Conversations with a two-month-old 1

Abstract

The infant showed two different kinds of interest, two ways of spontaneously responding; one for the object, and one for the mother. Most different were the expressions of face, voice and hands. Discovery of embryonic speaking in the social animation of infants, they use words to communicate, reinforces the view of psycholinguists nowadays that language is embedded in an innate context of non-verbal communication by which intention and experience are transmitted from person to person. Infants a few months old make speech like pattern of movement when they are also clearly overcome by some rudimentary purpose to influence, impress or lead the attentions they have obtained of another. The early appearance of communication with persons in the psychology of infants seems to provide what is needed for sharing all kinds of action and purpose with adults as more capable, more intelligent beings.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 103 citations exist upstream.