纪录片《为何讲话》 第24期：孩子快速掌握的能力（在线收听）

Can you pick them up and tell Sylvie?

能找出表示西尔维的方块吗

S for Sylvie.

S代表西尔维

What's that, darling?

宝贝 这是什么

Monkey. Yeah.

猴子 对

It was 50 years ago, the godfather of linguistics, Noam Chomsky,

五十年前 语言学教父诺姆·乔姆斯基

revolutionised the field by suggesting

革命性地提出

that the basis of our language ability was innate,

我们语言能力的基础

built into each one of us.

是与生俱来的

Now let's have a look at the book.

现在 咱们来看看书

He believes this explains

他认为这能够解释

why a child can learn language very easily

为什么尽管语言本身很复杂

despite its complex nature.

孩子却能轻易学会的问题

It seems that the child almost reflexively picks up

似乎孩子可以条件反射地

specific characteristics of the language in question,

抓住疑问句中特定的语言特征

sound structure, pitch and so on,

声音结构 以及音调等等

and picks out its words

他们能够记住那些语句

and somehow knows what they mean,

又不知怎么的明白了其中含义

and they mean very complex things.

即使含义非常复杂

That's mummy.

那是妈妈

That's the mummy monkey, so who's this then?

那是猴妈妈 那这是谁

Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.

爸爸 爸爸 爸爸

But all this somehow gets picked up very quickly,

但是他们能够如此之快地掌握语言

which can only mean what it means in every aspect of biology.

这只能从生物学的各个角度来理解

It's just the way the child is designed.

孩子生来就被赋予这样的能力