Learning New Languages: A Guide to Second Language Acquisition Book - Essay Example

Learning New Languages: A Guide to Second Language Acquisition Book Scovel Ch4 The chapter describes the importance of identifying the sequential strings of linguistic symbols so that we can obtain a great deal of information when we hear or read a text (Scovel 50). The phonetics convey a lot of information when a person utters the English words properly, although there are some consonants and vowels which remain silent during pronunciation (Scovel 51). Words also have specific meaning in the grammatical functions. For instance, we recall words that fit our ephemeral image depending on the words that we have experienced in our daily lives. Furthermore, sentence structures are part of the psycholinguistic phenomenon that rely on the lexical meanings, sounds and letters (Scovel 59). People develop judgment by transformational meaning contained in the way the sentences have been structured. The sentence can depict negative, passive or interrogate meaning based on the arrangement of words. People such as the mnemonists have uncanny abilities to remember texts and sometimes when they start to forget the exact words, they still retain the details of the content (Scovel 66). Therefore, we can observe that some part of human language is innate inability and our understanding are enhanced by the integration of different phonic and textual contexts (Scovel 69). Scovel Ch5 The chapter explains about how an individual experience language loss, particularly the during the Second Language Acquisition (SLA). It has been observed that non-native speakers experience dissolution of language depending on the rich source of information availed to them when they are communicating (Scovel 70). In a deeper analysis of neurolinguistic and language loss, the brain processes speech and languages and relies on the efficiency of neural transmission of the speeches and sounds to the brain (Scovel 72). Also, damage of the language center in the brain can result to speech and writing problem such as Broca’s aphasia (Scovel 74). Language processing takes place in the left hemisphere of the brain. However, various mental disorder among the children and the adults have varying effects on the speech and the writing abilities. The speech and the writing skill depends on the age of the brain. As such, some of the children with a mental problem may still develop the languages skill while an adult with the same defect may not recover the language function in the brain (Scovel 85). Language Policy Book Spolsky Ch1 The sociolinguistic focuses on the relationship between the social structures and the development of languages patterns. People communicate differently depending on their social situations. For example, a mother-child relationship is characterized by a nurturing and a friendly talk (Spolsky 3). Strangers when talking express different social and geographical backgrounds. Linguistics scholars such as Noam Chomsky aimed to find a monolingual community, a universal grammatical structure that would lead to similarities among the social entities (Spolsky 4). However, he observed that the language had systematic variations that were influenced by relevant social forces and facts. The contemporary sociolinguists sought to find how the brain adapted to the complex community speech such as the different language uses (Spolsky 7). They observed that people used different languages for social, political, economic and religious divisions of the society. Notably, the brain constantly responded to the signaling social information within the bilingual or the multilingual societies (Spolsky 13). Spolsky Ch2 In this chapter, the sociolinguists believe the study of languages transcends social structure and relies mostly on the real text or the act of communication (Spolsky 14). The human communication is a construct of the speech event and the factors related to a given social context. For instance, the speech content and the intonation by the clergymen to the congregation can easily reveal to an outsider that there is a religious meeting going on (Spolsky 17). Additionally, the idea of turn-talking on who should talk first is dependent on the social situation and the emotional state of the speaker. The act of communication progresses when the parties involved use the formula of politeness in the introductory part (Spolsky 21). Spolsky Ch3 The chapter describes how to locate the variation in speech and states that in a speech community, people speak a single language and share the notions of grammar and phonology (Spolsky 24). A more compelling study findings reveal that some people who have the chance to interact with different groups not only do they have a single speech, by they also develop a repertoire of languages (Spolsky 25). The idea that speech communities share the same variety, and norms are vital, although sometimes they may recognize the difficult speeches and use neither (Spolsky 26). There is a space within the speech community that the sociolinguistics explain that it exhibits the patterned variation from which the repertoire takes place (Spolsky 27). Also, dialect has played a role in the historic linguistics such as people from the same language have different words for the same meaning. On the other hand, they can have the same word but they pronounce it differently (Spolsky 29). Spolsky Ch4 Despite dialectology and geography shows how people develop different pronunciations for the same word, the choice of words and the variation of a single phoneme is influenced by style, gender and social class (Spolsky 31). The different styles used by people when they are communicating draw from the dimension of formality. Notably, the stylistic levels of speech depend on specific social situations such as behaving in a the speaker’s sense of identity (Spolsky 32). Dialect may also vary depending on different jargons used in certain languages such as the law. In a more stratified linguistic style, people also develop the slang language which is a form of an in-group language that shows solidarity among the members (Spolsky 35). Furthermore, gender influences how a person speaks such that males talks are usually masculine while the female speech are often feminine (Spolsky 36). The choice of words has also been expounded by the presence of social stratification. Member tends to develop choice of variants they deem as being uncontrollable such as the American English (39). However, when people are surrounded by a culture of the new language, they develop the audience language through the process of accommodation (Spolsky 42). Spolsky Ch5 As the child develops, he becomes sensitive to language socialization (Spolsky 44). Babies can develop the ability to speak more than one language depending on the signs, symbols and the language patterns from the mother (Spolsky 45). As the baby continuous to learn, he can be bilingual that means that he can speak more that one language in a balanced bilingualism. However, some people who are bilingual can have problems with academic performances because of bilingual competence (Spolsky 48). Such individuals have code switching or code-mixing interferences in their speeches depending on how the two languages are arranged in the brain (Spolsky 49). Spolsky Ch6 Besides bilingualism, some people can talk many languages in a distinct and a separate-recognized speech variations. Migration and the voluntary movement of people have been credited for the development of multilingualism (Spolsky 51). From a historical context, the language shifts emerged during World War II whereby people migrated from the war zones sand settled in one place. The mixture of different ethnic groups led to multilingualism (Spolsky 52). However, due to the diverse historical context, there were emerging language shifts that made people find it very difficult to maintain the language loyalty (Spolsky 55). Nonetheless, culture identities have saved some languages from extinction, and one can listen to a person’s language to identify his ethnic identity (Spolsky 57). As such, some communities are so attached to their ethnic identities that politicians have used this aspect to creates ethnic segregation by banning the language of the minority group (Spolsky 58). Apart from the diversity of languages, there is also a unique aspect of language referred to as diglossia. It refers to the connection of the language contacts to a functional location such as in the case of the native and the classical Arabic language (Spolsky 63). Spolsky Ch7 The chapter explains how language can be used to influence and access power through language policy and planning. For instance, in the region where there are two languages, the decision to make one language and to ban the other is done through what the chapter refers as status planning (Spolsky 66). Once a language has been picked as the national language, the effort to restructure it in order to meet standardization benchmarks is referred to as corpus planning (Spolsky 70). Many learning institutions have been teaching students to learn the standard language through language acquisition and the language education policy (Spolsky 74). As a result, English has been diffused onto other languages and spread all of the world, becoming the imperial language in the 21st century (Spolsky 77). Works Cited Scovel, Thomas. Learning New Languages: A Guide to Second Language Acquisition. New York, NY: Heinle & Heinle. Print. Spolsky, Bernard. Language Policy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print. Read More