Concept of Language

 

"language variety on cadbury’s choc" (CC BY-NC 2.0) by nofrills

Everyday use of language involves several different senses. At it’s most specific level, it may refer to the concrete act of speaking in a given situation. Language however is a distinctive human system of communication based on oral and written symbols. It is a pan human development, a behavioral aspect of human being which serves as a point of differentiation from other animals.

Language is purely human and non-instinctive of communicating ideals, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily-produced symbols.

• It is also defined as a system of arbitrary vocals symbols which permits, all people, in a given culture to communicate and to interact.

• Any language is fundamental, a series of sound which become meaningful only when there’s sounds are grouped together in certain definite arrangements.

• Language is a learned behavior. A child learns the language of the community I which he is born, by constant reinforcement and by the reactions of those around him/her.

---Implication for Language Learning

1. Language is the primary tool for acquiring knowledge and it is very important in learning because learning involves communication.

2. Our personality is also partially influenced or determined by our Language because what a person says, why and how he say it, in pral form, or even what a person writes and how he writes it make up those aspects of his personality that brand him as a fool, idiot, an intelligent person, a dullard or a moron.

---The use of Language to think about the Subject Matter Language

The issue of Language and how it helps students to think, has to do with a construction of the relationship between a man and his society. As an individual, he has his own behavior, but he has to respect the behavioral pattern regarded as normal in the culture he is brought up to share.

Language content is what people talk about, what they understand, what other people say; it has to do with what people know about objects and events in the world, the feeling and attitude that they have about what they know. Development of the contents of children’s language derives from information that is gradually stored in memory and from children’s changing capacities to think and feel about surrounding objects and events. This means that Language helps you to:

I. Acquire more knowledge about a subject matter

II. Understand your environment

III. Question information collected and stored and

IV. Communicate such information back to the teacher

This, the students’ abilities to express and comprehend language depend on content and situational context. Each subject matter requires a different form of Language. This is called Language for academic purpose.

In most schools, English is the language used in schools. This, the teacher imparts knowledge in English Language, but each subject has it’s specific language demands even if it is English Language.

Most science subject have different name, concept and terms for different things. It is important to learn the specific Language of a subject matter as it will enhance proficiency in the subject matter. This allows the student to acquire more knowledge and understand such terms and words when and most of all, allowthe student to think within the subject matter.

---Thought

Thought is the name of the most advanced form of a man’s’ mental activity. Language is something that is audible and visible. In the infants environment, long before he can take part in it, the inwardness of thoughts stands over language. In order to consider this relationship properly, we must look back to the state of the young child who has not acquired language. Susanner Lanje (153) sums it up in the following words.

Before speech there is no conception, there is only perception and a characteristic repertoire of the perceived readiness to act according to the enticements of the perceived words.

Yet we judge this repertoire of actions to be purposeful directed exploratory; and to show changes as the child grows older towards an increasing mastery of exploratory skills.

The students even as child uses movement and perception as means of making sense of his environment.

When a student thinks, he or she makes sense of information given to him. The thought process allows a student to:

I. Select required information

II. Decide which information is the correct answer and

III. Save the student form being referred to as a dullard

---Understanding Subject Matter

Information on a subject matter are gathered in the language of the subject matter. Language as a vehicle of communication is indispensable to any subject matter. It serves as barrier breaker and coordinator of stored information. Understanding the Language as a thinking tool concerns the moment of realization. The moment in which the student can make a link between the question asked and the answer he or she is supposed to give.

Understanding the Subject Matter is a process of familiarization of the student with the material of the subject matter. Constantly, in the process of reading or in the storage of information, the student thinks along. Questions such as:

I. Why am I reading this? Borders on the objective of reading

II. What do I hope to achieve by reading this?

III. How can I apply what I have read to what I already know about this subject matter?

Human beings arbitrary use Language to modify each other’s representation of experience and in order to achieve understanding, we use language to go back over events and interpret them. Make sense of them in a way that we were unable to while they were taking place or when we started to gather new information from a book or a lecture. Thinking ac also be seen as a form of meditation in which Language plays a little part. We may simply meditate I’m silence while asking the questions listed above upon past events to view information materials. It must be emphasized that the primary task of a language is to symbolize reality, to gather information, to acquire a vocal actualization of the tendency to see realities symbolically, yet we symbolize reality in order to handle it through thoughts and the thinking process. A man who does not think does not understand, he cannot come to grasp anything and most of the time becomes a drop-out in school because he lacks the self discipline of vigorous reading or process of thought and acquisition of knowledge academic demands.