Learning to code experience through language

Abstract

An attempt is made to explain how the child comes to relate his acquisition of the form of language with the categories that he is establishing in the organization of his non-linguistic experience, by hypothesizing a basis for language in pre-linguistic cognitive development. The child's task is seen as being to match the organization of language with the cognitive organization that he has already imposed upon his experience. This is made possible, it is argued, because the organization of meaning within the language system is closely related to the universal categories of early experience. Evidence from recordings of a small sample of children in the early stages of language acquisition is advanced in support of this hypothesis, and the results of the linguistic analysis are discussed in the light of findings from the Genevan school of developmental psychology.