A Comparative Study of the Speech Development of Japanese and American Children (Part seven) : Formation of Symbolic Function in Language Development

Abstract

We recorded the speech sounds of nine Japanese and four American infants in Japan and two American infants in the U.S.A., all of whom were under two years of age. We then compared the formation process of symbolic function in language development up to the beginning of the syntacticization process of the three groups. From the first month after birth the infant cries when he is uncomfortable. His mother removes the cause of his discomfort and makes him comfortable. Through these experiences he begins to live in a state of undifferentiated unity with his mother. At about eight months of age his mother becomes his love object, his significant person, and he distinguishes her from unfamiliar persons. He recognizes his mother by the combination of her speech sounds and contour of her body, which has become the affective symbol of his mother for the infant. We would like to say that emotional symbolism is formed. From about two months on the infant differentiates and coordinates his sensory-motor schemata and develops his cognition of the world. By the middle of the second year, the signifier has been differentiated from the signified in his sensory-motor intelligence. We would like to say that symbolic function in sensory-motor intelligence is formed. Then, from about the middle of the second year, he begins to develop his phonemicization-symbolization process and to use words as signifiers which represent objects or situations. These objects or situations are signifieds. As for the process described above, we do not find significant differences between the three groups.