The Irregular Methods to Learning the English Language

1354 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Biological development of language

The Irregular Methods of Learning the English Language

Learning our language is something people start to do without prior instruction, usually around the age of one. A baby is overwhelmed with the desire to communicate with its parents and understand everything around it. Similar to a parrot, parents teach their young through repetition, often starting with the words mom and dad, or perhaps mama and dada. This practice has led many to believe that the human species learns its language by acting as a type of sponge that absorbs all words it encounters. This belief, however, leaves many questions with few answers, forcing the need to create a new theory. It is now becoming apparent that humans learn language not only by memorizing words, but by applying grammatical rules through complex calculations in their brain.

Before examining these rules or calculations, the first thought pondered should be what happened to the aforementioned sponge theory. The human species definitely does memorize words; how else could one explain when an infant is learning its first words, but has yet to been taught this special grammar? Using common sense, it is understood that brains do not have an unlimited capacity. Because of this, it seems sensible that, back in 1960, Ferdinand de Saussure created the principle that the mind has a finite list of memorized words. Later, in 1994, Dr. Steven Pinker proposed that this amount of vocabulary fell somewhere between 60,000 to 100,000 words for the average adult in America who spoke English (Pinker, Language 27). Since there are over a million words in the English language, or three million if including all the scientific names for organisms, a rational explanation is demanded for the question - how do...

... middle of paper ...

...
Works Cited

Francis, N. & Kucera, H. Frequency Analysis of English Usage: Lexicon and Grammar. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1982.

Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. "Trivia: How Many Words are in the English Language?"

Dictionary.com Frequently Asked Questions. 29 March 2005 http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/h/howmanywords.html

Me & Isaac Newton. Dir. Michael Apted. Prod. Clear Blue Sky Productions. DVD. Home Vision

Entertainment, 1999.

Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. New York: HarperCollins, 1994

Pinker, Steven. Words and Rules. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.

Pinker, Steven. Words and Rules. Online Video Presentation. MIT School of Science, 2003

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/143/

Show More
Related

  • The Critical Importance of Retrieval For Learning

    636 Words  | 2 Pages

    Altogether this study has helped us learn more about the brain and memory. Learning is measured thorough when a student can reiterate the right answer to a question. In this study, students in one conditions learned forging language vocabulary words in standard example of recurrent study exam trials. In three other conditions, once a student had correctly formed the language item, it was constantly studied but dropped from further testing. Repeatedly tested but dropped from the further study or just dropped from both the study and also the test. The results reveal the critical part of retrieval practice in combining education and shows that even college students seem naive of the fact.

    Read More

  • Building Vocabulary in English Language Learners

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    Teachers who work with English Language Learners know that academic language takes longer to achieve proficiency in than does conversational language. On average, ELL students need at least two years to achieve conversational language and, five to nine years to develop academic language proficiency. Many English words ELL students are exposed to in school, they have not yet learned or even heard in their first language, which makes transference of knowledge impossible. The vast differences in the ability to use conversational versus academic language can be a hindrance to these students and have lasting effects on their academics and therefore, their lives.

    Read More

  • Language Development of Deaf Infants and Children

    625 Words  | 2 Pages

    When most people think of the process of language development in “normal” children, the concepts that come to mind are of babies imitating, picking up sounds and words from the speakers around them. Trying to imagine that a child who cannot hear one single sound a person makes can learn to speak a language is absolutely fascinating. These children range from amazin...

    Read More

  • Noah Chomsky Innateness Hypothesis Analysis

    1535 Words  | 4 Pages

    According to Chomsky the children have a sort of natural and innate predisposition for acquiring the language and they own this ability from when they are born. This peculiarity distinguishes us and them from the other animals. Children do not copy the language they hear, but they learn a repertoire of infinite sentences.

    Read More

  • Language And Culture Essay

    987 Words  | 2 Pages

    Over the past fifty years ago, followed the prevailing theory see Plato, saying that language is an innate ability ...

    Read More

  • Are Humans Predisposed To Learn Language?

    1258 Words  | 3 Pages

    “We can know so much because in a sense we already knew it” (Chomsky, 1976 p.7). Within this quote are the foundations for Chomsky’s theory of an innate predisposition to learn language by his imagination of a mind that holds a priori knowledge. It is suggested by Chomsky (1976) that this innate knowledge is within the human mind at birth and is unlocked by experience. Essentially, Chomsky’s argument is that there is some sort of biological basis only evident within humans that permits the acquisition of language across different cultures, notwithstanding the complexities or differences between them. Christiansen and Chater (2008) provide for Chomsky’s position by noting that children can obtain their native language before being able to carry out tasks such as tying laces or riding a bicycle.

    Read More

  • Three Main Theories of Child Language Acquisition

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are three main theories of child language acquisition; Cognitive Theory, Imitation and Positive Reinforcement, and Innateness of Certain Linguistic Features (Linguistics 201). All three theories offer a substantial amount of proof and experiments, but none of them have been proven entirely correct. The search for how children acquire their native language in such a short period of time has been studied for many centuries. In a changing world, it is difficult to pinpoint any definite specifics of language because of the diversity and modification throughout thousands of millions of years.

    Read More

  • A Psycholinguistic Approach to Mental Lexicon

    2047 Words  | 5 Pages

    The focus on the phonological mental memory was first initiated by Paul Meara (1980). He argued that the organization of words in memory depend on the phonological knowledge of the words in second language acquisition. However, in first language acquisition the memory depends on the semantic knowledge. Mear (1980) conducted a study on lexical performance in fir...

    Read More

  • Analyzing Key Features of Language

    908 Words  | 2 Pages

    To continue with the key features, language is known to be special because of how children are able to learn in ways that are different from learning other things. (Willingham, 2007). Strong evidence shows how prepared the human brain is to learn language with very little stimulation. The results that show this point of view to be true is known to be the worldwide consistency of language learning.

    Read More

  • Reflections on Appropriate Feedback and Error Correction in ELL

    1097 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. M. (2006). How languages are learned (3rd ed.). Oxford [england: Oxford University Press.

    Read More

  • The Biological Basis of Language Development

    3894 Words  | 8 Pages

    Biological foundation of language may contribute significantly to such universality. The issue here is not whether language is innate, for, clearly, language must be learned. Nor is the issue whether the aptitude for learning a la...

    Read More

  • Language and Brain

    1338 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this part, the writer will point out the importance of the biological and neural foundation of language learning by discussing the following :First, the brain anatomy. Second, l...

    Read More

  • Comparing Theories of Language Acquisition and Language Development

    2926 Words  | 6 Pages

    Language acquisition is perhaps one of the most debated issues of human development. Various theories and approaches have emerged over the years to study and analyse this developmental process. One factor contributing to the differing theories is the debate between nature v’s nurture. A question commonly asked is: Do humans a...

    Read More

  • Essay On Sensorimotor Development

    1105 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... proposes LAD as the innate mental mechanism that makes language acquisition possible. Chomsky's linguistic competence is the underlying knowledge that enables individuals to speak and understand their language. A native speaker has access to knowledge about the structure of his language which guides him in his language use. Second, Chomsky distinguished linguistic knowledge from language performance which is the use of language in a particular social context. Third, a child must acquire linguistic competence in order to be able to use language successfully. Forth, also he suggested universals of language which is languages share certain features. Fifth, also he suggested a critical period for language acquisition which is by the age of five children acquire almost the structure of their language. Elliot, J. A. (1981). Child Language . Cambridge University Press.

    Read More

  • Language Acquisition

    7590 Words  | 16 Pages

    Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.

    Read More

More about The Irregular Methods to Learning the English Language

Open Document