Language Learning It is,
everyone agrees, a huge task that the child performs when he learns to speak,
and the fact that he does so in so short a period of time challenges
explanation. Language learning begins with listening. Individual
children vary greatly in the amount of listening they do before they start
speaking, and late starters are often long listeners. Most children will "obey"
spoken instructions some time before they can speak, though the word obey is
hardly accurate as a description of the eager and delighted cooperation usually
shown by the child. Before they can speak, many children will also ask questions
by gesture and by making questioning noises. Any attempt to
trace the development from the noises babies make to their first spoken words
leads to considerable difficulties. It is agreed that they enjoy making noises,
and that during the first few months one or two noises sort themselves out as
particularly indicative of delight, distress, sociability, and so on. But since
these cannot be said to show the baby’s intention to communicate, they can
hardly be regarded as early forms of language. It is agreed, too, that from
about three months they play with sounds for enjoyment, and that by six months
they are able to add new sounds to their repertoire (能发出的全部声音). This
self-imitation leads on to deliberate (有意识的) imitation of sounds made or
words spoken to them by other people. The problem then arises as to the point at
which one can say that these imitations can be considered as
speech.
The author’s purpose in writing the second paragraph is to show that children______.
A．usually obey without asking questions B．are passive in the process of learning to speak C．are born cooperative D．learn to speak by listening
