Child Language Acquisition, Language and Gender and Attitudes to Language

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Recommended: Children's language acquisition and its characteristics

Prior to enrolling in Anthropology 104, my only knowledge about language was that, English is a necessity in my life to be successful and Hausa is a necessity to be able to communicate with individuals of my ethnicity. There was not a single time in my life that I thought any further into language and the driving factors behind language. I walked into lecture the very first day with a neutral opinion and now I can proudly say the knowledge I have gained from this course is one that will be used and expanded for a lifetime. Linguistic Anthropology has enlightened me on the fact that language travels beyond structure, grammar, syntax, phonology and morphology. Linguistic Anthropology has helped me with the analysis of language as it is practiced in different social and cultural contexts and how meaning s are generated in different social context and the descriptive use of language. Among all topics discussed in class, the three that have had significance influence on my understanding of linguistic anthropology are: Child language acquisition: Critical language hypothesis, Language and Gender and Attitudes to Language: Standard English.
“There are none so depraved & stupid, without even excepting idiot, that they cannot arrange different words together, forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts” (Descartes). Well if such is the case then what about the children who were not exposed to language at all? For 3 entire centuries, no one sort to challenge Descartes vague observation of language and the assumption of language acquisition as a biological trait. It was quite obvious that Descartes observed humans of the same socialization. This is when we wonder what about those who have not undergone any type of...

... middle of paper ...

... all accents while maintaining standard English as a universal means of communication amoung numerous nations. No accent or dialect is superior to the other. Every accent and dialect effectively gets the communication job done among its users.

Works Cited

Descartes, René. 1976. “Animals Are Machines.” In T. Regan & P. Singer (Eds.). Animal Rights and Human Obligations. Englewood Cliffs: NJ: Prentice Hall, 60–66.
Fromkin, Victoria. "The Development of Language in Genie: A Case of Language Acquisition beyond the “Critical Period." Learn.illinois.edu. N.p., 5 Sept. 2013. Web.
Lenneberg, E. H. 1967. Biological Foundations of Language. New York: Wiley.
Rajpoot, Tarun. "Call Centres in Delhi (Australian BPO's)." YouTube. YouTube, 23 Dec. 2012. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.
"Urban Dictionary, December 15: Dadmire." Urban Dictionary. N.p., 8 May 2013. Web. 15 Dec. 2013.

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