Examine the definitions of language. Choose one definition that makes sense to you and explain how impact it has on oral language development and the factors that impact its development. Identify how you could help your students develop stronger oral language skills.
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Module information:
Components of Reading
Oral Language joins phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension as the sixth addition to the components of an instructional reading program.
Within the discussion of oral language, the characteristics related to academic and spoken language need to be defined and demonstrated. The aspects of oral language that need to be developed for all students are phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology, and pragmatics. The relationship among these aspects affects how students comprehend spoken and written language.
From birth, students have been exposed to various degrees of oral language development. The depth or lack of depth of this exposure makes a huge difference in the academic successes of the students in the areas of literacy, specifically reading and writing. The exposure to oral language is the basis for the development of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension.
Languages
There is no exact known number of language currently used in the world. The estimated number of languages varies from between 5,000 and 7,000. This variation is due to a disagreement between the distinction between languages and dialects. A distinction is sometimes made between “natural languages” and other forms of language such as signed or braille. Natural languages are defined as those that can be spoken. All languages can be encoded into some other modality, whether it is auditory, visual, or tactile. Language is not dependent on the modality through which it is delivered. In other words, language by definition does not need to refer to oral language. There are numerous definitions of language. The word could be used to refer to the cognitive ability to learn and use a complex system of communication, the rules that constitute that system, or the sounds that are produced from those rules. No matter which definition you choose, there are certain characteristics that all languages have in common. They use semiosis to develop the relationship between the sign and its meaning. Oral languages also contain a phonological system that determines how the symbols are combined to form morphemes or words, as well as a syntactic system that determines how the word and morphemes are combined to form phrases and ideas.
Language Family
A language is a group of languages that have been formed from a common language. English is part of the Indo-European family, which is the most widely spoken language family. This family includes such diverse languages as English, Russian, and Hindi. Other language families would include the Sino-Tibetan, the Afro-Asiatic, the Bantu, the Dravidian, and the Malayo-Polynesian families.
Five most widely used Language Families
|
Name of script |
Type |
Population actively using (in millions) |
Languages associated with |
Regions with predominant usage |
|
Latin |
over 4900 |
English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian, Malay-Indonesian, German, Turkish, Vietnamese, Polish, Dutch, Swedish, Latin, others |
Worldwide |
|
|
Chinese |
1340 |
Chinese, Japanese (Kanji), Korean (Hanja), Vietnamese (Chu Nom obsolete), Zhuang (Sawndip) |
||
|
Arabic |
Abjad or abugida (when diacritics are used) |
660 |
Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Malay (Jawi), Uyghur, Kazakh (in China), Kurdish, Azeri (in Iran), others |
Middle East and North Africa, Pakistan, India (some states), China (Xinjiang), Malaysia |
|
Devanagari |
420 |
|||
|
Cyrillic |
250 |
Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, others |
Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Mongolia, the Russian Far East |
Definitions of Language
The first definition of language focuses on the mental and biological factors. It focuses on the capacity of the brain to produce and understand utterances. All humans have this capability, so language acquisition is viewed as innate and children acquire it without formal instruction. This view points to the spontaneous development of languages, such as creole, which develop in settings where people live or grow up together without a common language. Philosophers such as Kant, Descartes, and Chomsky have espoused this view.
A second definition views language as a grammatically rule govern combination of signs that form a formal system to convey meaning. This is a structuralist view of language identified by Saussure. Chomsky combined both the biological and the structuralist view to create the generative theory of grammar. He explained that the rules were and innate feature of the human mind.
A third definition describes language as a system of communication for exchanging ideas. The focus of this definition is on the social function of language. This definition leads to the study of pragmatic, sociolinguistic, and linguistic anthropology. Grammar is viewed as always changing because it is determined by the speakers.
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) defines language as
“ . . . A code made up of rules that include what words mean, how to make words, how to put them together, and what word combinations are best in what situations. Speech is the oral form of language” (p. 1).
Retrieved from http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/
Comparison of Human and Animal Communication
Human language differs from the communication systems used by animals. Animal communication systems are closed systems, composed of a finite number of possible ideas. However, the human language system is open-ended. This enables humans to convey unlimited ideas from the finite set of elements within the specific language system. Humans use a dual code to create new words, sentences, and ideas. The finite elements in the system, sounds, letters, or gestures) are combined in multiple ways. The arbitrary symbols and rules are acquired through social interaction.
Components of the Language System
A language system is composed of three parts: signs, meanings, and a code that connects the signs to the meaning. Semiotics is the study of how signs and meanings are combined, used, and interpreted. Signs might be sounds, gestures, letters, or symbols depending on the language system being described. These signs can be further combined to form more complex signs such as words, phrases, and sentences. The language system is a dual arbitrary system. There is no predictable connection between the sign and its meaning and the signs can be combined in various ways which illustrates their dual role. The elements of the system are discrete and distinguished from each other and they can be arranged in different patterns.
The syntax is the rules by which the signs are combined. Semantics is the meaning of the individual signs, morphemes, and words.
Types of Language Systems
Language systems can be divided into six major types: pictographic, logographic, syllabary, segmental script (this is where the alphabetic systems fit), and abugida. These can be further divided into even smaller categories.
Pictographic and ideographic systems tend to be grouped together. These can be used to convey basic ideas, but are limited in their ability to convey all ideas. Therefore generally these are not considered to be full language systems. In the pictographic system iconic pictures are used and in the ideographic system, ideograms are used to represent concepts or ideas rather than specific words. There is no single meaning because there is not a one-to-one correspondence between the symbol and the language.
In logographic systems, glyphs represent words, rather than phonetic elements as in English. However, the logograms are combined with phonetic elements. Consequently, these languages are composed of complex scripts that are a combination of logograms and phonetic elements, or more specifically logosyllabic systems.
In the syllabary system, graphemes are used to represent syllables rather than complete ideas or individual sounds. Languages, where one character represents a syllable rather than a phoneme, would include such languages as the kana which is used in Japanese to supplement the originally Chinese characters normally used.
Segmental script systems, such as English, use graphemes to represent the phonemes of the language. This relationship is not typically a one-to-one correspondence, but it is based upon an alphabet.
Segmental scripts may be further divided according to the types of phonemes they typically record:
An abugida, or alphasyllabary system, encodes the vowel sounds using diacritical marks in addition to systematics modification of the consonants. Many of the abugida languages are found in India and Southeast Asia and belong to the Brahmi language family.
Phonetics
Phonetics is the study of the sound system of the language. These speech sounds are studied based upon three characteristics: their production, the physical properties, and their auditory properties.
Alphabet
Cuneiform and hieroglyphic writings were the precursors of the alphabet. The alphabet we currently use is based on the Roman alphabet which is derived from the Greek alphabet.
Alphabetic Language- A form of Segmental Script
You learned in EDU 602 about phonemes and morphemes and making the match between the sound (phoneme) and printed symbols (graphemes) to encode (spell) and decode (read) words based upon the student’s understanding of the semantic (meaning) and syntactic (grammar) systems in English.
English is an Alphabetic language system. What does it mean that it is Alphabetic?
An alphabetic language system combines phonological units that are mapped onto orthographic units.
Factors that Impact Language Development
There are many factors that can impact language development. These may be physical, emotional, or environmental. Divide the list of factors below from Chen (n.d) into the three categories. Would you expect there to be more physical, emotional or environmental factors? Then compare your answers to mine.
1. Inadequate stimulation (talking and playing with the child).
2. Delayed general development (‘global developmental delay’), physical development (‘motor skills’), cognitive development, etc.
3. Specific difficulty with language learning. Not very interested in language prefers other modalities e.g. physical activities.
4. Poor control and/or co-ordination of the speech muscles: lips, tongue, etc.
5. Medical problems.
6. Inadequate awareness of communication, lacks “communication intent”.
7. Reduced hearing e.g. ear infection, fluid in the ear, impacted earwax, etc.
8. Changes in a child’s environment e.g. moving.
9. Exposure to too many languages for the child.
10. Inadequate opportunity for speech e.g. the child everyone talks for, the “babied” child, has a more dominant sibling, etc.
11. Emotional factors e.g. behavioral problems, anxiety, the pressure to perform, etc.
12. Short attention span.
13. Family history of speech and language delays or difficulties
Here are my answers, you might have placed these in different categories depending on how you interpreted them.
Environmental 1. Inadequate stimulation (talking and playing with the child).
Physical 2. Delayed general development (‘global developmental delay’), physical development (‘motor skills’), cognitive development, etc.
Emotional 3. Specific difficulty with language learning. Not very interested in language prefers other modalities e.g. physical activities.
Physical 4. Poor control and/or co-ordination of the speech muscles: lips, tongue, etc.
Physical 5. Medical problems.
Emotional 6. Inadequate awareness of communication, lacks “communication intent”.
Physical 7. Reduced hearing e.g. ear infection, fluid in the ear, impacted earwax, etc.
Environmental 8. Changes in a child’s environment e.g. moving.
Environmental 9. Exposure to too many languages for the child.
Environmental 10. Inadequate opportunity for speech e.g. the child everyone talks for, the “babied” child, has a more dominant sibling, etc.
Emotional 11. Emotional factors e.g. behavioral problems, anxiety, the pressure to perform, etc.
Physical 12. Short attention span.
Physical 13. Family history of speech and language delays or difficulties
Role of SES
In their research, Hart and Risley (2002) compared the expressive language used by children and parents in professional, working-class, and welfare families. They found significant differences between the three groups. The professional families scored significantly higher in every category. These differences were apparent by the age of three.
Students who have not been exposed to appropriate oral language show phonological and phonemic differences in their oral language development. Students how might be included in this group could be ELLs, students with disabilities, and students from homes that are in low socio-economic levels. Note that oral language development is as important for students who live in low SES areas, as it is for ELLs and students with disabilities. All of these groups of students frequently show language deficits in their written and oral discourse patterns. Being disadvantaged does not cause delayed language development; however, issues such as limited access to health care, lower parental education, and educational levels of caregivers, impact language development (Roseberry-McKibbin, 2012). This lack of oral language exposure can be addressed through the use of Differentiated Instruction. The teacher needs to be aware of the socio-cultural, socio-political, and psychological variables that are involved to differentiate reading for all students.
The differences in language performance continued to widen at age four, placing the welfare children at a distinct disadvantage.
Specifically for ELL students, teachers need to understand the importance of ELLs’ home languages and to use them as a support when teaching students to read in English. In addition, teachers need to be aware of the similarities and differences in sound production between the home language and English, and how this affects English language learners reading development. It is important to be able to identify phonemic, semantic, and syntactic variability between English and home language and how knowledge of variation in phonology affects the English language
The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of the Saint Leo University Core Value of Integrity to identify and analyze the role of oral language in the reading process the review or research and design and location of scientifically research-based activities to develop oral language at all levels.
Integrity: The commitment of Saint Leo University to excellence demands that its members live its mission and deliver on its promise. The faculty, staff, and students pledge to be honest, just, and consistent in word and deed.
