How Children Learn Language

How Children Learn Language

Introduction

The paper attempts to focus on the concept on the psychological aspects associated with language development in a holistic context. It is undoutedyl true that there can certainly be no language without theory of mind, not a representation of the thoughts of others and children build early representation of desires, thoughts on the knowledge of others (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989). Language development cannot be separated either from other aspects of development which are broadly categorized as cognitive, affective, psychomotor, social, etc. Language development is both the instrument of language i.e. pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax and its uses (Brown, Roger & Camile, 1970). The paper highlights the importance of language in the psychological context covering as to how the mind is associated with the language development.

Discussion

Development of Children's Language

In children, the development of language does not begin with the first words at the end of the first year. The months before are rich in learning and communications and it is absolutely essential later in language development. During the first year, children learn to communicate with their peers, they develop their understanding of the world and spoken language, and they begin to express vocally, then approximations of words before the words themselves (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989). The directory will develop from the second year, slowly at first for the first fifty words, then as verbal explosion. The age of onset of first words and the pace of development of the lexicon vary greatly between children, their cultural and social environment, they rank among siblings, their temperament. The increase in the first lexicon is slow and is considered to take five or six months from the issuance of the first word to the children reach a repertoire of fifty words.

A relative delay in the production of this first special lexicon or an advance in itself does not allow a prediction of the child's intelligence or academic achievement. Development of vocabulary in young children is very fast, because they usually spend between 2 and 6 years for the acquisition of 20 to 2500 words. There is still much to be done then, if we consider that the vocabulary of an adult has grown between 25 000 and 40 000 words according to the dictionary used as a reference and definition of "word" that we give ourselves. Early lexical acquisition includes nearly 30% of the names of objects experiencing sub-extension and almost as much an overextension (Brown, Roger & Camile, 1970). According to William 0`Grady, the meaning of a word is defined by small units: semantic features. For example, a cat can be defined by the following characteristics: "have four legs", "like an animal", "be hairy," etc. These traits vary according to different levels of generality and are acquired as the most general to the most specific. An overextension of the word is when the child uses the word "cat" to refer to all four-legged animals or the word "round" to denote balls, oranges and other round ...