Paper on Language Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Paper on Language - Essay Example Another more recent definition of language is given by Michael Holiday. According to him: "Language is a range of possibilities, an open-ended set of options in behavior that are available to the individual in his existence as social man. The context of culture is the environment of any particular selection that is made from within them ... The context of culture defines the potential, the range of possibilities that are open. The actual choice among these possibilities takes place within a given context of situation." This definition is much more encompassing as it highlights that language is not just through the use of vocal or oral symbols but a range of possibilities. Man communicates through speech, writing, and still other means are introduced in this digital age. A human also engage in non-verbal communication through his actions and entire behavior. Holiday also asserts that language can only fully understood in the context of the culture of the speaker or his lexicon. Lexicon is defined as the "knowledge of that the speaker has about a language." This includes information about the form and meaning of the words and phrases, lexical categorization, the appropriate usage of words, relationship between words and phrases, and categories of words and phrases. b. Evaluate the key features of language. The understanding of language can be acquired by evaluating its key features (Design features of Language 2007). 1. Duality of patterning is a basic principle in human language. This feature of language provides an economic way for human beings to create an infinite set of linguistic units. It should be noted that the individual sounds comprising language is meaningless in themselves. Yet, these sounds can be combined together in other to become produce an infinite number of "meaningful utterances." 2. Displacement refers to the unique sense of time in human beings. As opposed to animals, humans have the ability to separate the past from the future and can talk about these time spheres. 3. Open-endedness describes the ability of humans to add new words to the current set of words. This is illustrated by the words which are coined according to our new experiences and innovations which augment, enhance, and even modify our language. 4. Arbitrariness refers to the lack of "natural or essential relationship" between to the words and the objects they refer to. This also highlights that the meaning of the words are constructed through social conventions. 5. Vocal-auditory channel is the feature of human language which sets it apart from animals. Human's communication is through the ears and the mouth and not through other channels like nose or eyes. c. Describe the four levels of language structure and processing. There are four levels of language structure and processing namely, grammar, logic, semantics, and general semantics. Grammar relations refer to the words to words relationship within a sentence without considering the relation of each sentence to another. Logic takes a step further by looking at the statement to statement relationships by evaluating subjects and predicates in an

((((6))))) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

((((6))))) - Essay Example ademic methods and academic content in curricula but still emphasize to them how important it is to meet the specific needs of the children without necessarily violating the stipulated curriculum. I will inform them their role in helping the children attain the specific components through play and interactive learning and how this helps children attain components such as phonological awareness and comprehend meaning. Learning in my developmentally appropriate preschool classroom will be an interactive affair where preschoolers will freely engage in conversations to acquire oral skills and also participate in plays that will help them interact with the environment to develop cognitive skills. The preschool parents I cross-examined seemed to favor a classroom where their children will be learning literacy skills such as mathematics and sciences. However, they also held the idea that children should be given sometime to play and socialize. They would like the teacher to give personalized attention to children with learning difficulties and give them the opportunity to portray their artistic skills in activities such as modeling and drawing. The parents favor a type of classroom that is physical classroom where both indoors and outdoor activities are undertaken with utter importance. The classroom should have an apmle space for the teacher to interact and help the child. Apparently, this diligently ties with the DAP ideas presented in chapter 15 where more attention should be given to not only academic development, but also exploration of the environment, opportunity/space to manipulate, time to play and time to sleep. Parents seem to realize that play and socialization/interaction are important for the healthy growth and development of