This paper is an examination of the cognitive processes by which Hispanic pre-school children master their native language and then become bilingual in English. Acquiring a mastery of one language and then of a second language is an individual process, but it follows similar paths and uses the same distinct parts of the brain in each human being. Because Spanish and English have many semantic and syntactic similarities and because learning a second language is actually easier for very young brains, becoming bilingual at an early age is usually simpler for young children.
Learning to master the language of the surrounding environment is an essential process in human development. Brian MacWhinney (1998) observes, "Children learn language gradually and inductively, rather than abruptly and deductively" (p. 199). Language acquisition is an important means by which the individual joins and participates in the larger society. John L. Locke (1994, September-October) writes, "Vocalization of babies changes to coherent language due to their need to communicate emotional requirements" (p. 435). Vocalization begins with cries that signal pain, hunger, pleasure, and other essential emotional needs.
According to MacWhinney (1998), this progresses at around three months to include cooing and, at around six months, to babbling. While babbling often sounds the same in babies of diverse cultural backgrounds and "may include some strange sounds like clicks that are not found" in the infant's native language, "it is not true that each child babbles all the sounds of all the world's languages. Nor is there much evidence for any tight linkage before nine months between the form of the child's babbling and the shape of the input language" (p. 201). Locke (1994, September-October) notes that infants as young as eight months may understand specific words that they will not begin to vocalize until they reach the age of two.
Babbling appears t...