Learning to Talk

How do babies learn how to talk? In this episode I explore how they go from little howling machines to little sentence builders in the space of a couple of years.

You can find a transcript for this episode here.

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If you would like to take the Wug test (or test the tiny people in your life), I’ve done a blog post it which allows you to do so here. Remember that it’s not a test of intelligence! It tests a kid’s stage of linguistic development, and also their willingness to play along with the weird world of adults.

In this particular episode, I’m focusing on the stories of kids who are acquiring spoken language, and who are moving towards communicating in the same kind of way as I am now. Of course kids are much more diverse than this. Not everyone learns to talk, and some people develop communication strategies which involve single words or sounds, rather than phrases or sentences. Some people learn to speak using sign languages, and in these cases the story is in some ways similar to this one, and in other ways quite different. This episode is just about one of the many ways of growing up and learning language. I hope to visit some of the other ways in later episodes.

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The contributors: 

* Harris, aged 2 months. Thanks to mum Angie and dad Braxton.

* Mila, aged 8 months. Thanks to mum Nichola.

* Connie, aged 1 year. Thanks to mum Kat, dad Andrew and gran Sheila.

* Martha, aged 1 and a half. Thanks to mum Jennie and dad Euan.

* Kira, aged 2 and a half. Thanks to mum Joanna.

* Emilie, aged 3 and a half. Thanks to mum Jenn.

* Ronan, aged 4. Thanks to mum Lynsey.

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Thanks to Professor Jennifer Smith of the University of Glasgow for help with the content. Jennifer Smith is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Glasgow. At the moment she’s working on two big research projects: One Speaker Two Dialects and The Scots Syntax Atlas. You can find more information about her research and publications here.

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