254 Animal Intelligence 



A child also meets frequently the situations 'say dada/ 

 ' say mama/ ' say good night ' and the like, 1 and is rewarded 

 when his general babble produces something like the word 

 spoken to him. He thus, by the law of effect, learns to re- 

 spond to any ' say ' situation by making some sound and to 

 each of many l say ' situations by making an appropriate 

 sound, and to feel satisfaction at duplicating these words 

 when heard. According to the amount of such training, 

 the tendency to respond to words spoken to him by mak- 

 ing some sound may become very strong, and the number 

 of successful duplications very large. Satisfaction may be 

 so connected with saying words that the child practices 

 them by himself orally and even in inner speech. The sec- 

 ond alternative relies upon the instinct of babbling, and the 

 satisfaction of getting desirable effects from speech, either 

 the effect which the word has by its meaning as a request 

 ('water,' 'milk,' 'take me outdoors' and the like) or the 

 effect which it has by its mere sound upon companions 

 who notice, pet or otherwise reward a child for linguistic 

 progress. 



There are many difficulties in the way of accepting the 

 first alternative. First of all, no one can believe that all 

 of a child's speech is acquired by direct imitation. On 

 many occasions the process is undoubtedly one of the pro- 

 duction of many sounds, irrespective of the model given, and 

 the selection of the best one by parental reward. Any stu- 

 dent who will try to get a child who is just beginning to 

 speak, to say cat, dog and mouse and will record the 

 sounds actually made by the child in the three cases, will 

 find them very much alike. There will in fact be little 



1 The ' say,' may be replaced by some bodily attitude, facial expression, 

 or other verbal formula that identifies the situation as one to be responded 

 to by speech. 



