Understanding Language and Literacy: Assignment

UNDERSTANDING
LANGUAGE AND
LITERACY: 2

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Explaining theories and one language acquisition or development example..............................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Language is probably the most important thing for every human being. It is the essence of
communication. Therefore, it is imperative for every human being to learn at least one language
in order to communicate and interact with the surrounding people. For this reason, the adults and
the parents start teaching their children the basics of communication from a very young age.
It is said that the first sounds produced by babies are simple response to their feelings. For
example, Crying is a response to hunger or feeling sleepy. As the baby grows and matures they
produce variety of different sounds and they learn to distinguish between the sound that is a part
of their language and the sound that is just a noise. The current report will also focus on study of
semantic language as its is concerned with understanding and appropriate use of language,
phrases and sentences while communicating with other person. Moreover, majorly it will cover
the topic of language development of children from the age of 3 to 5 years (Zeanah, (2017).
MAIN BODY
Explaining theories and one language acquisition or development example
Children from the age 3 years usually become well coordinated with running and
communicating. According to Barrett, (2016) there are some glitches in their speech but the
language becomes much easy to understand. Children grow over the years, with each birthday
they learn something new. Certain theories explaining children's language learning are-
Nativist theory
Said to be the most influential linguist of 20th century, Noam Chomsky developed
Nativist theory. Noam Chomsky believes that every human being is born with certain rules about
the language in their head which is also known as Universal grammar (Janlert & Stolterman,
(2017). Chomsky believes that there is certain science with the fact that children learn their
mother tongue so fast. The reason behind this is
 A child's exposure to correctly formed language is very little. When people speak they
are bound to make mistakes like interruptions, slip of tongue and change of mind. It is not
always clear yet children manage to learn the language perfectly.
 According to Gooch and et.al, (2016) a child does not copy the exact language and
dialect he hears around him. Instead, he forms certain rules from the language and then
frame the sentences differently and correctly. They do not learn or memorize the phrases
1