Language Representative Elaboration - Assignment Example

Language Development (Course Name and Code) (Institution Name) (Departments Name) (Students Name) (Students Number) (Instructors Name) November 24, 2008 Language development is a course that usually occurs in early human life, through learning the language by speaking and mimicry. Hence, the language development in a child changes from simplicity to complexity. For example, infants when they are four months can read lips, are able to discriminate the speech sounds, and speaks a language called “gibberish”. The language development begins with recalling of simple words that have no meaning, however, when the child ages the words starts to acquire meaning and connections between the words are formed. Hence, with time the words are turned into logical sentences. Thus, the older the child grows the more words the child can associate and the vocabulary increases because of the more words learned (Bates & Tomasello 2001, pp. 56). The babies especially the infants employ vocal cries and preverbal vocalization to transmit or communicate what they want, dispositions and needs. Nevertheless, the infants and children learn their fast language without any conscious instructions from anybody e.g. caretakers or parents. Therefore, before the child can learn there have to be socially and biologically mature enough. There is no specific biological precondition that brings in the biological factors that contributes to the language development. However, most linguist belief that such ability of acquiring a complex system is specifically limited to human species. Therefore, the ability to learn the language may be transformed through evolutionary process and the foundation of any development of the language may have been passed through genetically form. Social preconditions are important if the children are allowed to socially interact with people who respond to questions and vocalize. Hence, for the ability of the children to develop language successfully, the children should be in an environment that allows communication through social means. Theories about Language Development Imitation is the earliest theory that talked about the language development. Research has shown that the children, who learn through imitation especially in the first year, will result in children talk at a faster rate. However, it cannot be used to explain clearly how the child becomes talkers. A Behaviorist theorist - Skinner, belief that children learn language through reinforcement. This means that a parent or caretaker usually motivates the child to learn the language through the repetition of the utterance. However, this perspective cannot account the ability of a child inventing a language. This means that it is not only the language that matters but also the kind of language that is employed e.g. if it is used responsively. This can be possible when a child contributes to the input of the language through measures such as doing sometime or making noise. In most cases, this deliberative is important for those kids who have impoverished language experience. Other linguistics such as Chomsky proposes that babies have an inbuilt Language Acquisition Device (LAD). From this theory, the language emerges as the child continues to mature. This means that the children are pre-programmed in looking at moving, interesting and objects hence are pre-programmed to absorb language. This means that the LAD contains the knowledge that contains the grammatical rules, which are common to all languages. Moreover, LAD gives the opportunity to the children to be able to understand any rules that are in whatever language that they are listening. Furthermore, Chomsky was able to develop concepts that revolved around grammar transformational, deep structure and surface structure. In his view, transformational structure is that grammar which is able to transform a sentence. Moreover, the surface structure in language is the actual written words. Lastly, the deep structure is the meaning of the sentence that is in question. Interactionist theory brings in interactionist linguistics who argues that language development is possible both in terms of logical and social prerogatives. Hence, language development is the desire that the children require to communicate with other people. Thus, the children usually are born accompanied by powerful brain that develops or matures slowly and predisposes the children to gain new understandings, which are usually motivated when they share with others. Some of the theorists that are associated with this theory are the Lev Vygotsky and Piaget. Piaget views language development has a symbolic behavior that behaves the same as any other learning. Hence, it is a form of cognitive process. Hence, the cognitive process views language development has an extension of the children existing meaning capacity. This is evident when the children begins to pretend play while employing symbols that forms words and also pretend objects such as the child playing with a block pretending to be a cake (Owens 2000, pp. 89). Vygotsky’s brings in the social learning tradition, which stresses the importance of opportunities for children and babies when they interact with others. This means that the mothers who engage with there children e.g. make eye contact, forms the foundation of conversation. This leads into the stages that contribute to language development: Preverbal Period (birth – 12 months) This is the foundation for language development. The period allows the development of early cognitive and communicative abilities. This development includes gestures, babbling, intentionality, gaze and attention that are related to special relations and objects. This period gives birth to sub-stages that range from birth to 8-months; this stage employs non-purposeful and non-verbal communicative acts. This stage enables the infants to explore the environment and the adults treat the infants’ behaviors as trying to communicate. In the 8-12 months, there is purposeful communicative in which the infant controls gesturing, vocalization and relating people and objects. Stage 1: (12 – 18 months) – Single word statements Thus is the start of symbolic development in which the child utters meaningful words. In this stage, the child begins with single word statements that have varied meanings. At the end of this stage the child has more than 50 core vocabulary words which includes; nouns – mommy, daddy; verbs – see, go; modifiers – dirty, mine; negatives – allgone, no. At this time, the child demonstrates the aspiration for the following stage through the increase of single-word statements and a decrease in invented words and the development of successive single-word statements. Stage 2 (18-26 months) – Multi-word Statements The most evident development in this stage is the shifting from single word statements to multiword statements. The child further demonstrates the beginnings of the word order with the statements lacking grammar. The child is able to develop declarative statements, noun phrases, joining words, negatives and increase the vocabulary to more than 200 words (Osborne 2002, pp. 90). Stage 3 (2-3 years) Early Emerging Grammars This stage is usually characterized by an increase of sentence length, sentence organization, word order and the creation of grammar. The declarative statements, noun and verb phrases expand with development or improvement of grammar. At the age of three years, the vocabulary approximates 900 words. Stage 4 (3 – 5 years) Later Grammars This stage in language development sees an increase in the length of the sentences and the complexity of the sentences. At this stage, the language development process is approximately 90%. In most cases, this is the last phase in child language development process. Language development is an important stage for both infants and children. There are the preconditions that have been determined by both the social and biological factors. This results into the development of theories that brings about people such as Lev Vygotsky, Piaget and Chomsky who analysis what contributes to the language development process. In most cases, five stages contribute into the development of language in a child. The years range from birth to five years. References Bates, E. & Tomasello, M. (2001). Language Development: The Essential Readings. New York: Blackwell Publishing. Howard, L. (2000). Language Development Process. London: Cambridge University Press. Osborne, M. (2002). The Process of Language Development. New York: New York Publishers. Owens, R. (2000). Language Development: An Introduction. New York: Allyn and Bacon. Russell, J. (2004). What is Language Development? London: Oxford University Press. Smith, R. (2001). Contributions to Language Development. London: Macmillan Publishers. Read More