We used the term "normal children" above. What is the normal child in
this context? The linguistic and anthropological viewpoint here is, and has
been for some time, that any child not handicapped by one of the recognized
syndromes in speech pathology learns the language of its speech community
without formal instruction (see, however, Berko-Gleason (1980) on direct
instruction in certain sociolinguistic skills). Thus, although the specifics of
what is learned obviously vary enormously, the process itse.lf is entirely
natural to the human species. Given that it is possible to argue, as Trudgill
(1975) has done, for example, that "all normal adult native speakers know
and therefore use their own dialect of English perfectly" (p. 45), it would
seem that, whatever the specifics may be, virtually every child is, by an early
age, well on the way to becoming a fluent speaker.