in development we are open to learning the prototypes of many different languages. But by the time we reach puberty, these mental representations of sounds are well formed and become more fixed, and that makes it more difficult to perceive the distinctions of a foreign language (193).

             The last chapter is about a whole book and request for parents. Babies are already as smart as they can be, they know what they need to know, and they are very effective and selective in getting the kinds of information they need. They are designed to learn about the real world that surrounds them, and they learn by playing with the things in that world. Parents need to be allowed the time and energy to exercise their natural ability to help babies learn (202).

             I like chapter 4, what children learn about language. This is because I could solve my questions during reading the book and I read several times the part to prepare presentation. Specially, I like experiment about what babies like sounds because I think this experiment is uncommon. Babies tell us what they hear by sucking on a special nipple connected to a computer. They slow down; they get bored hearing the same thing over and over again. When the sound is changed, however, infants perk up and suck very fast again to hear the new sound (104-105). They can discriminate the sounds since they are born. They use the sound discrimination to learn language.   

             Even though I read a whole book, I couldn’t understand many parts. If I can ask to the author, I would ask the author to explain that I wonder why the author think evolution is important to learn something and how evolution and language are relate.

             During I read the book, I have some questions. The author said that baby’s brain is open to learn during the certain period. After that period, the baby is hard to learn. Is there no way to learn easy after the certain period? The author said that nurture is cultural. What is different children’s mind between other cultures?

we are going on STAYCATION this summer

STAYCATION (stay+vacation)

It means spending your holiday time at your own home.

For example, we are going on STAYCATION this summer.

This word is present in the process of blending. This word takes the beginning of ‘stay’ and joining it to the end of ‘vacation’

Between 2007 and 2008, there was financial crisis in the US. Thus, this word comes from under consumption and increasing unemployment rate. I think many people stay at home in vacation to save money at that time. So, this word is made.

 I choose a new word, “staycation” because Korean has the same word “staycation”.

Staycation is called “Bangkok” in Korean. Actually, Bangkok is capital city in Thailand.

[bang] sounds mean ‘room’ in Korean and [kok] sounds like a mimetic word that is a state something is locked in. Even though Korean has the word, the origin is different.

option #1

 “The Scientist in the Crib” written by Gopnik, Meltzoff, and Kuhl is based on that the baby learns about the world is like the scientist. It means the baby knows much more than we think and the baby use their knowledge to learn the world that is people, things and language. They make hypothesizes and get learning by experimentations and observation. Specially one focuses on how to learn about language.

 The baby already knows discrimination sounds. Through using that information they learn which sound combinations are possible. By nine months babies show a preference for listening to sound combinations that are possible in their language.

 About three months old babies start to babble. Then seven of eight months babies produce consonant-vowel combinations using sounds like b, d, m, and g with the vowel ah like “dadada or bababa.”

 When babies begin to talk, they will tell you about when they use their first name. Parental egocentricity being what it is, the parents report “Mama” and “Dada.” And also, other things like juice, ball and doggie. Babies’ language is very simple. Almost always your first guess at what a word meant would turn out to be wrong. For example, gone was one of the most common words these babies used. Parents assume that it has something to do with finishing up food. But the babies used gone to describe the many and varied way that objects disappear form view. Babies at this stage start to learning words and meaning.

 After learning words, they start putting words into two-word combinations. At that time they already have some idea of grammar such as word orders and different meaning by orders. And then, they learn, and create systematic rules, such as the plural s or the past tense ed, and they omit “grammatical” words such as the or of.

 As the book mentioned that we cannot remember before three, I do not know how I get my language. However, my mother told me what word I started to say. Even though my mother wanted to call mother first, I said “father” which is [abah] in Korean. That word consists of consonant b and vowel ah.

 Once a week, I teach Korean for Korean American Kids. When I talk with them who are three or four years old, they sometimes make mistakes in sentences. Korean has postpositional word like preposition. The kids omit postpositional words. It is like that English speaking kids omit “the” or “of”. Though the languages are different, learning language processing are similar. Also, I stared to study English 2 years ago. I still feel hard to write “the” or “of”.

 Before I read the book, I think babies do not know anything. However, the book’s theory persuaded and taught me that babies are scientists. In addition, my text book “The Study of Language” mentioned that human has something in human genetics for language. I think I taught Korean for kids by rote. But if the kid knows much more than I think, I try to help them experimentations and observation language.  

research paper (2/5) : what children learn about people and things

Last week, I talked the book about that the baby is like scientists because they experiment and learn about the world. This week, I read about what children learn about people and things. I was really interested in many funny experiments during reading the book.

   The baby can distinguish faces, smell and voices from born and prefer familiar faces, smell and voices. In Korea, many parents do antenatal education. Parents make the baby’s name and talk a lot with the baby. I heard that the baby can hear their parents voices. So, I think the baby can distinguish their parents’ voices from born.

   The baby copies other people’s acting. For example, someone gives telephone toy to her baby. Then the baby holds the phone on his/her ear and talks something that we cannot understand. I also have a picture which is that I hold a telephone toy. Babies can learn by other. We should do something carefully in front of babies.

   The author described that 2 year-old babies are “terrible tows” because 1 year-old babies just look forbidden stuff but 2 year-old babies touch that. I also touched forbidden stuff when I was 2 years old. When my mother did something, I held iron chopsticks and put it in an electric cord. I got shocked and went to hospital. It was funny happening but dangerous.

   The best interesting one was comparing between Korean speaking mother and English speaking mother. Korean and English grammar are different. Korean verb is in at the end in a sentence. Korean mothers and children use verb more than English speaking mothers and children, but English speaking mothers and children use noun more than Korean speaking mothers and children. In addition, Korean children learn how to solve problems well, but English speaking children started categorizing objects earlier than the Korean. Thus, grammar of our language influenced the way we thought.

   While I teach Korean to Korean American children, I feel they are smart but they are slow to learn language than one language user. I wonder if my feeling is right they are slow to learn language because they should think Korean way and English way.

   Next week I’ll learn about what children learn about language. It’ll be interesting part because it will be connected our class study; I hope it can be helpful to us.

My Name

My name is Hyelim Lee

For Linguists

My name is [hje lIm i]

[h] : [- voiceless, + Glottal, + Fricatives]

[je] : [Mid Front vowel]

[l] : [+ voiced, + Alveolar, + Liquids]

[I] : [High Front vowel]

[m] : [+ voiced, + Bilabial, + Nasals]

[i] : [High Front vowel]

For Non-Linguists

HYE : You need to star the “h” sound like beginning of the word “have”, then make “ye” sound like the first of the word “yes”.

LIM : “l” sound can found in word “love” then make “im” sound like “bim”

LEE : “lee” sound find the word “ski”

Research Book : Baby Knowledge

   What do you think how much infants know? I could get this question while I read the first page in the book. Before I read the book, I guess babies may not know anything like a white paper and, they can learn the world after birth. In the book, the author also said that adults misunderstand children such as “children were essentially defective adults… children’s knowledge was like poetry but not like science.” The first chapter answers children’s knowledge.

    The author suggests that “babies are a kind of very special computer.” The babies already know how to deal about people, things and language. Their thinking is programmed by evolution. Thus, they have the system when they are born.

     Many experts agreed with this opinion that babies know much more than we think. Socrates though “children have virtue in their genetic code.” Also, Piaget showed that “babies’ view of the world was so complex, and as highly structured, as the adult view. And babies were searching for the truth about the world around them.”

     Sometimes we are surprised when children do unsuspected acts or talk like an adult.   So, that the author describes a baby as “special computer” points out babies are smarter and acquire much more and faster something than we though. After now on, I’ll read about how the children learn about people, things and language. I expect that I can get new information

"The Scientist in the Crib"

  I should choose a book for my research paper. There were a lot of books on the list. I have to decide what part I prefer. I choose "The Scientist in the Crib" in 'Language and the Mind/Language Acquisition' part. The book is written by Gopnik, Alison, Andrew N.Meltzoff, and Patricia K. Kuhl. The subtitle is 'What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind' 
  I have interested in education and I major in education. In addition, I teach Korean for Korean-American kids once a week. I always wonder how the kids learn language. Sometimes I got surprised at my students because I never teach some words my students, but they can use new words correctly.
  I didn't read the book yet, but I think the book is helpful to teach my students and I can understand my students better than before I read the book. I expect the book let me challenge and solve my questions.