My understanding of wolf child and poverty of stimulus argument

As the “wolf child” phenomena appear in the world， much attention is paid by linguists and the controversies that come along are becoming increasingly violent. Many language acquisition theories are challenged. And different schools have different arguments， but the widely disputed theories are behaviorism and poverty of stimulus. Actually， both sides have their own defects. As far as i am concerned， we should combine and pick the advantages. Besides， cognitive ability is another important factor in “wolf child” phenomena.

“wolf child” stories happen in many countries， among which the two found in India is the most famous. People in India in 1920 found two \"monster\" followed by three wolves wander at night， and then they killed the three wolves and found the two naked girls in the wolf den. Afterwards， the two little girls were sent to the orphanage. But by the next year， the younger one is dead， but the sister called kamala lived to be 1929 years.During the next seven years， Kamala was educated， and finally she mastered45 words with only a few sentences. When she died， she was only 16 years old yet with the intelligence of 3 or 4 years old.The following contents are analyzed from different perspectives.

（一） Behaviorism

The early studies are based on behaviorism， which argues that there is a direct relationship between input and output and thinks that language acquisition is composed by stimulus and response. Learners are stimulated by the language they hear as well as the local environment， and then they will imitate what they have learned and reinforce it. As a result， environment is extremely important from perspective of behaviorists. “wolf children” live with wolves， so the language they learn， eating habits， and living habits are the same as that of wolves. They howl like wolves， eat carnivorous animals， and conceal themselves by day and march by night. They behave like wolves， because around them there are only wolves， with the wolves’ environment. Similarly， when they return to the environment of people， they could begin to learn from people， speak， walk and eat like people， although they just master some expressions.

（二） Poverty of Stimulus Argument

Poverty of stimulus argument is proposed by Chomsky and it is the most influenced theory of UG. It argues that the stimulus or experience children have with the language around themappears to be too poor to provide the basis for acquiring the mature linguisticcapacities that they ultimately attain. However， they can speak utterances which are not heard or spoken by other people，even grammatically complicated expressions， which illustrates that children are born with capacity of learning languages， namely， language acquisition device. As for “wolf child” stories ， they think that the reason why wolf children can learn language of people is that they possess this kind of language acquisition device. Therefore， when they back to people， they can behave like ordinary people with the right guides.

In fact， people who are for poverty of stimulus argument are fighting against those who support behaviorism that emphasizes the importance of environment. They doubt that although wolf children come back to the crowd， why can’t they speak fluently like normal people？

（三）Cognitive ability

According to Piaget’s cognitive theories， he thinks that the cognitive ability develops as people grow. But it is like a parabolic graph， which means the cognitive ability will decline when people grow up. What’s more， the cognitive ability precedes the language ability. The level of cognitive ability decides language processes and language modes. Actually language acquisition is completed accompanying by the cognitive ability.

When wolf children are situated in human environment， their cognitive levels are still very low， same as that of birth， which is a decisive factor for their later study. They are brought up by wolves and did not accept the influence of social environment， so they could not develop their cognitive abilities and maintain the original level.

From above analysis， we can reach a conclusion that language is acquired not only from social environment but also the correspondent cognitive ability. Just one side of theory can not completely explain language acquisition. “wolf child” phenomena confirm that social environment and cognitive ability are the most receivable and essential factors during the process of language acquisition.

參考文獻(xiàn)：

[1] K?vecses， Z. P. Szabó. （1996）. Idioms： A view from cognitive semantics [J]. Applied Linguistics （17）： 326-355.

[2] Lakoff， G. （1987）. Women， Fire， and Dangerous Things： What Categories Reveal about the Mind [M]. Chicago： University of Chicago Press.

[3] 王燕平. 2009. 論幼兒人格塑造 [J]. 阜陽師范學(xué)院學(xué)報(bào)