Interrelation Between Language and Literacy - Essay Example

Language and Literacy Introduction In the most basic definition, language is described as a method of communication. Human written and spoken language can therefore be described as the system of symbols and sounds, and the grammar or set of rules that are employed in manipulating these symbols and sounds for the purpose of communicating (Trask, 1995, p.3). Language tends to describe a set of people or culture and thus, how we interact and use different word tend to be greatly influenced by several social factors. The variations between different language of the world and the distinct forms found within each language, in the form of dialects or accents, have been a continuous area of research for linguist over the years. There seems to be no agreement as to when language was first used by humans. Some estimates date as far back as two million years ago, during the time of Homo habilis, while others date as recent as forty thousand (40,000) years ago, during the time of Cro-Magnon man. What is unarguably clear, however, is that language development is a continuous process affected by several social factors and that most contemporary human languages are a blend of several primitive ones. One main feature of human language is arbitrariness of symbols and sounds. A symbol or sound only needs to be attached to a particular concept or meaning, or even applied to the rules of grammar and becomes a part of the language. For instance, while the word 'nada' is conceptualised to mean nothing in the Spanish language, for Croatian speakers, it means 'hope' (Hudson, 2000). Through the course of this essay, I shall attempt a discourse of the various social factors that come into play in language, within the context of literacy development. In this regard, three students currently undertaking a basic skills "Brush Up Your English" course at Halton College will be used as case studies. After a brief analysis of what has been said and researched on the impact of social factors on language development, I will give a brief account of the backgrounds of the three students in this group, before examining how the duo of region/geography and gender (two main social factors) have affected language development and literacy in these students. Language and Social Factors Sociolinguistics are social sciences that consider the interactions between languages and society as a whole. It is an established body of knowledge that studies language on a social basis. Thus, it involves an interest in interaction, variability and diversity in language (Deumert, 2005). Or as described by Trask (1999), it is "the study of variation in language, or more precisely, the variation within speech communities." (Trask, 1999, p.283). This field of interest only dates back to the 1950s, this perhaps explain why most of the social influences on language development are still not fully comprehended. Within the Sociolinguistics school, there are two broad approaches to language variation; prescriptivism and descriptivism. Prescriptivists tend to be found among the ranks of language educators and journalists, and not in the actual academic discipline of linguistics. They hold clear notions of what is right and wrong and tend to advocate what they consider as 'correct' use of language according to set rules (Hudson, 2000). Describing this school of thought, Thorne (1997) states that "it is associated with formal written and spoken language and is used in dictionaries, grammar books and language handbooks." (p.92). To further buttress this point, Thorne (1997) cited the example of the original version of the National Curriculum for schools' emphasis on Standard English (SE) being taught as "the language of wide social communication and was generally required in formal contexts" (p.138). Descriptivists, on the other hand, do not accept the prescriptivists' notion of "incorrect usage." They prefer to describe such variance as 'non-standard'. Thus, they see Standard English as "only one variety among manylinguistically speaking it can not legitimately be considered better than other varieties." (Trudgill, 2000, p.8). Napoli (2003) argues that descriptivists may even highlight a regularity (or rule) in the 'incorrect' language usage in question, in sharp contrast to the common prescriptive assumption that 'incorrect language' is unsystematic (Napoli, 2003, p.10). While descriptivist may be inappropriate for literacy teaching which, by nature, is mostly prescriptive in approach, its methodology is said to be more closely related to scientific methodology as observed in other disciplines (Trudgill, 2000; Napoli, 2003). Notwithstanding the difference in approach, most contemporary linguist agree on the assumption that speech (spoken language) is more fundamental and thus more likely to be affected by social factors, than writing. This is grounded on the believe that speech appears to be more universally human than writing, considering the fact that there are communities or languages that lack systematic written communication. Also, spoken language is learnt earlier in life and is more likely to be affected by the prevalent societal factors that writing, which is more contemporary and learnt later in life (Ungerer and Hans-Jorg, 1996). Background of Students Student One The first student of the group, Paul (not real name) is a male from Widnes; a town in the unitary authority of Halton, Cheshire, England. He is currently registered in the Halton College basic skills "Brush Up Your English" programme. He is registered on a three hour weekly literacy development course, which he has been attending regularly. He is twenty-eight years old and lives with a spouse presently. During his compulsorily education years, Paul had a GCSE in Art but did not go further afterwards with his education, perhaps due to lack of interest in education, then or the inability to continue. In the past, he had been in and out of several jobs, but presently, he works in a skilled manual profession. He lost his father early in life, while his mother worked as care assistant in a nursing home. Paul may thus be classified as belonging to the lower working class. The Widnes is more of a rural setting and the people here clearly exhibit a tendency towards the traditional old or Elizabethan English. This can be observed in the way several words are spoken and the omission of certain sounds and letters from common words. Also, Paul has lived most of his years in his town, thus there is more tendency of his accent being greatly influenced by and reflecting the general accent of his town. Student two The second student Pauline (not real name) is from Runcorn, which is an industrial town in the same Halton, Cheshire, England. She is thirty years old and also registered in the Halton College basic skills "Brush Up Your English" programme, for three hour weekly literacy development course, which she has also been regularly attending. She presently lives with her partner with two children; eight year old boy and a four year old girl. During the compulsorily education years, she did very well and gained GCSE in Art and GCSE English. She has worked extensively in several nursing homes as care assistant and only gave up her job to take care of the second child, though she hopes to start working immediately the girl begins school. This seems to be the purpose for attending the basic skills course, because, she believes she has been out of work environment for a bit long and needed to improve on her grammar; speaking and writing skills, to better her chances of securing a good job when she is ready. Pauline would be expected to be more educated than she is, considering the fact that she was raised by an engineer father and a nurse mother. Her partner too is a professional civil engineer. In terms of class, she would be seen to belong to the 'Middle class'. Considering the status of both her parent and spouse. Perhaps due to her family background, and the fact that her town is an industrial urban-rural set up, Pauline has travelled and mixed with several languages. This tend to be obvious in her spoken language, as her English tend more towards the standard version than the dialectal variance or accent of her locality. Also, Pauline had attended several open learning programmes, in the course of staying at home to nurse her babies, but she seems to lack the zeal to follow these programmes to the end. Her present focus on the literacy programme may be attributed to her looking forward to re-entering the labour market. Student Three The third student, Simon (not real name), is from the Liverpool area, a city and metropolitan borough in Northwest England. The city is governed by Liverpool City Council, one of five councils within the Metropolitan county of Merseyside. Simon is a forty eight year old and also registered in the Halton College basic skills "Brush Up Your English" programme, for three hour weekly literacy development course. He too attends regularly. He currently lives with his partner and three children, though the eldest no longer stays with them. After the compulsory education, Simon proceeded to a secondary education. He is therefore the most educated of the three and has been involved in several skilled professions, though he cannot be described as a professional. He may be described as belonging to the 'Upper Working Class' Education and locality have therefore shaped Simon's language development. Though his language reflect the local accent to some extent, Simon seem to tend more towards the sort of English regarded as 'BBC English' probably due to his work environment and the little education he has had. Although Simon is presently retired, his motivation to register for the literacy development course appears to be merely to improve on his communication ability to further enhance his self confidence while communicating, since, he cannot be seen to be expecting to re-enter the job market or help a child through school. The only similarity that runs through the three students is the fact that they were all diagnosed as dyslexic at one time or the other. Student one, Paul underwent a dyslexia assessment earlier on in life, between his eight to tenth year, and was told that he is dyslexic. This is probably the reason he stopped education earlier than the other members of the group. The other two member of the group had their dyslexia diagnosed later on. Student two, Pauline, was assessed for dyslexia when she was not following up well in one of the open learning programmes she had registered for in the past. While the third member of the group, Simon, was assessed and diagnosed of dyslexia during his secondary education. However, none of them has required any external intervention such a speech therapy, to help in developing language. Of the three, Pauline appears to be the most confident in speech and in communicating with other students and tutors, though she is weak when it comes to reading aloud from texts. She is probably better at speaking than reading. Simon comes across as the most educated of the group. He is best at reading from text, though generally less confident with speech when compared to Pauline. Paul appears to be the least amongst the group. And thus suffers greatly with both reading and speech. This appears to greatly affects his self confidence, as he seldom talk or pass comments, except when it is very necessary to do so. He seems to be the most affected with dyslexia and might do better with external interventions. The rest of the essay will look at how region/geography and gender affects language development and how these factors have influenced the linguistic development of the three members of the group analysed above. Regional/Geographical Influence on Language When analysing the differences in a language, the first thing that comes to consciousness is the regional variations of that language. The two commonest and widely acknowledge variations in language have to do with accents and dialects. According to Trask (1999), dialectal geography has been an area of study for over a century. He defined accent as "A particular way of pronouncing language" (p.1). While Trudgill (2000) on the other hand, defined dialect thus: "The term dialect refers, strictly speaking, to differences between kinds of language which are differences of vocabulary and grammar." (p.:5) Discussing variance in accent, Trask (1999) explained that everyone speaks with a particular accent, irrespective of whether it is representative of ones local variance or not. This would be seen to be in contrast with the generally held notion that the English generally referred to as the 'BBC' English or Received Pronunciation (RP) (in some quarters) is an accentless way of speaking. The only difference is that RP or BBC English is the only accent in the UK that is non-localised and has been popularised by the media. Although the country can be conveniently divided along the lines of regional accents, Trudgill warns that such linear distinction would fail to take into account the fact that changes in regional accents are not always dramatical across these regions. He therefore opines that it maybe better to see these regional differences as "geographical dialect continuum." (Trudgill, 2000, p.3). Citing examples of regional differences in accent, Thorne (1997) highlighted the use of the short 'a' vowel in 'bath' and 'grass' in the North of England in contrast with the longer sound in the RP (p.138). Describing the regional influence on dialects, Trask (1999) describes Standard English as "the form of English acquired through education" (p.290). Though, Trask describes Standard English as a dialect, he agrees that SE is a dialect that is not geographically/regionally limited and that can be spoken in a variety of accents. Thus, regional dialects are compared to the SE as a yardstick to determine their variations. However, it should be appreciated that though the impact of geography/region of language development has been a traditional field of study, much of these variations appear to be changing and fading out through what can be referred to linguistic levelling. With the increasing mobility and the more prominence of media in the civilised world, the easy and frequent mixing of accents, variations are bound to reduce. Moreover, highlighting the regional influences on the language development of the three students might not be an easy task. It suffices to say, however, that the rural and rural-urban locality of Paul and Pauline can be observed in their accent, which appears to be closely related to the accent of the region. This is seen to be more pronounced in Paul. Several characteristics of Paul's linguistic most times reflect in his writing, while his deviations from Standard English (SE) and RP are classically associated with Northern regional dialects. Simon appears to be better, as his accent does not specifically reflect that of any particular region. Although, his speech carries a particular accent, his education and mixture with several accents have greatly helped to cloud his particular accent. However, there seem to be some reflection of his local accent, which further add weight to the argument that his spoken language was modified due to his frequent contact with different accents and the frequent mixture that ensued. Gender and Language Development The way gender influences language may be a difficult area to investigate, because unlike the previous factor considered - region/geography, the differences in the way the language of males and females develop cannot be explained in terms of distance or location. However, this is not to suggest that there are no apparent differences in the language patterns of males and females. These differences are tied to several reasons and societal factors. For instance, Trudgill (2000) explain that "Men and women are socially different in that society lays down different social roles for them and expects different behaviour patterns from them. Language simply reflects this fact" (79) Supporting this line of argument, Aitchison (1995) highlights the fact women are often the main child rearers and are expected to speak in a way to help their child develop language skills in the perceived correct ways. Also, women are more likely to be found in jobs that rely on effective communication skills - again this may push them to speak in a more socially accepted manner. According to Trudgill (2000), the result of these differential roles is that "women on average use forms which more closely approach those of the standard variety or prestige accent than those used by men." (p.70) Some of the differences in male and female language were highlighted by Thorne (1997). According to him, in terms of grammar, women are more likely to add tag questions to statement than men, use modal verbs (e.g. I think) and ask questions instead of commanding. In contrary, men are more likely to be assertive and make categorical statements rather than ask questions. Also, in terms of lexis, men are more likely to use taboo words and less likely to use evaluative adjectives. These characteristics and differences are also often observed in conversations, where men are more likely to interrupt and women more likely to use supportive approaches instead of the competitive approach of men. These differences are clearly apparent in the group under study. While Pauline is more outspoken and better with spoken English, the other two men appear to be less self confident with their speech. Women are expected to speak English more closely related to the accepted form, due to their role as child rearers and the fact that they are more likely to be found in jobs that require sound effective skills. However, this spoken English is always seen to be far better than their written ability. This is the case with Pauline. Though, the two men, Paul and Simon are not as good in spoken English, Simon appears to be the best in written ability and writes better than he can speak. Conclusion Obviously, as have been highlighted through the course of this essay, there are several social factors that come into play in the linguistic development of an individual. However, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate or draw a line between the influences of the different social factors, since they all appear to be intertwined. However, the attention placed on how these factors affect language development should not be to the detriment of other biological/neurological factors that might also be important in understanding the language capacity of an individual. Dyslexia is one of such biological conditions that should be granted the prominence it requires in understanding language development and abilities. The Department for education and Skills (DfES) describing dyslexia said thus: "We understand dyslexia to be a specific difficulty, typically characterised by an unusual balance of skills. Dyslexia affects information processing and the speed of processing information. It therefore has an impact on skills such as reading, writing, using symbols and carrying out calculations." (DfES, 2004, p.5). Thus, while the impact of social factor on language and linguistic development cannot be ignored, caution should be exercised not to overlook other neurological factors that come into play in linguistic ability and therefore denying those who may suffer some disabilities the help they need. References. Aitchison, Jean (1995) Linguistics. An Introduction. London: Hodder & Stoughton Deumert, Ana [Online]. The Field of Sociolinguistics: Theoretical and Epistemological Perspectives. Arts faculty, Monash University. Retrieved 19th April 2006 from DfES (2004) A Framework for Understanding Dyslexia. London: DfES Hudson, G. (2000) Essential Introductory Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Klien, Cynthia (1993). Diagnosing Dyslexia. London: The Basic Skills Agency Napoli, Donna J. (2003) Language Matters. A Guide to Everyday Questions about Language. Oxford University Press. Thorne, Sarah (1997) Mastering Advanced English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Trask, R. L. (1995) Language: The Basics. London: Routledge. Trask, R.L. (1999). Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics. London: Routledge Trudgill, Peter (2000). Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society. London: Penguin Ungerer, Friedrich & Hans-Jorg Schmid (1996), An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics. Longman. Read More