Psycholinguistic

A Summary

SOCIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

A. Introduction

            Language is a communication tool for human. Without it human cannot interact each other and cannot make a relationship among them. In the development, language is the embodiment of a community’s socio-cultural experiences. So that, language gives great implications in the language behavior of the members of the community. Child as a member of the community is being involved in stage of developing of language at human as whole. As we know, how the human get the language or we call it as language acquisition is very important for human development in how to use the language. In the process of development of using language, society as a part of social features gets involved in it.

            Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. In the process of language acquisition society takes an important role. So that, there are sociological implications of language acquisition.

B. Content

1. Language and Society

            The human child is individual person bearing much sociological significance. He is born to and lives in a society. It is in this society we call the linguistic community. Linguistic community is the first community of the child and the child takes the first lesson in language. In understanding, linguistic community has a great relationship with society. Society is the arena where the individual child confronts language. It is how a trichotomy arises between the child, society, and the language.

            Language and society are so inter-linked and so much apart each other that one cannot be thought of except in relation to the other. So that, there is sociological implications of language acquisition. The child as an individual is endowed with the basic potency and faculties to acquire languages which in turn function for him as the medium of all his interaction with or interpersonal communion in society.

On the other hand,  language is also human society’s most precious possession not only because of its communicative values, but also because language is the vehicle of culture. Culture is the embodiment of society believes, produces, and does. It shows that general sense language becomes an integral part of culture. The child who is introducing to his language at infant is also introducing to the culture of his community. For the maturing and developing child the parallelism between language and his experiences together function as a representative mode of culture. Whatever be nature of the attitudes, the beliefs and the pattern of his community’s behavior they are all presented to the growing child through the verbal behavior of the community.

Language is the embodiment of a community’s socio-cultural experiences. It gives great implications in the language behavior of the members of the community.  Next, there are significant differences in the meaning that every language tries to represent. This aspect is important the relation between language and society.

In the language acquisition process, the child is introduced to a symbolic system which presents a complex network of conceptual element which is expected to assimilate and internalized as part of the child attempts to become an integral part of his community.

Language and community is in the parallel status. As a community advances, greater complexity is added to its language heavily burdening the syntactic and lexical systems.

2. The Child as a Learner at Home                

Home is the first place for child in learning language. The process of learning in the child is to integral a part of his growth and maturation that it is difficult even to consider them separately. Learning is often seen from two perspectives:

a.       The child adjusts himself to their environment by the formation of active habits.

b.      The child study and get the knowledge from the world around him.

Awareness of the mother comes as the most significant experience in the infant’s early life. This as we have said is the beginning of an onward march of the human person’s consciousness which continues to envelop a long series of experiences until the human person receives a vision of humanity itself and comes to know himself as an integral part of this humanity.

3. Language and the Child’s Cognitive Development

            The language activity of the child is a sociological setting and child’s related cognitive developments. The human being is born with a set of similar faculties which at birth begin their development towards maturity.

            The infant’s encounter with the world outside in the person of the mother who constantly stoop over it creating in the earliest feeling of affection and security. The first encounter of the infant has a triple dimension. First, linguistic factor, laying the foundation of further language experience. Second, sociological factor, the first social experience of the infant. The last, cognitive factor, the first feeding ground for the acquisition on concepts that form the content of thinking.

4. The Child and Socialization

            Socialization is the process to socialize with environment and society. The child socialization will be performed in their childhood. Childhood is the period when the person is initiated into society and expected to learn certain patterns of behavior which are in consonance with the welfare of the community where the child grows up. The child socialization will influence their language acquisition. There are some factors that can influence child’s language acquisition, that are:

a. Care and attention of the parents

       Parental care-taking has its influence more than anything else in language acquisition. In it the child picks up the early lesson of his languages. The early language development is quite on independent thing which will achieve maximum efficiency without proper parental attention.

       b. Environment

                   The kind of environment that is avoidable to the child determines the kind of language he acquires. It depends on whose company the child spends most of his time.

       c. Socio-economic background of family

                   It has significant influence on his language development. A child in a rich family contrast to one in a poor family in learn the language with considerable difference. The different may be in terms of content of language, closeness of deviation from the standard dialect of language, the basic vocabulary that form part of the standard usage, etc.

5. Socialization and the Classroom

The third phase of the child’s encounter with the world outside begins is classroom. The three experiences: cognitive, linguistic, and sociological attain a new dimension in the classroom. Life in school adds a new dimension to his language learning. If family meant the least and the neighborhood more adjustment, the classroom most adjustment of all kinds. In the classroom, the child is introduced into the more creative, artistic, aesthetic, and intellectual aspects of language which hither to remained unknown to him.

C. Conclusion

            Language acquisition is a process that cannot be separated from the sociological development of child. The acquisition of language begins at home in the care of parents in all freedom for self expression. After that, it moved into the neighborhood when the need for the self-expression of many of his kind collides with his own need and the child is called on to greater adjustment. The last process is in the school. In the school, the child or learner encounter with the external world with greater efficiency of language demanded of him for greater success in this encounter and in the subsequent process of adjustment.