The Relationship Between the Mind and Language Development

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Recommended: Nature and nurture in children’s language development

Language is the most important means of interaction for a person’s development; and a beautiful gift. Our thoughts, feelings, needs and wants make us human. But in order to share the emotions, one needs to communicate through the use of language. The practice of language is highly important from the early years. I intend to look at the relation to how language rules the mind. Along with this, one will see how language facilitates one’s thinking power and its implications. Language plays an important role in one’s life and we’ll see a few psychologists’ view on this.

Noam Chomsky states language is acquired by LAD, a Language Acquisition Device (Bruce, T., & Meggit, C. 2002 ). Especially wired for learning, our brain is divided into the left & right hemispheres. The left part is stimulated by spoken words and the right by music. Thus, he believed children are born with this, and we learn language genetically. A child also needs an environment that will encourage it to speak the language. If one consistently demotes a child’s language acquisition, the child will be fearful and will not be confident in speaking.

On the other hand, Brunner states in his scaffolding theory that a child needs help to acquire language in the right way. Without scaffolding, comprehension is really impossible. E.g. the wild boy of Aveyron (Victor) didn’t know his language until he was brought to a humanly environment by Jean Itard. If this had not occurred, the boy would be unable to acquire linguistic skills like every normal human. The fact that Jean was able to give him a nurturing environment proves that language is acquired by an individual according to his environment. (Sylva , K., & Lunt, I. 1998). This shows that thoughts are processed a...

... middle of paper ...

...thought process that enhances their thinking.

I realize that men think they’re born with language and it’s an automatic process. Instead, language occurs through stages. A life without language would be thoughtless, no differences in ideas, no power, news or communication, relationships would not be based on communication and the world would be uninspiring. The relationship between the mind and language is evident; language does rule over the mind. To conclude I have to say that man has to appreciate the gift of nature that is instilled in a person to be able to use and achieve his language developmental goals in life. Without language, there is no life.

Works Cited
Bruce, T., & Meggit, C. (2002). Child Care & Education. (3rd Ed) Italy: Hodder & Stoughton.

Sylva, K., & Lunt, I. (1998). Child development, A first course. Oxford, UK: Blackwell publishers Ltd.

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