Essay Example on Language Development: Exploring Perspectives With Shelia Kennison

Introduction

The book highlights the critical aspects of language development. Shelia Kennison, the author of the book, explores the unique perspectives surrounding the development of languages over a while. The source has 12 chapters that give a comprehensive view of languages and how a child can master it even if they have distinct characteristics. The most informative section of the book is chapter seven where Kennison gives a perspective of life where there is one language. However, a significant aspect is the use of statistics to support the assertions that the number of multilingual in the US is gradually exceeding monolinguals. Reports from the 2005 census indicate that more than 55% of the US residents have high proficiency in English and at least one other language (Kennison 177). Hence, this aspect shaped my conclusion that there are indications the number of bilinguals will significantly rise in the few decades.

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This part of Kennison's book has enhanced my understanding that languages are evolving. As the world population increase, it is no doubt that many countries are embracing bilingualism in their official languages. The author cites countries with a population of over thirty million people and has made at least two of their languages official. For instance, Spain has five official languages; South Africa has eleven while DRC has five languages. The statistics, in my opinion, is an indication that countries with high population have started recognizing and officiating their regional languages. The most significant element is that chapter seven answers the author's hypothesis of the book. In this perspective, Kennison says that regardless of political and social environments, children learn languages that people regularly speak in the birthplace environment (Kennison 178). The chapter is informative since it highlights critical factors that lead to multilingualism and speed of processing knowledge among multilingual children.

The Most Uninteresting Chapter

The first chapter of the book highlights the theories on the origin of language and whether it descended from the same ancestors. This part is not exciting and is also the most challenging chapter. The first aspect that makes the section uninteresting is the author's lengthy explanation of theories surrounding the first language and its ancestry. While it sets a foundation for the study of the book, it is no doubt that it incorporates the least significant elements. There is no evidence to support assertions that geological occurrences such as volcanic eruptions in Indonesia caused environmental changes and consequently variations in the use of language. Unlike other chapters of the book where Kennison used data to support aspects such as trends in the increase of multilingual globally, chapter one entirely focuses on theories and language development. The fact that it studies the emergence of language from a historical context that spans thousands of years, it makes it challenging since there are similar theories that readers can easily mix up.

The study of behaviorist, generative, social-interactionist and statistical approaches to learning language are one of the most challenging aspects in the book. These models are related and apply almost similar theoretical explanations to the study of whether new languages are learnable. Such elements make the theories insignificant since it has general knowledge. For instance, it is a general understanding that children can learn any language and develop it as a second language, but they may not have high proficiency. Another insignificant and uninteresting aspect is methods for studying language development. In this case, it is no doubt that readers who have gone through secondary education are conversant with such practices. A focus on methods such as baby biographies is insignificant to readers with advanced knowledge and hence make the chapter uninteresting.

Reflection on Language and Symbolic Processes

The idea of fusion hypothesis is a critical idea that dramatically shaped my understanding of language behavior and its complexities. Precisely, the fusion hypothesis relates to the study of language mixing, especially among bilingual children. The concept is that children get confused when they learn two or more languages at the same time. When children mix languages at an early stage of development, there are high chances that they would lag and would have proficiency like other multilingual peers. This aspect has a long-term effect that negatively impacts on a child's ability to communicate. Researchers' observation of language mixing among children indicates that they develop profound problems where they interchange the languages that they have learned. (Kennison 183).

The study of the fusion hypothesis enhanced my knowledge that language is influential, especially among the children. Hence, it explains language behaviors in contemporary communications where multilingual children have problems of mixing their languages. Such children, however, have potentials to overcome the problem at later stages but may have a long-term effect on their communication behaviors. The interactionist or socio-cultural theory is a critical concept that significantly influenced my semester. This approach integrates ideas from biology and sociology to explain how people learn a language. It states that desire to communicate ideas in the surrounding is the primary factor that necessitates children to learn a language. After critically reflecting on this idea, I noted that language, dependent on social interaction, can emerge where children have desires to communicate what they see around the world.