Is a research about what fetuses can do with language and some posible explanations for this

1. Language acquisition from the gestational age to three months old
Universidad de los Andes
Faculty of Humanity and Education
School of Modern Languages
Language acquisition from the
gestational age to birth
Ricardo Alejandro Wissar Paz
C.I. 23 723 362
Ricardo Wissar

2. Language acquisition from the gestational age to three months old
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever asked yourself, how did you learn to talk? It seems amazing that we
probably mastered that task at three years old. In this process is very important the Gestational
Age (GA) period. In this paper I am going to try to describe and explain you what happens in
terms of language acquisition in this period of life.
The first thing that a fetus is aware is of the prosodic characteristics of the maternal voice
(Busnel, DeCasper, Granier-Deferre, Lecanuet, & Maugeais, 1994 as citted in Altman, 2001; B.S.
Kisilevsky, et al., 2009) and the prosodic 'signature' of their mother tongue (Amiel-Tison, et al.,
1988 as citted in Altman, 2001; B.S. Kisilevsky, et al., 2009). When they are born they appreciate
the differences between certain consonants (Bertoncini, Biejeljac-Babic, Blumstein, & Mehler,
1987 as citted in Altman, 2001), vowels (Groome, et al., 1999 as citted in Kisilevsky B. , et al.,
2003; Moon, Lagercrantz, & Kuhl, 2013) and reversal of pairs of consonant-vowel sounds (i.g.
babi/-/biba/) (Lecanuet, Granier-Deferre, & Busnel, 1988 as citted in Kisilevsky B. , et al., 2003).
Babies' capacity to pay attention to voice as soon as three days old (Shaffer, et al., 2002 as cited in
Campbell & Lindsay, 2013), and to recognize their mothers' faces (Sai, 2005, as cited in B.S.
Kisilevsky, et al., 2009) could be prove of early language learning before birth.
This work can generate theories of early language development. Maybe for detecting the
genes that are responsible for language acquisition, and if it occurs a mutation in those genes could
change them for a birth of a healthy baby.
BASIC CONCEPTS
For the study of language acquisition, first, we have to know what language is. As
Campbell and Lindsay (2013) say:
Language is the most important aspect in the life of [almost] all beings. We use
language to express inner thoughts and emotions, make sense of complex and abstract
thought, to learn to communicate with others, to fulfill our wants and needs, as well
as to establish rules and maintain our culture. Language can be defined as [biologically
innate], verbal, physical, [. . .] and a basic form of communication [. . .] All human
languages share basic characteristics, some of which are organizational rules and infinite
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3. Language acquisition from the gestational age to three months old
generativity. Infinite Generativity is the ability to produce an infinite number of
sentences using a limited set of rules and words (Santrock & Mitterer, 2001).
We also have to know what is first language acquisition. The Bright Hub Education web
page has a good definition of it:
Language acquisition is the process whereby children acquire their first languages. All
humans (without exceptional physical or mental disabilities) have an innate capability to
acquire language. Children may acquire one or more first languages. [. . .] Acquisition
occurs passively and unconsciously without explicit instruction. Language acquisition in
children just seems to happen. Acquisition (as opposed to learning) depends on children
receiving linguistic input during the critical period. The critical period is defined as the
window of time, up to about the age of twelve or puberty, in which humans can acquire
first languages.
As we have just read language acquisition depends on output being heard by children and
in our case, going even earlier, fetuses . These output has its base on phonology, syntax and
morphology. Phonology is the only characteristic from which a fetuses can learn. Phonology are
the sounds and the intonation patterns that represents a particular language. (Brandone, Salkind,
Michnick, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2006)
A broad “Biolinguistic Theory” seems to explain the reasons for the extensive learning for
fetuses. Biolinguistics is the study of language from an evolutionary and biological viewpoint as
product of the brain (Fitch, 2009). It is studied like any other system of our body (vision, hearing,
balance, ...) and more specifically, as an organ of the mind/brain (Boeckx & Grohmann, 2007;
Chomsky, 2004). Epigenetics is a discipline take on account by biolinguistics and according to the
web page Livescience, it literally means:
[. . .] "above" or "on top of" genetics. It refers to external modifications to DNA that
turn genes "on" or "off." These modifications do not change the DNA sequence, but
instead, they affect how cells "read" genes .
Some biolinguistics have used and investigated on epigenetics for the understanding of the
epigenesis of language
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4. Language acquisition from the gestational age to three months old
LITERATURE REVIEW
In the last weeks of gestation, fetuses, recognizes their mother's tongue and voice (AmielTison, et al., 1988; Busnel, DeCasper, Granier-Deferre, Lecanuet, & Maugeais, 1994; Kisilevsky,
B.S., et al., 2009). In the studies of B.S. Kisilevsky and et al. (2009), they use a familiarizationnovelty paradigm, in which they familiarize the baby with a short text of 2 minutes (familiarization
phase) and then, after a period of rest, they present to the baby the same text read by another
person (novelty phase). I am going to present the results of study 2 and 4 which prove clearer the
sensitivity of the babies to the mother's voice and language. These two studies were done as it is
explained in the table number 1.
Table 1
Design of studies.
Familiarization phase
Voice or language
presentation 2 min
Delay
time
Novelty phase
Pre voiced
Voice or language
period
period (2min)
(2min)
Post-voice
period
(2min)
Study 2
n= 21 mother's voice
n= 19 stranger's voice
15 min
15 min
No-voice
No-voice
No-voice
No-voice
Stranger's voice
Mother's voice
Study 4
n= 5 mother, English
15 min
No-voice
Stranger, English
n= 5 stranger, English 15 min
No-voice
Stranger, English*
n= 5 mother, English
15 min
No-voice
Stranger, Mandarin
n= 5 stranger, English 15 min
No-voice
Stranger Mandarin
n=number of participants
*This is a different person from the first stranger, english
No-voice
No-voice
No-voice
No-voice
Study 2
This is the procedure for this experiment: "In the familiarization phase, the fetuses heard
their mother’s voice or a stranger’s voice reading a children's story" (Kisilevsky B. , et al., 2009, p.
63). Then there is a period of silence (15 min), and after, the novelty phase started with 2 min of
no voice, 2 min with the story being read (the stranger's voice if the mother's voice was heard first,
and the mother's voice if the stranger's voice was first heard), and 2 min of no voice presentation.
The fetal heart rate was recorded continuously (0, in the graphic, represents the normal
heart rate of near-term fetuses). Fig. 1 had the graphics obtained between the heart rates measured
in bpm and the time measured in seconds, only over, the novelty phase. (Kisilevsky B. , et al.,
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5. Language acquisition from the gestational age to three months old
2009) Bpm are beats per minute, and measured how many times your heart beats per minute- how
many times your heart contracts and relaxes per minute (Medical News Today, 2013).
"[. . .] There was no significant change in fetal heart rate over time in the pre-voice baseline
period [. . .], or the post-voice period [. . .], for either group of fetuses." (Kisilevsky B. , et al.,
2009, p. 64) However, in the voice period, for the mother's voice, the heart beats were significantly
increased (Kisilevsky B. , et al., 2009). These are the other results:
As can be seen from Fig. 3A, following an initial (non-significant) decrease, fetal
heart rate increased linearly over the voice period. The fetuses who received the
stranger’s voice, shown in Fig. 3B, had no significant change in heart rate across the
voice period. [. . .] The results from this study showed a novelty response which was
limited to the mother’s voice [that is because near-term fetuses recognize the properties
of his/her mother's voices]. "(Kisilevsky B. , et al., 2009, p. 64)
Fig. 1. Study 2, novelty phase: mean fetal heart rate (bpm) change as a function of time (s) to the (A) mother’s voice
following familiarization with a stranger’s voice and to a (B) stranger’s voice following familiarization with the
mother’s voice during the novelty pre-voice, voice and post-voice periods.
Study 4
The present study was conducted like this:
Following familiarization with either their own mother’s or a female stranger’s voice,
half of the fetuses were presented with a female English stranger’s voice. The other half
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6. Language acquisition from the gestational age to three months old
fetuses received the voice of a female stranger reading the same story in Mandarin.
(Kisilevsky B. , et al., 2009, p. 67)
The heart rate data for this study are shown in Fig. 2A (Mandarin language) and 2B
(English language). "There was no significant change in heart rate across the pre-voice period [of
both Mandarin and English]" (Kisilevsky B. , et al., 2009, p. 67). In the voice period from mother
and stranger in English to Stranger in English, there was not significant heart rate change. The data
for the Mandarin speaking stranger showed a significant increase of the babies' heart beats. In
conclusion, Near-term fetuses have the ability to discriminate between a native language (familiar)
and a foreign language (novel) prior to birth. (Kisilevsky B. , et al., 2009)
Fig.2. Study 4, novelty phase: mean fetal heart rate (bpm) change as a function of time (s) to (A) a Mandarin speaker
following familiarization with the mother’s or a stranger’s voice combined and (B) an English speaker following
familiarization with the mother’s or a stranger’s voice combined during the novelty pre-voice, voice and post-voice
periods.
The newborn babies do not only discriminate between voices and languages but also can
perceive the differences between some phonemes. As mentioned in Bertoncini, Bijeljac-Babic,
Blumstein, and Mehler (1987) in Altmann (2011) newborns appear to perceive two phonemes /b/
and /p/ (Altmann, 2011). Even more:
Groome et al. (1999) reported that by 36 to 40 weeks GA, fetuses respond to lower
intensity, 83- to 95-dB SPL speech stimuli by displaying heart rate decelerations to
vowel sounds (/i/ and /â/ ). [And,] near-term fetuses can also discriminate the reversal of
pairs of consonant- vowel sounds, /babi/ to /biba/ or /biba/ to /babi/ (Lecauet, GranierDeferre, & Busnel, 1988). (Kisilevsky B. , et al., 2009, p. 220)
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7. Language acquisition from the gestational age to three months old
This capacities are not known whether if are based on genetic predisposition or influenced
by in utero ex-perience with voices. However, a possible explanation is "[. . .] an epigenetic model
of language development which presumes an interaction between genetic expression of neural
development and species-specific experience" (Werker and Tees (1999) as cited in Kisilevsky B. ,
et al., 2009, p. 69).
What Kisilevsky, et al. (2009) think is that neural networks sensitive to the properties of
the mother’s voice and native-language speech are being formed before birth. And that that
discrimination between the mother´s voice and language could help recognizing very earlier their
mothers' face (Sai, 2005 as cited in Kisilevsky, et. al., 2009) and language attachment. "Further,
these findings indicate very early learning of the elementary components of language in general
and perhaps prosody more specifically, suggesting higher level (i.e., in terms of cognitive
sophistication) brain processing" (B.S. Kisilevsky, 2009, pág. 69).
There is another study conducted by Christine Moon, Hugo Lagercrantz and Patricia K.
Kuhla (2006) that treats about vocals learning in uterus and, indeed, it proves that exists such a
learning in the uterus. It was done in two countries USA and Sweden and it proves neonates (very
young babies) perception of the English vowel /i/ and the Swedish vowel /y/ in a form of a
prototype and 16 variants of the prototype for each one. The vowel prototype is the best example
of itself for the function that it accomplish (category) between the language. The vowel prototype
was established by native speakers of each countries. The aim of this research was to determine if
neonates has a preference between their own native vowels or the foreign ones, in order to
establish if language experience in the uterus bias the child for some group of vowels. Twenty
neonates in USA were exposed to english vowel and 20 to swedish ones, and in Sweden twenty
neonates were expose to english vowels and 20 to swedish ones. The neonates have between 7h
and 75h. They controlled the audio presentation by sucking a pacifier that was connected to a
computer that activates the headphones that they had as can be seen in the figure number 3.
The results were that neonates exposed to their native vowels respond less times than the
ones exposed to their non-native vowels. This can be because they perceive their native prototype
vowels as equivalent of the non-prototypes (for a prototypes theory see Bremner (2011) and Kuhl
PK (1991) as citted in Moon, Lagercrantz, & Kuhl, 2013). In contrast, the non-native prototype
vowel and non prototype vowel, are perceived more dintincly between them. The conductors of
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8. Language acquisition from the gestational age to three months old
Fig. 3. An infant, 20 h after birth, takes part in the procedure, in which hearing speech sounds through headphones is
contingent on sucks on a pacifier
this experiment argue that these results happen because the xperience with their one language in
the uterus, because there were not significat differences in responses between youngest (7h) and
oldest (75h) neonates and the time the test was done was very short after birth experiment.
CONCLUSIONS
This research can conclude that in fact there is language acquisition by fetuses specially in
the last trimester of the gestational age. They can understand and process prosody (intonation,
pitch and rythmym), phonemes (some consonants and vowel) and even combination of phonemes.
This leads us to conclude that human beings are highly made to learn and use a language. So I am
agree that the expression of language is "printed" in our genome but that experience could allow
these genes manifested better or not, although this very first stage of life (fetus) is not usual that
even in absence of language stimulus, language would not be acquired.
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9. Language acquisition from the gestational age to three months old
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