Play, Games, and Language Development

Evolutionary Foundations of Play and Immaturity in Primates

• Evolutionary changes in primate species are accompanied by a marked decline in fixed patterns of induction into the group.

• Traditional mechanisms such as adult training by threat or adult punishment of juveniles violating species-typical patterns decrease significantly in higher primates.

• Prolonged infant-mother interaction incorporates an expanded element of play, which is frequently initiated by the mother and utilized to divert the infant from frustration-arousing situations.

• Major evolutionary functions served by play among immature higher primates include:

  • Minimizing the severity of consequences resulting from actions.

  • Offering an opportunity to test combinations of behavior that would never be attempted under functional pressure.

  • Loosening or dissociating fixed, established relationships between means and ends in instrumental behavior.

• The increased dominance of play during immaturity among Great Apes and Hominids serves as crucial preparation for the technical-social life characteristic of human culture.

Structural Distinction of Human Childhood Games

• Games of childhood and infancy—such as peekaboo variants, Ride-a-Cock-Horse, and This-is-the-Way-the-Ladies-Ride—are entirely absent in species below humans.

• Childhood games rely directly upon the use and exchange of language; they are constituted by language and exist only where language is present.

• Language-constituted games make specific contributions to human immaturity:

  • Provide the child's initial occasion for the systematic use of language with an adult.

  • Offer the first opportunity to explore how to accomplish goals using words, where play words function as virtually pure performatives.

  • Allow children to explore behavioral combinations without severe consequences within a circumscribed arena, dissociating means from ends.

  • Operate as self-contained "forms of life" in the exact sense defined by Ludwig Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations.

  • Function as idealized and closely circumscribed formats.

Structural Properties and Design Features of Game Formats

• Game formats are classified as "idealized" due to specific structural properties:

  • Constitutive and self-contained nature: The goal of the game is created by the game itself (e.g., the reappearance of a face from behind a screen accompanied by a voiced boo! carries no functional utility outside the peekaboo "form of life").

  • Virtually syntactic structure: The primary objective of the game format is to be well-formed.

  • Conventional and nonnatural composition: Games consist of factitious constituents tied together by slightly negotiable rules.

  • Sequential constituent acts: Acts are organized in a specific sequential order and transformed according to defined rules.

  • Deep structure versus surface structure: The deep structure consists of the controlled disappearance and reappearance of an object or person. The surface structure is managed through realization rules using screens, cloths, timing/action variations, constitutive utterances, and variations in agency.

• Design features shared between game formats and language:

  • Interchangeable turn-taking roles: Roles such as hider and hidden, or actor and experiencer, are systematically exchanged across game iterations.

  • Context-dependent signaling value: The meaning of any act or utterance depends on its sequential placement and the identity of the actor, causing the game to function as a protoconversation.

  • Distribution of attention: Attention is distributed over an ordered sequence of events where the game acts as the topic and individual moves act as comments. Comments exceeding rule limits elicit objections from the child.

• Psychological motivation:

  • Children exhibit Funktionslust, Karl Bühler's term for the intrinsic pleasure derived from engaging in the activity itself, which sustains continuous engagement in early talking and game playing.

Longitudinal Case Study Methodology: Richard and Jonathan

• Observational design:

  • Longitudinal study tracking two children, Richard and Jonathan, in their home environments fortnightly (or more frequently during rapid developmental phases or parent-spotted events).

  • Observations began when Richard was $5$ months old ($0;5$) and Jonathan was $3$ months old ($0;3$).

  • Study concluded when Richard reached $24$ months ($2;0$) and Jonathan reached $18$ months ($1;6$).

  • Home visits lasted approximately $1$ hour, yielding half-hour video and audio recordings of standard playtime activities.

• Socio-demographic context:

  • Middle-class home backgrounds: fathers worked as a schoolmaster and a physician, respectively; mothers were housewives who had not attended university.

  • Parents maintained notebooks recording new speech forms as they emerged.

• Data transcription and analysis:

  • Transcriptions completed within $1$ week using context notes and audio-visual recordings.

  • Standard three-column layout utilized: temporally ordered notations of mother's utterances, child's utterances, and context descriptions.

• Age notation convention:

  • Format $Y;M.D$ represents years, months, and days (e.g., $0;5$ = $5$ months; $1;2.10$ = $1$ year, $2$ months, $10$ days).

Developmental Progression of Jonathan's Appearance-Disappearance Games

• The Clown-and-Cone Game Structure:

  • Material: A toy clown moved to rise above or disappear into a cloth cone mounted on a stick.

  • Timeline: Initiated at age $0;5$ (following $2$ months of direct face-to-face peekaboo), played through $0;9$, disappeared, and resurfaced at age $1;2$.

• Deep and Surface Structure Segmentation:

  • Antecedent Topic:

  • Preparation Component:

    • Attentional vocative constituent: Mother calls attention (e.g., Jonathan, look what I've got here. or Who's this?).

    • Agency establishment constituent: Decides agent and experiencer (e.g., Shall Mummy hide him? or Jonathan do it.).

  • Disappearance Component:

    • Start constituent: He's going. He's going to go-o-

    • Finish/Completion constituent: Gone! He's gone!

    • Search constituent: Where's he gone?

  • Subsequent Topic:

  • Reappearance Component:

    • Start constituent: Here he comes. He's coming to see…

    • Completion constituent: Boo! Hello, Jo!

  • Reestablishment Component:

    • Arousal constituent: There he is. Bababoo (moving clown toward belly).

    • Constraint constituent: Oh, don't eat him!

• Structural and Prosodic Characteristics:

  • Pause markers segment constituents, with long pauses between Antecedent and Subsequent Topics to create suspense.

  • Invariant deep structure (disappearance/reappearance) contrasted with variable surface realizations (varying vocal place holders, prosody, pause lengths, and speed).

• Mother's Language Adjustments and Presupposition:

  • Search constituent expansion: Mother used Where's he gone? $43$ times between $0;5$ and $0;9$. At $0;7$, added Where is he?; at $0;8$, added Is he in there? Can you see him?; at $0;9$, added Where's the clown?.

  • Vocalization deletions: At $0;5$, mother vocally marked up to $9$ constituents per round. By $0;9$, vocalizations dropped to a maximum of $4$ per game.

  • Deleted constituents: Start of disappearance (He's going), start of reappearance (Here he comes), and completion of reappearance (There he is).

  • Retained constituents: Sudden withdrawal (Gone!), explosive reentry (Boo!), and behavioral constraints (Don't eat him). Deletions established a convention of presupposition as Jonathan mastered the game sequence.

• Jonathan's Behavioral and Motor Participation:

  • At $0;5$: Dominated by attempt to grab the clown.

  • At $0;6$: Reaching/grabbing accompanied by undifferentiated vocalizations.

  • At $0;7$: Random grabbing dropped to $6\%$ of games. Smiling and vocalizing became synchronized with game structure during Search.

  • At $0;8$: Attempted active agency. On $13$ occasions where mother limited his lead, Jonathan abandoned the game in half of them. Mother adjusted by yielding possession and condensing surface structure to gone! and boo!.

  • At $0;9$: Held/touched clown during constituents in nearly every round ($75\%$ of games). Boredom set in as manual exploration dominated over game format.

  • Quantitative motor participation (Percentage of games Jonathan held, touched, or mouthed clown):

  • Age $0;5$: $36\%$ ($11$ total games).

  • Age $0;6$: $43\%$ ($23$ total games).

  • Age $0;7$: $6\%$ ($16$ total games).

  • Age $0;8$: $53\%$ ($17$ total games).

  • Age $0;9$: $75\%$ ($8$ total games).

• Resurfacing and Role Interchangeability:

  • Late $0;9$: Hiding toy animal behind mother's back with boo!; Jonathan produced labial vibrato ("raspberry").

  • Age $0;10$: Mother hiding behind chair; Jonathan watched, vocalized, and joined gaze before disappearance.

  • Age $0;12$ ($1;0.15$): Jonathan hid behind chair, initiated hiding, terminated with near-standard ooo!. When experimenter disappeared, Jonathan uttered gone!.

  • Age $1;2$: Return of clown-and-cone game. Jonathan mastered both agent and experiencer roles. As agent, ejected clown saying ooo!, stuffed back saying a ga (all gone), and yanked out saying pick. As experiencer, raised arm and vocalized ah. Calling boo! in unison with mother demonstrated total role interchangeability.

Developmental Progression of Richard's Peekaboo Games

• Observational Data and Frequency:

  • Age $0;6$ to $0;11$: Observed $71$ games across $20$ sessions.

  • Age $1;2$ to $1;3$: Resurfaced in altered form, observed $29$ games.

  • Age $1;9$: Reappeared as a solo pretend game.

• Quantitative Analysis of Game Structure:

  • Initiation of Hiding:

  • Age $0;6-0;11$ ($73$ games analyzed): Mother initiated $100.0\%$; Child initiated $0.0\%$

  • Age $1;2-1;3$ ($32$ games analyzed): Mother initiated $21.9\%$; Child initiated $78.1\%$

  • Subject/Object Hidden:

  • Age $0;6-0;11$ ($73$ games): Mother hidden $43.8\%$, Child hidden $28.8\%$, Object hidden $27.4\%$

  • Age $1;2-1;3$ ($32$ games): Mother hidden $6.2\%$, Child hidden $93.8\%$, Object hidden $0.0\%$

  • Removal of Mask:

  • Age $0;6-0;11$ ($73$ games): Mother removed $75.3\%$, Child removed $24.7\%$, Both removed $0.0\%$

  • Age $1;2-1;3$ ($32$ games): Mother removed $12.5\%$, Child removed $78.1\%$, Both removed $9.4\%$

  • Timing of Child's Vocalizations:

  • Age $0;6-0;11$ ($73$ games): Before reappearance $20.5\%$, After reappearance $20.5\%$, No vocalizations $63.0\%$

  • Age $1;2-1;3$ ($32$ games): Before reappearance $6.2\%$, After reappearance $37.5\%$, No vocalizations $56.2\%$

• Qualitative and Linguistic Evolution in Richard:

  • Early vocalizations ($0;6-0;11$): Excited, diffusely directed babbles split equally between anticipatory and completive timing.

  • Later vocalizations ($1;2-1;3$): Completion vocalizations dominated anticipatory ones ($6:1$ ratio). Words were directed to partner and lexeme-like: peeboo, do., hi do., dere, ahh (at $1;3.21$).

  • Interim format ($0;11-1;2$): Active guessing games searching for objects hidden in containers or closed fists by adults.

  • Age $1;2$: Richard took total agency, hiding his own face behind a videotape box $16$ consecutive times.

  • Age $1;3$: Incorporated physical locomotion, hiding behind sofas/chairs and introducing hide-and-seek elements.

  • Age $1;9.14$: Played solo pretend game hiding puzzle pieces inside a kettle. Uncovered pot greeting pieces with hello, house!, replacing lid with bye-bye house. When real doorbell rang, pointed and called hello!, seamlessly transitioning between pretend play and real greeting conventions.

  • Age $1;10$: Called Where mummy? upon disappearance and hello upon reappearance.

  • Age $1;11.14$: Assimilated real searching into play format. Lost object behind sofa cushion, called allu down dere with effort vocalizations for assistance. After retrieval, intentionally hid pencils behind cushion and greeted retrieval with allu.

The Language Acquisition Support System (LASS) and the Handover Principle

• Definition and Core Mechanism of LASS:

  • Frame in which adults introduce new procedures and systematically hand over control to the child as skills mature.

  • Pedagogical motto: "Where before there was a spectator, let there now be a participant."

  • Scaffolding process: An initial scaffold is set up to protect against the child's errors, then systematically dismantled as reciprocal capabilities develop.

• Supporting Empirical Literature:

  • Daniel Stern: Development of turn-taking and attunement between mother and child.

  • Kaye and Charney: Mother's scaffolding of "turnarounds" in early exchanges until the child manages independent participation.

  • Brazelton: Mutual interaction adjustments between mother and child.

• Quantitative Analysis of Give-and-Take Games (Richard):

  • Evaluated parameters: Transition to agent, understanding exchange vs possession, initiation of exchanges.

  • Age $5$ to $9$ months: Mother sustained exchange continuity; Richard's possession time averaged $\sim 55\,\text{seconds}$.

  • Age $9$ months: Swift transition to active agent. Initiated games $\sim 50\%$ of the time. Possession time dropped dramatically to $\sim 10\,\text{seconds}$ at $9$ months, $\sim 5\,\text{seconds}$ at $11$ months, and $\sim 2\,\text{seconds}$ at $17$ months.

General Theoretical Implications

• Creation of constitutive reality: Games establish a self-contained Wittgensteinian "form of life" demanding sequentially ordered focus.

• Role of vocalization: Vocalizations initially accompany actions and subsequently anticipate them, building a formal skeleton for complex linguistic structures.

• Interaction management: Games teach role interchangeability, agency negotiation, and the shift from natural motor impulses (e.g., Alexander Luria's control of impulsive action) to conventionalized social procedures.

• Broad communicative scaffolding: Gamelike formats scaffold basic communicative functions (such as indicating and requesting), enabling their conventionalization and eventual transformation into flexible speech acts.