Communication is a part of human interaction, and it is an
activity that people do every day. There
are many ways that people communicate with others but the one consistency
amongst the different ways is language. I personally have always viewed
language in terms of English, Spanish, French and so forth never taking into
account that language is communication and is done in different ways in
different cultures. Now that I have a
better understanding of language I can give a brief description of what it is
as well as give a brief description of lexicon.
I would also like to evaluate some key features of language and describe
the four levels of language structure and processing. Language plays a role in cognitive psychology
and as a part of my discussion I plan to analyze that role.
Every text that I have examined has described language as a very
difficult term to define, however, because language is how people communicate
with one another it can be interpreted as “responding in thought and feelings
and actions to what we see and experience, and to make sense of our responses
by putting them into words” ("Language," 2010). Lexicon is said to be a listing of words as a
general definition but when defining lexicon in terms of cognitive psychology
it is defined as “the storehouse of words that a person knows”
("lexicon," 2009). Lexicon is
part of an individual’s memory; once a person hears a word for the first time
it is stored so that it can be used at another time. In order to understand language, lexicon and
its complexity one must first identify with the key features of language.
Communicative, arbitrary, structured, generative and dynamic are
all key features of language and are all considered to be extremely
important. In language communicative
allows communication between people verbally.
Arbitrary is the link between the components in the language and what
they mean, “a sound stands for a meaning, but which sound stands for which
meaning is arbitrary” (Willingham, 2007 p. 411). “Language is structured, meaning that the
pattern of symbols is not arbitrary” (Willingham, 2007 p.411). Generative is the simple components of
language that can be used to form many different meanings. Language is always changing as new words are
discovered and the rules of grammar change, which is the dynamic feature of
language. Once an individual understands
the key features of language they can incorporate them with the “four levels of
language structure and processing” to get a better understanding of what is
language.
Language has four levels of structure and processing: phonemes,
words, sentences, and texts. Phonemes
are individual speech sounds that make up the sound and printed replica of
words. According to Cognition: The thinking animal, there are about 46 phonemes in the
English language and about 200 phonemes used worldwide. The rules of grammar and syntax allow the 46
English phonemes to be joined together creating approximately 600,000 words. Phonemes join together to create words that
are kept in the storehouse also known as the lexicon. Lexicons
give individuals the ability to decide what the spelling, pronunciation and
part of speech is of each word allowing sentences to be structured with noun
and verb phrases. These levels of
language structure and processing has a relationship in such a way that “the order of phonemes play a role in the
proper construction of words, and the order of words is critical in the
construction of grammatical sentences” (Willingham, 2007 p. 414). Texts
are a group of combined sentences that form a paragraph or a group of
paragraphs that have some type of relation.
The four levels of language are put into categories by certain rules
according to which phonemes are allowed, how to combine words in order to form
sentences and how combining sentences can form text.
There is no clear definition of language but language is something
that can be understood which makes it very interesting once an individual
learns the key features and the levels of language structure and processing.
Learning language is a part of development in every person’s life that starts
in infancy through early childhood and is known as language acquisition. Language acquisition is the stage when
children learn how to incorporate phonemes into words and create sentences to
express how they feel ("Language Acquisition," 2005).
Cognitive psychology is defined as “the branch of psychology
concerned with all human activities relating to acquisition and use of
knowledge (perception, attention, memory, speech and language, and reasoning)”
("cognitive psychology," 2003).
In cognitive psychology the human brain is viewed as the system that
processes and stores information received from an individual’s sensory
system. Language plays a major role in
cognitive psychology because it the way a person communicates the information
received from their sensory system. Language
is the passageway for transmitting thoughts into and out of the mind whether it
be verbal or written, it is the only way an individual can convey to others any
information that has been received through cognitive processes.
Perception is the process by which an individual hears a sound and
incorporates it with other information so they can get an understanding. One must focus on the sound in order for it
to become a part of their memory to achieve a clear understanding. Language is seen as a “conduit of belief”
because it is a “necessary condition for human beings to be capable of entertaining
at least some kinds of thought” (Carruthers, 2002 p.659).
It would be impossible for an individual to develop without language;
it is the most critical component of human development. There are many people that are not able to
verbally communicate due to impairments but they are still able to communicate
through other forms, like written or sign language. Language is an expression of many things and
represents information that an individual has consumed through experience.
In conclusion, it has been determined that language is how
individuals communicate with one another meaning it is “communicative,
arbitrary, structured, generative and dynamic”; lexicon are mental notes that
form the basis for understanding language.
There are four levels of language structure and processing that have
certain rules for individual’s to follow in order to speak what is considered
proper grammar. Overall language
processing plays a very important role in human development with early childhood
and adolescence being a critical period because of the affect that language has
on cognitive functions.
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