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Variation in human biology and child phonology: a response to Goad and Ingram*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

John L. Locke
John L. Locke*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
*
Neuro-linguistics Laboratory, MGH Institute of Health Professions, 15 River Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02108–3402, USA.
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Abstract

Goad & Ingram (1987) use the mere existence of inter-child variability to argue in favour of a ‘cognitive’, and against a ‘biological’ model of phonological development (Locke 1983). In this response it is suggested that such an argument fails to recognize the uniqueness of each individual's neural and vocal structures, ignores documented variability in the phonetic patterns of prelexical (and arguably prephonological) infants, and assumes–inexplicably–that inter-child variability implies the operation of ‘cognitive’ factors.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , October 1988 , pp. 663 - 668
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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Footnotes

*

The author is indebted to Dawn Pearson, Michael Studdert-Kennedy, and Michael Smith for helpful remarks on an earlier version.

References

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