EDU10002: Understanding Language and

Literacy

Section 1:

Introduction

Language is a process and method of how people convey/exchange their messages to others. Language is
very different to each other according to their religion and culture. Children’s language development is
varying according to their age. Children always figure out the way how they wanted to express their
expression and needs until they start speaking fluently it could be cry,motions,actions or some children use
broken words. They learn the dialect of their own speak from the atmosphere where they are.

Key Terms of language.

 Semantic
 Syntax
 Phonological
 Pragmatic

Thesis statement about language is that – language its inherent fundamental needs for everyone because it’s
a component that use to creates a bond with others by sharing verbal and non-verbal communication. it can
be vary regardless of internal and external factors such as family , background and social influences.

Section 2

Language development

Language development is the progression of where we develop our comprehend and communicate skills.
Language development is fundamental of every person and it occurs through an interaction , with language
there is no such rule but it has to be in a proper order, to be able to understand .

Language development plays an important part of child’s growth. children begin learning language skills by
speaking single word before combining them into two-word mini, this could be different from one child to
another regardless of the child’s ability , months of age, own speed, comprehend or utilize language skills

Language also supports child’s ability to improve following skills;

 express and understand feelings

 think and learn
 solve problems
 Develop and maintain relationships.
 Understand and make the most effective use of study materials.
Language development in child according to their age…

Children up to 3 months
 Responds to speech sound and an active listener
 Reacts by cooing, gurgling, smiling and cry
4 to 6 months
 Considers a voice.
 Responds to their name.

 Child starts to examine

 Trying to pick up object.

7 to 12 month
 Recognizes family members.
 singing,.
 By 12 months, the child may be able to say 3-4 words.
13 to 18 months
 By 18 months starts to speak simple sentences.
 .point out the object
19 to 24 months

 Being more adamant for the things they want.

 utilizes "I" and "my"; and identifies the most frequent items.
 language components

Language has a main 4 components and key terms which will help us to use the language in a proper
manner and improve the knowledge about knowledge. A brief description about 4 components of
language as follows .

* phonological component
The phonological component involves the rules for combining sounds.
Will break this word in 2 like; phoneme +logical =phonology
which means phoneme is phonics which is associate with the sound of the word, and logical means the rules.

Example: Tin has three phonemes: T-i-n.

Say has two phonemes: S-ay.

phonological components involves in following process…

 Counting words in a sentence

 Count syllables in a word
 Identify rhymes
 Identify the sounds in a word
 Manipulate sounds

*semantic component
semantic component is understanding the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences and using word
meanings correctly.

semantic component is the ability to understand:

 Categorisation of different words.

 Description of words
 Definition of words.
 Recognition of words through description.
 Relationships between words:
 words that mean the opposite of each other
Example : “Rita hits the ball”
“The ball hits Rita”.

When we combined the words it should make a meaningful sentences, in that “Rita hits the ball” is correct
vocabulary to use “The ball hits Rita” still gives us a meaningful sentence but it has not been arranged in the
order to express a meaningful sentence.
*syntactic component
The syntactic component it’s a grammatical component and the system of constructing a sentence.
Foundational work of transformational-generative grammar, first published in 1957, by the American
linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky.-He says that transformational-generative grammar outlined
in Syntactic Structures comprises three sections, or components.

- Phrase-structure component,
- Transformational component,
- Morphophonemic component.

Each of these components consists of a set of rules operating upon a certain “input” to yield a certain
“output.” (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Syntactic-Structures). Most sentences in English follow a
Subject-Verb-Object word order, resulting in syntactically correct sentences
Example:

. Michael runs up the hill.

.cat drinks milk.

*Pragmatic component
Pragmatic is all about how you convey your attitudes towards people when we approach them in different
situation via communication. ,

Pragmatic component using for different purposes such as:

• Greeting (Hi. Good morning. How are you?)

• Informing (I am leaving.)
• Demanding ( Pick up the toy.)
• Stating (I am going to the toilet.)
• Requesting (Do you want to join us?)
Nature and Nurture

Nature includes the genes we are born with and other hereditary factors that can impact how our personality
is formed and influence the way that we develop from childhood through adulthood.

According to the statement by Linguist Noam Chomsky he favours the nature position and believes that
much of our language capacity is inborn.
A few biologically determined characteristics include genetic and other characteristics are tied to
environmental influences, such as how a person behaves, which can be influenced by parenting styles and
learned experiences. Nature influences the child’s own speaking style (dialect) from the people around them.

Nurture involves the environmental factors that impact who we are. This includes our early childhood
experiences and its influences how we are raised, environmental factors such as who we have social
relationship with and mostly the culture we are in will lead us how we are behaving to use the tool of
language.
According to the scientists’ conclusion that there are not enough genes to account for the ways humans
behave.

Summary

Child’s ability to learn a language from the age 0-adulthood language is the key. That will help us how it
can be used and how it can be express to communicate, even though a child starts to use body language
or express their needs using crying/smiling/facial expression as a non-verbal communication. Whether
it’s verbal or non-verbal still we are using the language as a tool to interact with others to express our
feelings and needs.

The main 4 components of language will give us a proper understanding of the grammar and how it
can be used to construct a comprehend sentences and also helps to improve the skills of how can socially
be interact with other people according to the different situation.

With oral language development Nature and Nurture, both factors play a critical and major role of who
we are and who we become. Children have the ability to develop their communication and language skills
through what they learn from others around them and how they are received by the community. Nature
and Nurture is very essential for the formation of language

(https://www.britannica.com/topic/Syntactic-Structures)