It is known, even to a person to whom the entire study of language isn't familiar, that the language is the greatest factor on which most of the human activities depend. Without any form of language, any cooperation and communication would be almost, if not totally impossible (World Book Encyclopedia 62). This significance of language is what draws scientists to study origin, differences and connections between languages. Constant change of today's languages is what amazes linguists even more. With the emergings of the new nations there was quite a number of new languages. One such case is the language of Former Yugoslavia, Serbo-Croatian, which is now called Croatian by Croats, Bosnian by Bosnians, and Serbian by Serbs. Though these languages were once united and actually dialects of one another, they split as the three nations split. With this came huge amounts of new words in Croatian and Bosnian which caused the Serbo-Croatian to rupture even further. There are few conditions that keep a language unchanged. They include a stable government, good communication, a centralized educational system, a set of beliefs and traditions, and a spirit of national unity (63) Beginning And Change of Language Today's languages all have three basic systems, phonology, grammar, and semology, and many have fourth system, writing. In the beginning, people talked and conversed, but they needed something that would record and later on recall words (Sparke 42). This destitution has resulted in early alphabets, pictograms. Pictures were used to represent objects and items. It was easy for people to represent those objects with the pictograms but it also was very hard to find a pictogram that would fulfill idea of, for example, craving (Laind 50-54). ...
... middle of paper ...
...esented in 1887 by its creator Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof. Esperanto has about 2 million speakers in about 80 countries. However, in China it had the greates impact. It is though in universities and used in many translations. Judging by that, it has fulfilled its function. Why is the world so diverse when it comes to languages? was a the title question. There were many reasons why as explained in this project. Historic, political, and economic reasons interchange at this subject. We know how language is important to us, but we also have faced some situations where language was neither pleasant or kind. Those include wars, political disputes, killings, name calling. All of these should have been eliminated long time ago, but since they are still here we all should work on those differences. Language is very powerful, but it shouldn't be used in above mentioned situations.
John McWhorter, the author of The Power of Babel, gives a brief history of human languages. The title is from the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. The story tells of the people had only one language and decided to build a tower. Then, God gives them different languages. As a result, the event was the derivation of different cultures and languages. Through McWhorter’s view of how languages derived from the past 150,000 years, he states that the one original language transformed into six thousand new languages. The book has seven chapters and an epilogue. The first chapter is “The First Language Morphs into Six Thousand New Ones” discusses the question, “What happened to the first language?”( McWhorter 16). The second chapter is “The Six Thousand Languages Develop into Clusters of Sublanguages.” Then, The third chapter
Language is a very important tool that permits us to communicate with others, and also it helps us to the development of culture, because “What we say influences what we think, what we feel and what we believe” (Budani, n.d.), so it can be said that from language people are able to transmit their thoughts, ideologies and beliefs and Also thanks to its culture can be transmitted and learned over the years through idioms and expressions of a particular place. Language allows the interaction between people from different contexts and creates social relations that create a cultural mix as
Infants learn to pay attention to intonation and the rhythm of speech long before they begin to speak. Children learn to recognize the distinctive sounds, They learn when they pay attention to the different ways in which the adult communicates to them so that they can express different feelings to them, and this is how the child learns to differentiate them (David Ingram, 1999).
Next, we shall evaluate the key features of language which are; communicative, arbitrary, structured, generative, and dynamic. Communicative, language can allow one to interact with another. According to Willingham (2007), the bond found with the elements in language and what they mean is arbitrary. The way language is set up shows how the symbols are not arbitrary. The set up language shows precisely how intricate it can be. Generative, one is able to build countless number of meanings from words. Dynamic, language never stays the same, therefore it can be known as sporadic. According to Willingham (2007), changes are being made all the time as new words get added and as the ways of grammar change. These elements can be quite critical when it comes to language.
Without language as a way of knowing, it would be very difficult for humans to communicate ideas and gather knowledge. A language’s ability to be “rule-governed, intended, and creative and open-ended” allows it to be a useful tool in the development of culture; and thus aid an individual in the process of discovering his or her own identity (Dunn 57). In essence, different languages to a certain degree affect the views an individual may hold about themselves and the world around them, but this is not the only factor; the environment and experiences also influences these concepts. The biggest implication for such differences in knowledge would be overall misunderstanding amongst people that speak different languages (i.e. language barrier), whether they are formal languages such as Japanese and English, or newly developed languages such as slang.
How do children acquire language? What are the processes of language acquisition? How do infants respond to speech? Language acquisition is the process of learning a native or a second language. Although how children learn to speak is not perfectly understood, most explanations involve both the observations that children copy what they hear and the inference that human beings have a natural aptitude for understanding grammar. Children usually learn the sounds and vocabulary of their native language through imitation, (which helps them learn to pronounce words correctly), and grammar is seldom taught to them, but instead that they rapidly acquire the ability to speak grammatically. Though, not all children learn by imitation alone. Children will produce forms of language that adults never say. For example, “I spilled milk on hisself” or “Debbie wants a cookie”. This demonstrates that children have the desire to speak correctly and have self-motivating traits to communicate. This supports the theory of Noam Chomsky (1972)-that children are able to learn grammar of a particular language because all intelligible languages are founded on a deep structure of universal grammatical rules that corresponds to an innate capacity of the human brain. Adults learning a second language pass through some of the same stages, as do children learning their native language. In the first part of this paper I will describe the process of language acquisition. The second part will review how infants respond to speech.
...d to determine exactly which part of the language is innate and universal so that humans can further uncover the valuable mechanism.
The aim of this essay is to explore language acquisition and compare and contrast different theories of language acquisition and language development. Language in its most basic form is used to communicate our needs and wants. It encompasses a range of modes of delivery including signing, spoken and written words, posture, eye contact, facial expressions and gestures. So how do we learn ‘language’? Are we born with the skills for communication, or is it something that we have to learn or have taught to us? Four theories are looked at in this essay to determine how children acquire and then develop language. These theories include behaviourist, nativist, cognitivist and sociocultural. This essay will highlight some similarities and differences in each theory and what impact these have on a child’s acquisition and development of language. Lastly we will look at the implications of these theories when working with children. Can a classroom teacher deliver a quality literacy program based on just one of these theories or does it need to incorporate components of all four? Sims, (2012) pp. 21 states ‘’High-quality learning experiences in the early years of life enhance children’s cognitive and language skills’’. This places a great responsibility on educators and teachers alike to provide an environment which is rich in learning opportunities that will encourage both the acquisition and development of language.
Oral language development is the foundation of learning to read and write. When we first make our big entrance into the world, our oral language starts developing. As we grow up, we hear all kinds of sounds such as words, songs, traffic and much more. Oral language is all about using spoken words to express knowledge, ideas, and feelings. According to an article called “Stay at Home Educators” oral language plays a tremendous role for literacy development. There are four great examples that they discuss in this article that I thought was very informative. Oral language helps develop vocabulary concepts. When students discover the meaning and pronunciation of words, they are understanding different types of speech.
Language, according to Owens (2012, p. 6), “can be defined as a socially shared code or conventional system for representing concepts through the use of arbitrary symbols and rule-governed combinations of those symbols”. Language is thought to be a complex system; however, it can be broken down into three different components. These three components consist of content, form, and use. Within these three components, language has five main components which includes semantics, morphology, phonology, syntax, and pragmatics (Owens, 2012, p. 18).
Children’s acquisition of language has long been considered one of the uniquely defining characteristics of human behaviour.
Language has a personality and a mood, created by the behavior of the speakers and their cultural identity. Moreover, this includes the tools speaker use to communicate through i.e. sign language. Languages can be described by human emotions and feelings; therefore, language is personified and dynamic. Historical events have lead to changes in languages in caused flexibility and dynamicity of language. Globalization and colonization also had an effect in word borrowing, and many languages have been altered due to this. Languages are also interpre...
Nowadays, many people think reading is not necessary, since there are so many sources of information and types of entertainment, such as TV, cinema and the Internet. I believe they are wrong because reading is very beneficial in many ways.
Language is a noun that is considered as simplistic to some individual’s and challenging to others. Language is a method of communication that can either be spoke or written. It is important to understand the general definition of language when studying linguistics. Linguistics can be defined as the study of language and its structure, while including subfields that helps to develop language. Language in the USA is a text that explores how language came to be and its development over the years. The text encompasses chapter such as Language in Education by Courtney B. Cazden and David K. Dickenson that focuses on the standardization of language versus cultural pluralism. The chapter studied language as it pertains to education through social
Language is nothing but a media which expresses feelings, ideas, experiences and even pains properly to others. Cultural background is the origin of language. Language is one of the channels which promote human relations and human affections. Language always unites the people and sometimes language itself diverse the people. Without the language we cannot imagine the existence of human beings on the earth. Language is a system of words that people used to express thoughts, feelings each other. The word ‘language’ derived from Latin “lingua” which means ‘tongue, speech’. The word sometimes used to refer to codes, ciphers and other kind of communication systems. For example computer programming.