評論
打印
When a human infant is born into any community in any part of the world it has two things in common with any infant, pro- __1__ vided neither of them have been damaged in any way either be- __2__ fore or during birth. Firstly, and most obviously, newborn children are completely helpless. Apart from a powerful capacity to pay attention to their helplessness by using sound, there is nothing __3__ the newborn child can do to ensure his own survival. Without care from some other human being or beings, be it mother,grandmother, or human group, a child is very unlikely to survive.This helplessness of human infants is in marked contrast with the capacity of many newborn animals to get on their feet __4__ within minutes of birth and run with the herd within a few hours. Although young animals are certainly in risk, sometimes __5__ for weeks or even months after birth, compared with the human infant they very quickly develop the capacity to fend for them. __6__ It is during this very long period in which the human infant is totally dependent on the others that is reveals the second fea- __7__ ture which is shares with all other undamaged human infants, a capacity to learn language. For this reason, biologists now suggest that language be “species-specific ” to the human race, that is __8__ to say, they consider the human infant to be genetic programmed __9__ in such way that it can acquire language. This suggestion implies __10__ that just as human beings are designed to see three-dimensionally and in color, and just as they are designed t stand upright rather than to move on all fours, so they are designed to learn and use language as part of their normal development as well-formed human beings.
