Shenk, in the argument portion of his book, cites a study done by two Kansas psychologists, Betty Hart and Todd Risley, that dealt with the sampling the number of words spoken and exposed to young children from three distinct socioeconomic backgrounds: welfare homes, working-class homes, and professionals' homes. The results were that over a year, children in professionals' homes were exposed to nearly 8 million more spoken words than children in welfare homes. There was also a difference in the tone and complexities of the words being used (45-46). The implication being that this was a major reason why poor kids were getting stuck in an intellectual rut at a very early age. Shenk then suggests for parents to speak and to read to children early and often. However, how do these ideas explain the fact that many children that grow up in bilingual homes, where they are not exposed to as many English words as other children who only speak the English language, can speak English just as fluently and as well as other English-only speaking children. Does this mean that if a person chooses to be bilingual or trilingual that their abilities in one language will usually be inferior to those that only speak that one language? Also, other than the ideas provided by Shenk, how can children and parents from lower class families overcome this language barrier (try to bring in the idea of fixed vs. growth mindset)?
(Yanfei Gao, feifeiyg@yahoo.com)
In Shenk’s book, he explains a variety of factors than can affect one’s intelligence. Anything from environment to socioeconomic class, to diet can affect our level of intelligence in a complicated process of “dynamic development” (Shenk 33). Language is just another factor than can drastically change the expression of our genes, and research has shown that differences in language patterns could potentially be responsible for differing levels of intelligence.
ReplyDeleteIn one respect, it is important that children are exposed to an equal exposure of each language at a young age. This ensures that children have an equal opportunity to develop linguistic skills in various dialects, because as all of us know, developing a vocabulary takes time. This is similar to Shenk’s point that learning language at a young age is important in developing intelligence, especially in the first few years of life when the brain is developing (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/dev.html). However, bilingual children may still reach certain milestones a little later than monolingual children (http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/12916/). This does not mean that these children are less sophisticated intellectually, but they may face some sort of disadvantage. In a study conducted by Jack E. Kittell out of the University of California Berkeley in 1959 supports the idea that many bilingual children are put at an intelligence disadvantage because of their upbringing. Eighty-three third grade children were tested in total and were administered verbal IQ tests to test their intelligence. Ultimately, the results showed that bilinguists were put at a “language handicap” for some reason and measured an average of 6.35 points lower on the IQ scale than children raised in homes with one language (http://www.jstor.org/stable/27530219?seq=2). The scientists did not have a direct explanation for this phenomenon; however this could potentially explain how environment at a young age can affect genes expression and therefore the expression and development of intelligence.
The “language barrier” that David Shenk speaks of in his book is really just another example of a nature versus nurture paradigm being overridden by the new GxE paradigm, which accounts for the “interaction of environmental influences on genetic factors” (Shenk, 21). As Lily acknowledged in her response, in reality, linguistics are simply another “multifactorial [gene], meaning that many factors, both genetic and environmental affect it” (Campbell, 275). Adding on to this idea, it is found that the while a child can and will learn any language that it is raised with, there is still some genetic basis for the languages a child speaks and how well they speak them. That being said, the genetic basis can only create success within the language for the child if they have the correct environment to create GxE interaction, activating certain expression of DNA to build proteins and develop parts of the brain hence as David Shenk stated, those in homes with the “incorrect” upbringing will have less words spoken to them (as a result of being in a welfare home, etc), and will have a “substantial gap in tone and in the complexity of words being used” (Shenk, 46). Over evolutionary time, mutations can even occur within the genes that code for the parts of our brain that allow us to speak languages, as an adaptation in response to a certain environment or need to use certain tonal or nontonal sounds in language. In fact, it was recently even found that “Populations that speak nontonal languages (where the pitch of a spoken word does not affect its meaning) have newer versions of the genes, with mutations that began to appear roughly 37 thousand years ago.” (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetic-basis-tonal-language) The mutated genes coding for abilities to speak tonal languages were affected by the environment. For example, in Chinese, a tonal language, tone affects the meaning of a word, whereas in English, tone can convey emotion of a person, but almost always does not change the meaning of the actual word. Chinese people, however, are much more likely to carry the mutated genes because the mutated genes became a selective advantage for those who had them in the past. A classic case of GxE interaction, here those who had the mutated genes were able to pronounce words tonally better, therefore communicate better, find a mate and have the ability to survive and reproduce, the ultimate goal in biology.
ReplyDelete(Continued on second post, Michelle Kelrikh, mjkelrikh@gmail.com)
However, the genes we have which account for linguistic development, found to be “the two genes, ASPM and Microcephalin” do not necessarily allow a child to learn a specific language (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetic-basis-tonal-language), but rather give the ability of being “good” at linguistics and the ability to speak languages in general. The same goes for the number of words spoken in a home. The “children in professional homes…who were found to have an astonishing 32 million more words spoken to them over four years” (Shenk, 46) were not better at speaking English in particular, rather they were simply better at linguistics in general, because they had had more words spoken to them when they were younger (hence GxE interaction.) Thus the “language handicap” that Lily spoke of in her post, is only a handicap because the children at such a young age must process so much information to be able to speak more than one language, not necessarily because they have had words spoken to them in only one language versus another. In fact, it was even found that the number of words spoken outside the womb affect DNA expression and embryonic brain development with the two genes, ASPM and Microcephallin. When enough words are spoken around the pregnant mother, and the mother speaks herself, the genes are activated and the amount of expression is affected, increasing the embryonic development of the baby’s brain. ((http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetic-basis-tonal-language) This is an example of the GxE interaction affected by “factors that happen so early in life we could not possibly know about or control them” (as David Shenk stated during his Skype session with Stevenson High School AP Biology classes) Thus, if a family with lower-income wanted to overcome such a barrier, one thing they might do was simply speak more words around the mother, and have the mother speak more words while she is pregnant, plausibly causing gene expression to affect embryonic development of her baby’s brain and making sure that the child has better linguistic capabilities.
ReplyDelete(Michelle Kelrikh, mjkelrikh@gmail.com)