What Is Language Devoid Of The Social Context Of Its Creation And Use

As nonhuman primates seem to be able to communicate meaningful messages, the question arises whether our ancestors developed language from a similar state.

‘The history of language is often a story of possession and dispossession, territorial struggle and the establishment or imposition of a culture’ (Paulin 1987: 178).

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

The languages of hunter-gatherer societies cannot be used as our model for how languages arose because different languages were more likely to develop in agrarian societies, where populations are geographically separated from one another. Linguist agree that most languages of the world are derived from the process of linguistic divergence, or the development of different languages from an ancestral tongue. For example, Proto-Indo-European is thought to be the ancestral tongue of the Indo-European family of languages, which is the most spoken language family in the world. The Indo-European languages originated from the nomadic Aryans who settled in lands stretching from Western Europe to the Himalayan Mountains in Central Asia and beyond. As

Throughout a child’s early stages of life, language is used primarily for communicating with parents in order to get what they need. From as early as birth babies communicate through crying in order to tell parents what they want. Parents soon learn to distinguish between the hungry cry, the wet/dirty cry and the tired cry. According to Halliday, 1975, children begin to learn their first language from between six – eighteen months old. He believes children are learning a ‘system of meanings’. He looks at language from a functional point of view and suggests there are seven functions that language serves for young children. The first four of these functions ensure that social, emotional and physical needs are catered to, they are called, Instrumental, Regulatory, Interactional and Personal. Instrumental refers to a child using language to ensure they get what they need or want. The Regulatory function tells others what to do in order to control their behaviour. The Interactional function relates to the use of language in order to interact with the people around the child particularly those seen as important such as parents and siblings or close friends. The personal function relates to how the child uses language to explain feelings, and their own identity. The other three functions are used as children become older and want to know more about the world, tell stories and pass on information.

For this assignment I will be explaining the terms; speech, language, communication – speech, language and communication needs. For the second part I will go into details explaining how the above mentioned terms support children’s and young people’s development and will also describe the potential impacts . I will be using examples in my work and will also add how adults can effectively support and extend children language, speech and communication needs.

Linguistic discourse arises from the multiple areas: from studies of primate social behavior, from the comparison of existing human languages, from research on the development of language in children, from studies of genetic and anatomical structures, from cross-cultural studies, from the observation of earning and forming lexicon, and from the studies of the communication of bees, birds, and mammals (cit). Initially, though, language, spoken or signed, was a gestural system that evolved from so-called “mirror system” in the primate brain. Mirror system is a mechanism that allows to equate self actions with actions of others; mirror system's neurons are part of dorsal visual system (citation). The dorsal pathway projects visual information

Language is a code made up of rules that include what words mean, how to make words, how to put them together, and what word combinations are best in what situations. Speech is the oral form of language. The purpose of this study is to find out the developmental stages the child goes through in the acquisition of language from birth to 5 years.

During the early stages of life children start to develop and will reach many milestones. This includes speech and language development. Speech and language development is important because this is how children learn to communicate and socialize with others. Children will start to imitate your body language, actions, and sounds. This helps children by laying a foundation for their speech, communication, social, and language skills.

Language is very important for one’s development because it can affect other areas of development and is critical to a child’s future success. For many other aspects of development, including cognitive, social and psychological language is very necessary. Language occurs before the baby is even a month old. For a developing child, the biggest thing that will contribute to our eventual language development is what we hear. Very soon, as a young infant, we demonstrate a sense of language just by simply the noise, movements, and expression that we make. Within the first year of life the baby is already babbling and speaking a hand full of words in their native language. Also they are much better at comprehending simple words spoken to them around

Nature and nurture both play a significant role in language development. Language development refers to how children understand, organise, speak and use words in order to communicate at an effective, age-appropriate level (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). For centuries, theorists have been debating the roles of nature versus nurture. Although, each child’s language will develop at their own pace and there will be many individual differences based on culture, ethnicity, health and ability. As well as physical, social, emotional and cognitive development in which will contribute to a child’s language development.

In the chapter, “The Socially Charged life of Language” in Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, Laura Ahearn (2012) discusses language in relation to social interactions. According to Ahearn, “language is not a neutral medium for communication but rather a set of socially embedded practices.” Ahearn references Ferdinand de Saussure and his understanding of language as a system of rules as well as Chomsky and his interest in discovering Universal Grammar. De Saussure used langue and parole as an explanation of how language works. Langue refers to language, as a specific set of rules while parole is the performance aspect of language in which language functions as “speech arts.” Similarly to de Saussure, Chomsky believes that there is a “competence” or an abstract knowledge that one has about language, and a “performance”, which involves putting those rules into practice (Ahearn 2012).

I have become appreciative and more receptive to the functions of language and how they are incorporated into the development of communication skills. Language register is also an important factor that contributes to a child developing soundly

In his Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein states that language is by nature external and community driven, therefore the notion of a private language is impossible. Wittgenstein argues that in a private language, “the words of this language are to refer to what the speaker can know- to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language”(PI 243). Wittgenstein contends that among other reasons private language is flawed in that there is no way that the speech community can verify to see if the language is being used correctly. Wittgenstein’s argument that you cannot have an internal language is flawed because it overlooks the crucial internal functions of the brain that facilitate language, both

According to Zukowski (2013), language development refers to the process of learning in early life where infants acquire various forms, meaning and word usage. In addition, language refers to the different utterances in regards to linguistic input. Language development in childhood focuses on major arguments in