The Acquisition of Interjections in Early Childhood (PDF)

interjections must be (at least to a certain extent) language-specific – they might show formal and/or functional similarities in some cases, though. Physiological Determinants: So let us assume that interjections are not some sort of protolanguage – how then can we account for the cross-linguistic similarities? Although de Brosses claims that interjections are not learnt but are natural expressions of a man’s emotions, he also puts their universality down to physiological causes: ‘toutes (interjections) tiennent immédiatement à la fabrique générale de la machine organique et au sentiment de la nature humaine, qui est partout le même dans les grands et premiers mouvements corporels’. In The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin also gives an explanation for interjections based on purely physiological reasons: As the sensation of disgust primarily arises in connection with the act of eating or tasting something, it is natural that its expression should consist chiefly in movements around the mouth. … With respect to the face, moderate disgust is exhibited in various ways: by the mouth being widely opened, as if to let an offensive morsel drop out, by spitting, by blowing out of the protruded lips, or by a sound as of clearing the throat. Such guttural sounds are written ach or ugh, and their utterance is sometimes accompanied by a shudder… Extreme disgust is expressed by movements round the mouth identical with those preparatory to the act of vomiting. … As the sense of smell is so intimately connected with that of taste, it is not surprising that an excessively bad odour should excite retching or vomiting in some persons, quite as readily as the thought of bad food does, and that, as a further consequence, a moderately offensive odour should cause the various expressive movements of disgust. Note that gestures, facial expressions and body language are biologically determined, hence universal. This fact might account for the resemblance between interjections of different languages, for there is a close link between gestures and the like and interjections. Taking the above extract into consideration, I can assuredly claim that the sounds produced in these circumstances can indeed resemble the English interjections of disgust, namely Phew! and Ugh!. Later on in the same work Darwin notes the following on the expression of surprise: ‘… whenever astonishment, surprise or amazement is felt …, our mouths are generally opened, yet the lips are often a little protruded… As a strong expiration naturally follows the deep inspiration which accompanies the first sense of startled surprise, and as the lips are often protruded, the various sounds which are then commonly uttered can apparently be accounted for … One of the commonest sounds is a deep Oh, and this would naturally follow … from the mouth being moderately opened and the lips protruded’. Oh! is the most common interjection in the English language, and it is also frequently used in many other (if not all?) languages, e.g. in the Romance languages, in German, Welsh, Russian, etc. For further comments on Oh! see chapter II.5.2.1 below. So basically, some of the primary interjections can indeed be explained by physiological attributes. These are by definition not language-specific because they are biological, hence universal. This phenomenon elucidates why interjections might have been misconceived as some sort of protolanguage. Formal Constraints: A third explanation for the similarities between interjections across different languages refers to formal constraints. To clarify this point I need to go a bit farther back. Even though interjections might not elicit a response from the hearer, they do serve nonetheless a communicative purpose: they do mean something, and this meaning is expressed orally. Now, the usage of interjections and especially which interjection is used depends on the context or circumstances and the mental process in the speaker. Different interjections have different functions which concern the hearer. Thus, interjections are an important communicative means for the processing of the common communicative system of speaker and listener. The communicative function of the interjections requires an extremely economic form: the phonetic units of interjections are of minimal complexity due to the shortness and the simple forms. Besides, their prosodic features facilitate their identification in the ongoing discourse. The argument that interjections are similar because of formal constraints is as follows: Aufgrund der formalen Erfordernisse, die durch die funktionalen Zwecke des Gesamtbereichs der Interjektion bedingt sind, bieten sich bei der Sprachbildung nicht beliebig viele Arten von Mitteln an, die diesem Zweck optimal genügen. Die Verwendung kleinster Einheiten und deren Kombinatorik ist optimal geeignet, den funktional geforderten Ökonomiebedürfnissen Rechnung zu tragen. So ist es nicht erstaunlich, dass Sprachen unterschiedlichsten Typs und ohne Rücksicht auf die Bildungsformen zu diesem Mittel der Interjektionsbildung gegriffen haben. Somit ergibt sich eine Erklärungsweise für die Übereinstimmung von Interjektionen in den verschiedenen Sprachen, die nicht auf deren ‘Vorsprachlichkeit’ zurückzugreifen braucht. So in principle their universality is traced back to formal constraints due to economic reasons. Tesnière observes with regard to the semantic complexity of interjections: ‘certaines interjections arrivent même à exprimer des états d’âme et d’esprit si nuancés et si complexes, qu’elles en disent à elles seules plus qu’une phrase entière, et qu’il faut de longues périphrases pour en analyser et en définir le contenu sémantique’. This is another criterion for the economic aspect of interjections: they express in a clear and brief manner what is going on in the speaker’s mind, and the listener can understand easily and without delay what is being expressed. All the above mentioned efforts to account for the quasi-universality of (some primary) interjections make sense to a certain extent, and I presume the truth lies somewhere in a blend between all of them. Nevertheless, I need to stress that, for the most part, interjections differ considerably cross-linguistically and are often among ‘the most characteristic peculiarities of individual cultures’.