Language is an amazing phenomenon. Speech — the (36)
of sounds to convey meaning — is a kind of human action. Like any
other (37) repeated actions, speaking has to be learned. But
once it is learned, it becomes a generally (38) and
apparently automatic process. As far as we can (39)
, human beings do not need to be forced to speak. Most babies seem
to (40) a sort of instinctive drive to produce (41)
noises. How to speak and what to say are another matter (42)
. These actions are learned from file particular society in which the
baby is born; so that, like ail conduct and (43) that is
learned from a society — from the people around us — speech is a patterned
activity. (44) into a few orderly patterns,
accepted as meaningful by the people around him. (45)
However, a child born into a society with a pattern of language is
encouraged o make a small selection of sounds. (46)