Language Development Essay

1567 Words7 Pages
The development of language, literacy and numeracy are fundamental to enable children to function responsibly in everyday life and contribute effectively to society. Language is the most important aspect in life. Language is used to express inner thoughts and emotions. Literacy is the ability to use this learned language to read, write, speak and listen enabling effective communication. In the same vein numeracy is defined as being literate in managing and responding to the mathematical demands of life and having the ability to reason. There are many linguists psychologists who agree about the importance of language but there is some disagreement about how language acquisition occurs. This essay will discuss and evaluate research on the development of language, literacy and numeracy in the early years. Language is defined as being the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication to help us interact with others. Language can be defined as verbal, physical and biologically innate. Behaviourists often define language as a learning behaviour including a stimulus and response. There are varying theories on language development. Chomsky (1959) believed that children are born with specific linguistic knowledge and an inherited ability to learn any human language. He stated all children needed was a trigger to this pre-programmed ability to learn language as the brain was pre wired for language. and that even deaf babies at the pre-verbal stage babble although they can’t hear what is going on. Another argument for this is that before infants learn spoken language they will respond to sound and speech and they have the ability to store complex language structures. This LAD (Language Acquisition Device) allows them to develop a deep understanding of the rules of language. An example given to prove Chomsky’s idea is that of a child of around 18
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