Understanding Language By: Isabel Korstanje

  Understanding Language

 

The ability to communicate and understand is taken for granted on a daily basis. A simple typo, stutter, whisper can change the trajectory of various events. To understand is to be able to observe and learn. Our senses are supreme to this concept of ‘understanding’ and is something that we as humans utilizes every second of every minute. To see, is to identify and analyze. It is a way to provide a name, discernment, and for some species another day of survival. To be able to hear allows us to sense or understand without having to identify. Both together can evolve and create a stronger comprehension of communication. 

In a seminar done recently at Loyola University, Natalia Zielinski and Elizabeth M Wakefield spoke on the correlation between physical gestures and understanding language. They focused on a study done on bilingual students and their understanding of a spoken message, specifically if that understanding was enhanced by gestures.2 This was done through storytelling, with specific details or descriptions being heavily emphasized through physical gestures. The children were then individually asked about certain details mentioned throughout the story. This determined if the child was more likely to recall a certain event or turning point in the story when gestures were used.2 The focus was the correlation between a visual stimulus and language proficiency. 

An article by Cody Cottier, “‘Mind-blowing’ baby chick study challenges a theory of how humans evolved language”, focused on baby chicks finding another way in which language can be processed and strengthened. The study in which the article follows focuses on how animals utilize their sense of hearing to understand and form connections to others from the same or different species. The bouba-kiki study revealed that baby chickens use specific sounds to identify shapes, forming a linkage with sounds and visual information.1 The sound reveals not only the source, but the pitch and volume, which may also reveal further physical details of said source. 

Both articles present a strengthening of language understanding via auditory and visual information. Similarly, both share the same ‘age group’ of both chickens and humans, with early development playing a critical part of the studies. The senses are presented as crucial during the developmental stages of early life, with the brain combining what we hear and see when analyzing or recalling. 

 

 

                                         

Refrences

 

(1)     Blum, D. (2024). Baby chicks pass the bouba–kiki test, challenging a theory of language. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/baby-chicks-pass-the-bouba-kiki-test-challenging-a-theory-of-language/

(2)     Zielinski, N., & Wakefield, E. M. (2021). Language proficiency impacts the benefits of co-speech gesture for narrative understanding through a visual attention mechanism. Loyola University, Access Date, March 2nd, 2026