I will admit that rarely am I completely into a movie shown in a classroom. Even if the subject of the movie interests me, my mind will inevitable wander as I watch. This was not the case with The Wild Child. The film completely held my interest despite the fact that it was in French. I found the movie simply fascinating, largely because it was based on a true case. As I watched, topics that we had discussed in class continually arose for me.
One such topic is featured in discussion question number five: "Do you think Victor's case supports Critical Period Hypothesis?" In this blog post, I take the easy answer, that of partially yes and partially no. CPH claims that "children have only a limited number of years during which they can acquire their L1 flawlessly; if they suffered brain damage to the language areas, brain plasticity would allow other areas of the brain to take over the language functions of the damaged areas, but beyond a certain age, normal language development would not be possible" (Saville-Troike 187). When the villagers found Victor at eleven or twelve, he was very much past this "certain age" and they say he had never, ever been exposed to the language. Instead of gradually learning the language as a young child, he had to suddenly take lessons to learn the language. At the end of the movie, he appeared to gain understanding of the language, but could produce almost no sounds. What the CPH claims appears to be taking place with Victor.
Yet, I do partly question absolutely claiming that this proves the Critical Period Hypothesis. Victor's case is just so extreme. Not only was he never exposed to human speech, but he was forced to defend himself from animal attacks, hunt his own food, find shelter. In those six or seven years when he was alone, no one truly knows what happened to him. Without that information, I am not sure how one could draw a sound conclusion about his case. How would this sort of life in itself affect a person's age at development? There simply appears to be too many variables to completely affirm the CPH.
Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it is hard to apply the CPH to such an extreme case. As you stated, his language acquisition skills do seem to be limited because of his isolation. Yet it is so rare that a person would have NO exposure to any sounds besides the sounds made by animals and nature until that age. There is likely validity to the CPH in some cases but it seems that Victor's case needs a different theory entirely.