Children get ready to speak by hearing speech all around them. The important thing about that speech is that the adults for the most part, are not talking in order to give children a model. They are talking to, each other because they have things to say. So the first thing the baby intuits, figures out, about the speech of adults, are that it is serious. Adults talk to make things happen. They talk, and things do happen. The baby thinks, feels, that this is a pretty serious activity, well worth doing.
