Look mom, I'm hanging out!

Maria uttered this phrase several months ago. She was hanging by her arms off the back of the couch, and said, Look Mom! I'm hanging out! I laughed, which of course has made her repeat this phrase every time she does it! But more than just being amusing, it points to how some children learn words first and concepts later. It gets back to the age-old question: Which comes first, the idea or the word? Maria seems to do it both ways.

Most of the time, it seems that concepts and words are acquired closely together. Certainly that's been true for my kids. But Maria also sometimes clearly learns the word and then the concept. That's the case for the phrase 'hanging out'. But also for other words. She recently told me "My birthday is going to come once a month. No, once a week." I'm pretty sure she understands neither the concept of "once a" nor the time phrases "month" or "week". She was just trying out the words.

Time words in general seem to be an area where words seem to come before concepts. Like many children, Maria is having a hard time with time words because their reference changes depending on the day. Last week we were talking about an upcoming birthday party, and I said, "We're going to the party tomorrow." The next day, we got into the car to go to the party, and I said, "We're going to the party." Maria responded "No, that's TOMORROW!" After starting off with mind bending phrases such as: "Today is tomorrow" I realized it was much simpler to say "Well, the party is on Saturday, and today is Saturday. The party is today now." It made me realize how useful the names of the days of the week are. But, the concept is still fuzzy for Maria. Every once in a while at dinner, she will ask "Is today tomorrow?"

Numbers and the alphabet are another area where production seems to precede comprehension. I'll confess to not being terribly impressed by parents who tell me that their 2 year olds can recite their ABCs or count to 10 (or 20). Oh, sure, it's a nice thing to do, and it's a good start. But, that doesn't mean that the child understands what these represent. That understanding takes a lot longer.

Maria is just getting that understanding for numbers, known as one-to-one correspondence. Three months ago, she'd just put her finger on the objects and rattle off "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10" when we asked her how many things there were. She didn't "get" the idea that the numbers represented a set of things. They were just a list of what you said when people asked you to count. Staring in the last month or so, she will place her finger on whatever she's counting and say "1", then move her finger, and say "2", etc. And, as long as the items to be counted are reasonably aligned (and not more than 14) so she doesn't get confused, she'll be able to accurately count them. She's learned that each number represents one thing, and that you 'add' by going up in numbers. That's a huge leap forward in mental development and understanding of symbols.

We've yet to achieve that leap for letters. She can sing her ABCs quite nicely, and has been doing so since she was about 2. But she still doesn't get the link between the letter and the sound. She has the language down, just not the concept. Oh, she'll say things like "M" is for "Maria", but it's clear from other contexts that she doesn't understand what the means. For example, we have a placemat with the alphabet on it - each letter has an animal next to it that starts with that letter. So, A has an alligator, C a camel, etc. Last night, Maria cheerfully pointed to the M and said "M is for Gorilla!" and then to the H and said "H is for Donkey!" Her perception of the animals is more accurate than her perception of the sounds. That monkey does look like a gorilla. And the old nag of a horse does look a lot like a donkey.





So, which comes first, the concept or the word? It all depends on the concept and the word!

Which station is not the busiest...not the...the not...busiest

One of the oldest questions in language learning is the question of whether the idea or the word comes first. It's a bit of a chicken-egg problem – can you express an idea if you don't have a word? Can you use a word if you don't understand the idea?

Sometimes in language learning, however, it's clear that the concept comes first. I distinctly remember when I was about 3, learning word 'tomorrow'. I was standing in our living room, and I said something about "the day after the day after today" to my mother. "Oh, the day after tomorrow?" she said. Aha! That was the word I was looking for, but didn't know existed. It's a very clear memory in my mind - the feeling of satisfaction that there was a word to express my idea. While I didn't shout "Eureka!" I do remember thinking "Oh, that's how you say that."

Something similar happened to Tommy about 2 weeks ago. He had concept, but needed the word to go with it.

About once a week, we drive by Fire Station 16 to see the fire trucks on our way home from school. It's a bit of a detour, but not a major one. When we go by, the trucks are almost always in the station. This is in contrast to Station 4 downtown. Tommy often sees those trucks go by school, and they are often out. One day, as we were driving by Station 16, Tommy asked why the trucks were always there. "Well, it's not a very busy station," I replied. (From our perusal of the Portland Fire Bureau's website , we've learned not only what equipment is located at each station (Station 4: One tiller (hook & ladder) and 2 pumpers; Station 16: one pumper and one rescue truck), but also how many calls they have a year. Station 4 had well over 4,000 calls in the last fiscal year, Station 16 under 1,000.)

"Which station is the busiest?" Tommy asked.
"Probably one of the ones downtown, I think."
"Why?"
"Well, Station 4 has over 4,000 calls a year, and I think Station 1 has over 6,000 - that's over 15 calls a day!
"How many does Station 16 have?"
"About 900 in a year, I think. That's about 3 a day."

"Which station isn't the busiest?" Tommy then asked.
"Any station other than Station 1, I suppose."
"No, which station is not the busiest?" "
"Any other station," I replied, wondering briefly about his language comprehension.
"No, which station is not the busiest?" he insisted.
"Ah," having a sudden burst of understanding, "which station is the least busy, do you mean?"
"Yes, which station is not the... is the not busiest?"
"I don't know, but I bet Station 16 is one of the least busy."
(For the record it's Station 15 with just 475 calls for the fiscal year.)

Ah, the struggle of trying to express the concept least without having the word! In this example, at least, it's clear that the concept ("not busiest") came before the word. Many words seem to follow a similar path. Often, the word and the concept are learned together, or at least very closely in time. Does the concept ever come before the word? Stay tuned....

Firefighters and Police Officers

"Tommy, you want to play firefighter when we get home?"
"Of course!"

Do you remember a time when firefighter seemed awkward when compared to fireman? My kids don't. They happily play firefighter, police officer, letter carrier and ambulance driver. They've never met a stewardess, only flight attendants.

Does it matter that they're growing up with different words than I did? In some ways, no. Calling someone a police officer rather than a police man doesn't make him less male, if he is a male. But, calling someone a police officer does open up the possibility that they could be female if you haven't met them yet. In this way, the titles we use do matter. I grew up in a world with policemen, firemen and mailmen. I had a paper route and had to collect money from customers. How I hated it when I heard people say "Honey, the paperboy is here!" It denied part of me. Along with the words, there was a tacit understanding that those weren't jobs for girls or women. Only after women started to join the police force or the fire department, did the job titles change. When I had my paper route, I would happily have been a paper carrier, rather than a paperboy or even papergirl.

But, oh how these changes have been decried as they've taken place. Traditionalists have claimed that the new words are grating on the ears, or even absurd. How can we talk about a committee chair convening a meeting, as if an inanimate object could do such a thing! Others comment on the awkwardness of the construction he or she (or s/he) in writing, and note that no one ever says these things. But, the spoken language has a perfectly good alternative: they used for singular if you don’t know the gender. It’s what we’ve done since Old English, and while it’s decried by logicians (a plural pronoun shouldn’t refer to a singular thing), it’s an acceptable alternative.

Furthermore, these arguments miss the point that language changes. It always has and it always will. We no longer use the Old English word gnyrn (sadness, sorrow), we've added they (from Scandinavian), niece (from French) and sheriff (from Arabic). Did the Anglo-Saxons quibble about this new pronoun they or mourn the loss of gnyrn? Did Robin Hood complain that the word sheriff grated on his ears? The person certainly offended him. The word? Probably not.

More insidious are arguments such as those made by self-appointed pundits such as Christina Hoff Summers. She suggests gender neutral language is unnecessary because many languages mark gender. She suggests that to be gender neutral, we'd have to change the whole structure of French, as all French nouns are either masculine or feminine. Or, she argues, man can be specific to males or refer to humans in general, because words can have more than one meaning. But Hoff Summers' arguments are straw arguments. She confuses grammatical gender, used in French, with natural gender, used in English French speakers happily refer to tables as she and desks as he in a way that no English speaker can do with a straight face.

Furthermore, such arguments miss the fact that words retain their multiple meanings, despite the context. While man can have more than one meaning, that doesn't make the male meaning disappear. When we read words with more than one meaning, we call up not just the meaning given by the context, but all the possible meanings. Psycholinguistic experiments have shown that if I tell you that "The diplomat was shocked by the presence of bugs in the hotel room," you will briefly call up both the meaning insect and listening device when hearing 'bug'. Thus, using man when you mean people or humans, will call up the meaning male, even when it's not intended. Why not just say people and avoid the whole issue?

Finally, using fireman or mailman gives subtle indications of our culture and beliefs. Referring to firemen suggests that this is a male job. Girls need not apply. This is no longer the state of the world. My daughter is free now to choose a career other than teacher or nurse. She's already seeing herself in roles that even I, child of the feminist revolution, never could. As she said to her brother the other night: "Tommy, you be the nurse and I'll be the doctor!"

True, some of her dreams are still impossible:

Tommy: "Do you think I could be a firefighter when I grow up?"
Mom: "If you want to."
Maria: "And I'll be a Dalmatian when I grow up!"

While reality may keep her from becoming a Dalmatian, at least her language won't keep her from becoming a firefighter.