Philosophy Now Forum

Do babies drink in language with their mothers’ milk? Peter Benson surveys the startling semiotics of Julia Kristeva.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/34/A_Womb_of_Words

Kristeva describes the series of stages through which a child must pass before it acquires the apparently simple ability to use a word to name a thing.

Acquisition of one's native language does not pertain to drawing attention to something and naming it. There is abundant evidence of mother -child relationships that the acquisition of native language in infancy and early childhood is an extension of the relationship itself. This means that the young child is concerned only with the social situation in place when the utterance occurs .

Ostensive acquisition of language is limited to the acquisition of a foreign language in later life and even then the social event is a better teacher than the phrase book or dictionary.

Sociolinguistic theory as per Wittgenstein is compatible with Chomsky's psycholinguistic theory of generative grammar.