The Socially Charged Life Of Language

Too view language as if it were an object devoid of its social context would not be seeing language for its creation and use, language is used at its full potential when spoken, language is so important to humans, we use language to express, to think and communicate within the world we live. Language has changed over time, it is thought that at one time we had one original language that was spoken, and “as different human groups spread across the world and communicated only with each other, the original language changed in different ways in different places” (Gee, P,. & Hayes, E. (2011). pg 8), because of these changes, and socialisation of different humans, we now have many diverse human languages. Language has changed and will continue to

As language is intuitive, I have not given much thought on the science of language in a way that linguistics does. Once I began to reevaluate what thought I knew compared to what I actually knew, only then did I become so fascinated by the intricacies of human communication. Each of the readings deepened and challenged my understanding of human language. There were two aspects of language that particularly stood out to me in the readings – creativity and complexity and how the two applied in a social context.

The Role of Language in Creating and Reinforcing Social Distinctions Such as Class, Ethnicity, and Gender

First, children¡¯s acquisition of language is an innate mechanism that enables a child to analyze language and extract the basic rules of grammar, granted by Chomsky. It basically states that humans are born with a language acquisition device that, the ability to learn a language rapidly as children. However, there is one important controversy in language acquisition concerns how we acquire language; since Chomsky fails to adequately explain individual differences. From the behaviorists¡¯ perspectives, the language is learned like other learned behaviors. It is learned through operant

The linguistic theory of Chomsky has changed the long, traditional way of studying language. The nature of knowledge, which is closely tied to human knowledge in general, makes it a logical step for Chomsky to generalize his theory to the study of the relation between language and the world-in particular, the study of truth and reference. But his theory has been controversial and his proposal of "innate ideas" has been resisted by some empiricists who characterize him as rationalist. In our view, these empiricists make a mistake. In the present paper we attend to his position regarding linguistics as a science of mind/brain, which we believe is an important aspect of his theory that has not been paid enough attention or understood by

However, it can be argued with (Bruner 1964) that social interaction doesn’t explain all the complexities of language acquisition. Almost every day the language we hear is often incorrect, poorly defined, incomplete and full of hesitations, mispronunciations and other errors, and yet despite this we still learn to talk following the correct grammatical rules. Again this indicates the idea of Chomsky’s (1968) LAD model that children are born ‘hard-wired’ with the innate knowledge of linguistic rules and so these rules help the baby make estimations and presumptions about the language it is hearing. From these estimations and presumption the child can work out grammatical sets of rules and when more language is exposed to them, the more their language develops. Even within Chomsky’s (1968) LAD theory, undoubtedly he believed the role and promotion of the ‘nature’ aspect is the core foundation on which language can develop. But his theory also requires the role of nurture

Have you ever experienced what it feels like to be bullied for your differences? I was in the 5th grade when I first encountered what it meant to be ridiculed for the way you speak. There was a time when my classmates made fun of another boy for the way he was speaking English. The boy was very quiet and only spoke to his cousin during class. The only language he was comfortable speaking was Chinese. My classmates at the time were taking turns recreating what they thought his language sounded like. Every so cruelly they mocked him in a way that was extremely racist; they were bullying him. I specifically remember one girl telling him, “Does your language sound like, ching chong, chong?”, she proceeded to laugh while she asked him. I never stuck up for him when I heard this, and I feel ashamed till this day that I didn’t speak up for him. Language shaming can come from anyone, and it takes many forms. In “Coming to Language” by Jimmy Santiago Baca, the passage gives us a personal experience, he has with language shaming from a teacher and how it affected his life and his journey of finding freedom through writing. In addition we see, another example of language shaming in “Living with Dyslexia” by Gareth Cook where he talks about his learning disorder and how it altered his relationship with teachers and his life. There is great similarity between Baca, Cooks and I’s encounter with teachers and language shaming. Since I’ve been in college, I have had three professors tell me

According to Lev Vygotsky (1978), language plays a central role in social interaction since it is the primary means for making social

Abstract The article focuses on one of the most serious accusations brought against Descartes and modern philosophy, namely “the dualism of substance”. The accusers claim that the human body and soul were viewed as completely separate; consequently, their relationship as such and the united being of man become incomprehensible. As has been shown above, the idea of the separation of the soul from the body did not originate with Descartes; it was formulated much earlier, and repeated by a disciple of Descartes’, Henry Leroy, known as Regius. When Descartes became aware of

In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into

I have learnt that language can be cognitive, material or social (Gee & Hayes, 2011). Some view language as a set of social conventions, shared by a group of people about how to communicate such as classroom or sporting rules, often supplied in books and followed by people. Children don’t read books so social conventions need to be taught by modelling behaviour and communication.

Language is an inseparable part of the culture of each community and country. Noam Chomsky, one of the world's best-known linguists, argues that all languages ​​are dialects of human language. He claims that although they are apparently very different, they are actually very similar, however, each culture has a specific way of using their language and differences that can not be underestimated.

At first glance, the question about what is the language might be strange, because we have been using language extemporarily, unconsciously for centuries ago. Nevertheless, the language is the essence difference between human beings and animals, due to what language offers to humans. It enables them to have a history and live the present as well as for planning for the future. furthermore, it is our major tool to communicate ,express our thoughts and feelings under different circumstances, and it enables us to exchange knowledge, beliefs, and opinions to accomplish a great civilization. However, ordinary language is the daily usage of language by people, whereas literary language is the language used by writers, poets, and literates. Everyone can understand the ordinary language easily, but it is quite difficult to realize the proper meanings of the literary language. In order to reach to literary meanings, you should take in your consideration the all structures of the literary language. Literary language is a deviant type of language, for how a writer uses various devices of diction in order to make the language vary from the usual use of language.

He seeks to find underlying similarities across these “distinct” languages, to construct a general theory of a singular language. However, it seems as though he cannot be scientifically vindicated without the groundwork being laid down by many of the authors that he is critical of. Thus, it is particularly interesting that Chomsky seems to be so at odds with the idea of descriptivism. When Chomsky says, “Grammar should not be merely a record of the data of usage, but, rather, should offer an explanation for such data,” (587) he is acknowledging the usefulness, presumably to his own theories, of descriptive linguistics. He in fact recognizes the debt he owes when he says, “To me, it seems that [structural linguistics'] major achievement is to have provided a factual and a methodological basis that makes it possible to return to the problems that occupied the traditional universal grammarians...” (590) But he goes on to say, “On the other hand, it seems to me that the substantive contributions to the theory of language structure are few, and that, to a large extent, the concepts of modern linguistics constitute a retrogression as compared with universal grammar.” (590) Where the descriptivists see an end, Chomsky sees only the means, and is somewhat dismissive of them.

Undoubtedly, in any human community language plays a vital role, securing social sustainability. The language of any society and culture tells a lot about local citizens. Indeed, language is not only a way of communication, but national symbols, music, and art. From this point of view, culture is not only a language in its general sense but the mutual recognition of soul values by people communicating within the culture. This way, individuals can communicate both verbally and non-verbally. Arabic is my native language, and the role it plays can never be overemphasized. Thus, I would like to share some narratives and experiences, to examine how they have changed my outlook, life, and understanding of the world around.