Discussion of the Importance of the Social and Cultural Context Where Child Language Acquisition is Concerned

Discussion of the Importance of the Social and Cultural Context Where Child Language Acquisition is Concerned

Beginning with Elene Lieven’s review of the importance of the

environment for language learning, discuss the importance of the

social and cultural context where child language acquisition is

concerned.

Environment

According to Elena Lieven, the roles played by brothers and sisters,

and other children and the extent to which adults explicitly teach

appropriate language to their children are important in language

learning.

By ‘environment’, she means the characteristics of the interpersonal

surroundings within which young, language-learning children spend

their time whether dyadic ( mainly alone with the mother)or polyadic (

with other adults,with siblings,with a group of children). ( Mercer &

Swann, p 36)

Theories of environmental influences on language learning have tended

to be built upon the study of the mother-infant dyad where in actual

fact most children in the world grow up in polyadic situations where

they spend a lot of time in one of the following situations: with the

mother and other sibling/children; with older children or others

acting as caregivers; sitting around with a group of adults and

children. This is not only true of children in non-industrailized

cultures; in many economically advanced societies childcare

arrangements may be less dependent on the mother staying at home with

the children. (Mercer & Swann, p 36)

There are more polyadic patterns of childcare seen in rural,

economically traditional societies. The children in Schieffelin’s

(1985) study of Kaluli of Papua New Guinea spend...

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... communities via different dialects, in others via different languages,

whereas in others codeswitching allows hybrid identities to be

expressed and mixed messages to be conveyed. Up to adolescence

children are learning to use these different varieties and mixtures

of language to express their identities and achieve their goals, both

as members of social groups and as individuals.

( Mercer & Swann, p 70)

In our everyday lives, we play a variety of social roles, and it is

often through spoken language ( or silence) that we signal shifts in

our social identity or relationships with others. Sometimes we

unconsciously converge towards or diverge from the speech patterns of

others either within or beyond our community; at other times we may

make a conscious choice to emulate or mimic another person or social

group.