時差N小時:玩耍和語言的聯(lián)系

We usually think of play as something that's doneonly in one's free time, separate from the seriousbusiness of life. For an infant or a toddler,however,learning to play is a crucial part of socialdevelopment. The ages between eight months andthree years are a very busy time for children. This iswhen they first learn to use language, starting withsingle words and moving gradually into word groupsand finally sentences.

我們通常認為玩耍是在閑暇時光做的事情，應(yīng)該與正規(guī)的生活活動區(qū)分開來。然而，對于嬰兒或者學(xué)步的小孩而言，學(xué)會玩耍則是社交能力發(fā)展的至關(guān)重要的部分。孩子從8個月大至3歲這段時期是最忙的。在這段時期他們第一次學(xué)著使用語言，從單個的詞語開始，逐漸學(xué)會組詞造句。

This is also when they learn what psychologists call symbolic play; that is, using gestures orobjects to symbolize other events and objects. Just as the abstract words of a language cansymbolize real things, the word “house” for a real house, a child's play doll might come tosymbolize a real baby. What's more, just as language starts with words, then moves graduallyto sentences, symbolic play starts with discrete episodes pretending to change the baby,pretending to answer the phone then moves to more elaborate games.

這段時期也是孩子們學(xué)習(xí)心理學(xué)家稱為象征性游戲的時期，即用手勢或者物體來象征其它事件或者物體。正如抽象的單詞可以象征真實的事物，例如：單詞“house” 象征著一間真正的房子，孩子的玩具娃娃可能用來象征一個真正的孩子。更重要的是語言學(xué)習(xí)是從單詞開始，逐漸發(fā)展到句子，象征性游戲也是這樣，從不連續(xù)的情景開始，例如假裝給小孩換尿布，假裝在回電話，然后換成更為復(fù)雜的游戲。

A number of psychologists have studied the connection between play and language mastery.One group found that they could predict how quickly children would learn to speak by carefullywatching how they played. Another study seems to indicate that you can actually improve achild's mastery of language by training him or her in the basics of symbolic play, althoughmore research is needed to confirm this.

許多心理學(xué)家研究過玩耍和語言能力的聯(lián)系。其中一組發(fā)現(xiàn)可以通過觀察孩子們玩游戲來估計他們能多快地學(xué)會說話。另一項研究似乎表明通過象征性游戲訓(xùn)練可以提高孩子的語言能力，不過還需要更多的實驗來證明這一點。