You are on page 1of 13

1

Module One Section A


Q4. Language is communication. Discuss.
Abstract
By age four, most humans have developed an ability to communicate through oral language. By
age six or seven, most humans can comprehend, as well as express, written thoughts. These
unique abilities of communicating through a native language clearly separate humans from all
animals. The obvious question then arises, where did we obtain this distinctive trait? Organic
evolution has proven unable to elucidate the origin of language and communication. Knowing
how beneficial this ability is to humans, one would wonder why this skill has not evolved in
other species. Materialistic science is insufficient at explaining not only how speech came about,
but also why we have so many different languages. Linguistic research, combined with
neurological studies, has determined that human speech is highly dependent on a neuronal
network located in specific sites within the brain. This intricate arrangement of neurons, and the
anatomical components necessary for speech, cannot be reduced in such a way that one could
produce a transitional form of communication. The following paper examines the true origin
of speech and language, and the anatomical and physiological requirements. The evidence
conclusively implies that humans were created with the unique ability to employ speech for
communication.

Language is a means of communication


Language is one of the most important and characteristic forms of human behavior. Indeed,
sociolinguists believe that 'speaking' is almost always a social act. This is because much of the

variation in speech habits can be seen as related to some social phenomena. Thus, it has always
had a place either in the academic or business world. Language, a type of human activity and a
system interacting with personality, society, or culture plays a central role in the arts or the
social/management sciences. Of a fact, language has even intruded upon scientific and
technological problems so much so that the engineers and scientists of our day cannot afford to
ignore its benefits to mankind.
In spite of these perceived benefits of language to mankind, an all embracing definition of it
continues to elude us due to its complexity of structure and function. Yet, any useful definition
must include these two. For instance, Tremholm (1995: 82) defines language as "a rulegoverned system of symbols that allows the users to generate meaning and in the process, to
define reality". In other words, language is made up of sound, grammar, semantics and social
context.
Thus far in literature, language has been portrayed as a human phenomenon used for the
purpose of communication. That is, language whether artificial or natural is the major means
by which human being communicates. Consequently, the essence of using any language is to
communication. Indeed, to Oyewo (2000: 164) "the three most important functions of language
in communication are to reveal the self, to express feelings and values, and to convey meaningful
message". In sum, language is hereby defined as "an arbitrary vocal system of communication
used among members of a speech community" (Dada 2004: 2).
Language is not only a means of communication but also a necessary condition for survival
for human beings. Language is a major part of our daily life being the basis of social integration.
Language, in any society is basically for communication. It has enabled humankind to express
and bring to reality great ideas. In the word of Lucas (1995: 259) "indeed language is vital to

thinking itself". While to Oyewo (2000: 157) communication is "the process of transmitting,
receiving and acting upon message/information, thoughts, ideas, attitudes and feelings through
mutually agreed understandable/determined codes/symbols". This definition contains key words
like 'transmitting', 'receiving', 'acting upon' and 'codes/symbols'. These terms point to the 'source',
'receiver', 'response' and 'language' respectively. It shows that communication is a process. This
process is actually used to "inform, entertain, instruct and persuade in a given communicative
encounter" (Oyewo 2000: 157).
Furthermore, every human society, from the most primitive to the most advanced, depends
on some form of communication network. As communication is the essence of using language so
it will be virtually impossible for any group of people to define successfully their common and
binding interest without language. Indeed, all the so-called higher activities of humans spring
from the close adjustment among individuals which we call society and this adjustment, in turn,
is based upon language. Every society is organized into speech communities, each comprising a
group of people who interact by means of speech. Therefore to live in many communities
requires familiarity with more than one, often more than two languages.
Contrary to popular belief, language may not mirror reality. It does not simply describe the
world as it is. Instead, language helps create our sense of reality by giving meaning to events.
Language is not neutral. The words used to label an event determine to a great extent the
response to it. Language has a powerful influence over people and their behaviour. In
advertising, the choice of language to convey specific messages with the intention of influencing
people is very important. Visual content and design in advertising have a very great impact on
the consumer, but it is language that helps people to identify a product and remember it. Thus,

both the mass media and the advertising personnel when reporting news and when marketing
have to put into consideration the emotive power of their words.
Language can also be used as a means to reinforce culture and history. As culture is a historical
vector by which people live and learn on its own, language greatly influences the view that these
people take on the world. Languages associated with certain cultures or traditions are respected
as such. An example would be the Greek language. The ancient Greeks lived in a society where
culture was rich, though what most people would generally associate them with is their firm
grasp on the foundations of mathematics. By respect for these mathematical forefathers, many
symbols that denote mathematical functions take the form of ancient Greek alphabets, such as Pi,
used to define the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius, or Sigma, which is used to denote
the summation of a set.
In addition to physical instances of practical use, language can also be utilized as a
form of instruction or control. This is most practical in areas such as computing, where, with the
aid of mathematics, language is re-written into what we call programming languages. These
languages are used to define instructions for complex electronic systems such as computers, and
with these languages programmers can create varied and powerful computational technologies.
And as technologies advance, so will the languages used to design them.
In conclusion, language does seem to be used as mainly a tool for communication. This
is because the general public only uses language for this purpose. However, if we take into
account that communication requires two or more parties in order to take place, it becomes a
limited scope within which to use language. In truth, we apply language in more fields than just
communications, such as history and the arts, as well as science. Language is not a tool that can
only be utilized for communication. Firstly, it is a method by which we, as communicators, can

establish a common ground with others. Secondly, it is a means to understand the past as it was
written via interpretation. And lastly, language can be used as a means of design. Ultimately,
language is used commonly for the sake of understanding one another, be it between us and
others, the past, or machines. Hence, it is not merely communication, but a medium within which
exchange can take place among other things

References
Dada, Samuel A. (2004): The Principle of Effective Public Speaking. Ibadan.
Lucas, Stephen E. (1995): The Art of Public Speaking. 5th ed. Boston.
Oyewo, Yinka (2000): "Human Communication. An Introduction." In: Babajide, Adeyemi O.
(ed.):Studies in English Language. Ibadan: 149167.
Trenholm, Sarah (1995): Thinking Through Communication. An Introduction to the study of
Human Communication. Boston.
Module One Section B
Q6. Discuss how children acquire their mother tongue.
Abstract
Language is a very important part of life. Communication between people not only enables us to
understand one-another, but aids in developing relationships and allowing us to communicate our
problems, suggestions and plans. I'm sure you can all agree that language is a crucial part of
everyday life. But how did we learn to speak? How do we know what to say and when to say
certain things? Language Acquisition is something that can often be misunderstood, or

simplified, or even forgotten. Yet from the word GO, acquiring language and using language is
an amazing ability we, as human-beings, have.
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce
and use words to understand and communicate. It involves the picking up of diverse capacities
including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. However, learning a first language is
something that every normal child does successfully without much need for formal lessons.
Language development is a complex and unique human quality but yet children seem to acquire
language at a very rapid rate with most children's speech being relatively grammatical by age
three (Crain & Lillo-Martin, 1999). Language acquisition is a complex and unique human
quality for which there is still no theory that is able to completely explain how language is
attained. However most of the concepts and theories we do have explaining how native
languages are acquired go back to the approaches put forward by researchers such as Skinner,
Chomsky, Piaget and others. Most of the modern theories we have today have incorporated
aspects of these theories into their various findings.
Theories and models of language acquisition:
a. Behaviorist Theory
In 1957 a piece of literature appeared that would come to affect how we view language,
human behavior and language learning. B.F Skinner's Verbal Behavior (1957) applied a
functional analysis approach to analyze language behavior in terms of their natural
occurrence in response to environmental circumstances and the effects they have on
human interactions. Skinner's behavior learning approach relies on the components of
classical, which involves unconditioned and conditioned stimuli, and operant
conditioning but particularly the elements of operational conditioning. Operational

conditioning refers to a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments
for behavior. Behavior operates on the environment to bring about favorable
consequences or avoid adverse ones. These same ideas of operant conditioning can also
be applied to language acquisition because Skinner believed that language could be
treated like any other kind of cognitive behavior. According to the behaviorist theory,
language learning is a process of habit formation that involves a period of trial and error
where the child tries and fails to use correct language until it succeeds. Infants also have
human role models in their environment that provide the stimuli and rewards required for
operant conditioning. For example, if a child starts babblings, which resembles
appropriate words, then his or her babbling will be rewarded by a parent or loved one by
positive reinforcement such as a smile or clap. Since the babblings were rewarded, this
reward reinforces further articulations of the same sort into groupings of syllables and
words in a similar situation (Demirezen, 1988). Children also utter words because they
cause adults to give them the things they want and they will only be given what they want
once the adult has trained or shaped the child through reinforcement and rewards speech
close to that of adult speech. Before long children will take on the imitation or modeling
component of Skinner's theory of language acquisition in which children learn to speak
by copying the utterances heard around them and by having their responses strengthened
by the repetitions, corrections and other reactions that adults provide. However, before a
child can begin to speak, they first start by listening to the sounds in their environment
for the first years of their life. Gradually, the child learns to associate certain sounds with
certain situations such as the sound of endearment a mother produces when feeding her
child. These sounds then become pleasurable for the child on their own without being

accompanied by food and eventually the child will attempt to imitate these sounds to
invite the attention of his mother or another adult. If these sounds resemble that of adult
language the mother will respond with reward and the operant conditioning process
begins.
b. Innateness Theory
Noam Chomsky's innateness or nativist theory proposes that children have an inborn or
innate faculty for language acquisition that is biologically determined. According to
Goodluck (1991), nativists view language as a fundamental part of the human genome, as
a trait that makes humans human, and its acquisition is a natural part of maturation. It
seems that the human species has evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain linguistic
information at birth and this natural predisposition to learn language is triggered by
hearing speech. The child's brain is then able to interpret what she or he hears according
to the underlying principles or structures it already contains (Linden, 2007). Chomsky has
determined that being biologically prepared to acquire language regardless of setting is
due to the child's language acquisition device (LAD), which is used as a mechanism for
working out the rules of language. Chomsky believed that all human languages share
common principles, such as all languages have verbs and nouns, and it was the child's
task to establish how the specific language she or he hears expresses these underlying
principles. For example, the LAD already contains the concept of verb tense and so by
listening to word forms such as "worked" or "played". The child will then form a
hypothesis that the past tense of verbs are formed by adding the sound /d/,/t/ or /id/ to the
base form. Yang (2006) also believes that children also initially possess, then
subsequently develop, an innate understanding or hypothesis about grammar regardless

of where they are raised. According to Chomsky, infants acquire grammar because it is a
universal property of language, an inborn development, and has coined these fundamental
grammatical ideas that all humans have as universal grammar (UG). Children under the
age of three usually don't speak in full sentences and instead say things like "want
cookie" but yet you would still not hear them say things like "want my" or "I cookie"
because statements like this would break the syntactic structure of the phrase, a
component of universal grammar. Another argument of the nativist or innate theory is that
there is a critical period for language acquisition, which is a time frame during which
environmental exposure is needed to stimulate an innate trait. Linguist Eric Lenneberg in
1964 postulated that the critical period of language acquisition ends around the age of 12
years. He believed that if no language was learned before then, it could never be learned
in a normal and functional sense. It was termed the critical period hypothesis and since
then there has been a few case examples of individuals being subject to such
circumstances such as the girl known as Genie who was imposed to an abusive
environment, which didn't allow her to develop language skills.
c. Cognitive Theory
Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist that was famous for his four stages of cognitive
development for children, which included the development of language. However,
children do not think like adults and so before they can begin to develop language they
must first actively construct their own understanding of the world through their
interactions with their environment. A child has to understand a concept before he or she
can acquire the particular language which expresses that concept. For example, a child
first becomes aware of a concept such as relative size and only afterward do they acquire

10

the words and patterns to convey that concept. Essentially it is impossible for a young
child to voice concepts that are unknown to them and therefore once a child learns about
their environment then they can map language onto their prior experience. An infant's
experience of a cat is that it meows, is furry and eats from a bowl in the kitchen; hence
they develop the concept of cat first and then learns to map the word "kitty" onto that
concept. Language is only one of the many human mental or cognitive activities and
many cognitivists believe that language emerges within the context of other general
cognitive abilities like memory, attention and problem solving because it is a part of their
broader intellectual development. However, according to Goodluck (1991), once
language does emerge it is usually within certain stages and children go through these
stages in a fixed order that is universal in all children. There is a consistent order of
mastery of the most common function morphemes in a language and simple ideas are
expressed earlier than more complex ones even if they are more grammatically
complicated. Piaget's cognitive theory states that, children's language reflects the
development of their logical thinking and reasoning skills in stages, with each period
having a specific name and age reference.
d. Social Interactionist Theory
Vygotsky's social interaction theory incorporates nurture arguments in that children can
be influenced by their environment as well as the language input children receive from
their care-givers. Although the theories of Skinner, Chomsky and Piaget are all very
different and very important in their own contexts, they don't necessarily take into
account the fact that children don't encounter language in isolation. The child is a little
linguist analyzing language from randomly encountered adult utterances. The interaction

11

theory proposes that language exists for the purpose of communication and can only be
learned in the context of interaction with adults and older children. It stresses the
importance of the environment and culture in which the language is being learned during
early childhood development because this social interaction is what first provides the
child with the means of making sense of their own behavior and how they think about the
surrounding world. According to Williamson (2008), children can eventually use their
own internal speech to direct their own behavior in much the same way that their parents'
speech once directed their behavior. Speech to infants is marked by a slower rate,
exaggerated intonation, high frequency, repetition, simple syntax and concrete
vocabulary. This tailored articulation used by care-givers to young children to maximize
phonemic contrasts and pronunciation of correct forms is known as child-directed
speech (CDS). Vygotsky also developed the concepts of private speech which is when
children must speak to themselves in a self guiding and directing way- initially out loud
and later internally and the zone of proximal development which refers to the tasks a
child is unable to complete alone but is able to complete with the assistance of an adult.
The attention and time that a mother spends talking about topics that the child is already
focused on highly correlates with early vocabulary size. In the early stages of a child`s
life this is usually done through motherese or ``baby talk`` which may allow children to
``bootstrap`` their progress in language acquisition (Williamson, 2008)

Language acquisition has been one of the central topics in cognitive science but has also been
one of the most controversial. Languages are complex combinations of elegant principles and
historical accidents, which is perhaps one of the reasons why there is no monolithic explanatory

12

theory of language. The goal of language acquisition research is to describe how a child becomes
competent to produce and understand language, select the proper processing strategies and
achieve language "milestones." However, there are a range of theories of language acquisition
that have been created but most of these theories cannot agree on the role that both nature and
nurture play in language acquisition. The theories do have one thing in common though, and that
is the fact that they all believe that language acquisition is the key aspect that distinguishes
humans from other organisms and by understanding how different aspects of language are
acquired we can better understand the main vehicle by which we communicate.

References
Crain, S., & Lillo-Martin, D.C. (1999). An introduction to linguistic theory and language
acquisition. Malden, (MA): Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Demirezen, M. (1988). Behavior theory and language learning. Hacettepe Vniversitesi Eitim
Fakltesi Dergisi, 3, 135-140.
Goodluck, H. (1991). Language acquisition: A linguistic introduction. Malden (MA): Blackwell
Publishing Ltd.
Linden, L. (2007). The Basic Theories of Language Acquisition. Norderstedt, Germany: GRIN
Verlag.
Yang, Charles (2006). The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn All the Languages of
the World. New York: Scribner.

13

Yang, Charles (2006). The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn All the Languages of
the World. New York: Scribner.
Chomsky, N. (1975). Reflections of Language. New York: Pantheon Books.
Williamson, G. (2008). Language Acquisition Retrieved February 4th, 2010, from Speech
Therapy Information and Resources Website: http://www.speech-therapy-information-andresources.com/language-acquisition.html
Williamson, G. (2008). Language Acquisition Retrieved February 4th, 2010, from Speech
Therapy Information and Resources Website: http://www.speech-therapy-information-andresources.com/language-acquisition.html

You might also like