Language As A Fish

Language can be cognitive, material or social, and is a complex set of conventions that allow a group of people to communicate with one another (Gee & Hayes, 2011, p.6). Finocchiaro & Brumfit (1983, pp. 65-66) explain that there are five essential functions to all languages: Personal, Intrapersonal, Directive, Referential and Imaginative. These key features allow people to communicate or convey a message to one another through a variety of different forms, such as spoken or written. Now that technology is becoming increasingly prominent in society, it is important for educators to understand and acknowledge that language is multimodal in nature and that digital media has an influence in the way language is communicated (Gee & Hayes, 2011, p.

It is multifaceted in many ways as language is a material object, due to it being physically present in the world we live in, through the use of speech and text, and cognitive, a set of rules in our minds (Gee & Hayes, 2011, p.6). The analogy of ‘Language as a Fish’ delves into the notion that when taken out of the water, a fish can be inspected more thoroughly thus creating a greater understanding of the creature (Grugeon & Gardner, 2000). This analogy applies to language because once you remove it from its social context or Discourse one can view its rules and conventions more clearly. Language encompasses many rules, including Lexis; the words, Syntax; the grammatical rules, Orthography; spelling, Phonology; sounds and Semantics; the meaning of words. Children all have a basic understanding and knowledge of a language by the time they enter preschool and are relatively proficient in being able to communicate with others. Chomsky (1957) equates this knowledge to a language acquisition device, a linguistic processor we are all born with, that enables children to understand language without any real formal education. From a young age children communicate through sound and their phonic knowledge, the principle that explores the sounds of language, develops at a rapid pace (O’Donnell et al., 2015, p.127). The role of an educator is to guide and to teach

Grugeon and Gardner (2000), elaborate on this notion in the ‘Language as a Fish’ analogy when they discuss that when viewing language as though it were only an object, the quality of the language lacks quality meaning altogether. The authors argue that language needs to be looked at in a variety of ways, thus making language dynamic in nature. The dynamic nature is evident through the constant diachronic changes, the evolution, of language that has taken place over the course of history and continued to do so. Social interaction and communication and language are both on a continuum called a register that ranges from very informal to very formal. Phatic communication is a form of very informal communication and bonding type of language, also known as small talk (Gee & Hayes, 2011, p.24). People not only use language as a form of communication, but they also use language, in particular, small talk, to maintain social interactions with each other. The use of communication to sustain social interactions is reinforced by the social semiotic theory, which explores how people use social communication to actively make meaning of the world (Loerts, 2010, p.27). Anstey and Bull (2003, 2015) explain that social semiotics also refers to