Metalinguistic Development

In my Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition class, we discuss theorists like Chomsky and Piaget and their theories on the development of language. Innatists like Chomsky believe that language is an inherent aspect of the brain, and at birth we are born with the capacity to understand the sounds and concepts of every language. However, our brain slowly trims away the connections to language sounds we do not use. Interactionists like Piaget believe that language development occurs through the cognitive interaction of a child with the world around them.

The Interactionist theories on Metalinguistic Development--the ability to connect language as an object separate from the concept it describes--has connection with Deconstructionist theories.

In the process of metalinguistic development, young children believe that words are somehow mystically connected to the thing they describe.
If you ask a child "Is car a real word?" they immediately respond with an answer like "yes, you can drive it."
But if you ask a child, "Is is a real word?" they will say "no, it isn't anything."

Also, children under the age of five do not understand that words are made of different sounds. If you ask a child what the first sound of their name is, they will only be confused.

Bilingual or multilingual children take less time to realize that words are not innate to the object they describe, since they obviously know several words for various items.

The development of understanding that language is an object of its own, separate from the concepts it describes, is not an innate understanding. When children start to read, it marks a huge mental switch in their understanding of language.

This relates to deconstructionism and Derrida's theories with the idea that language is a construct of mere signs not substantial enough to describe reality.