...The Universal Language According to some sources, a universal language refers to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's population. In other words, it is a way of communication that can be understood by living things, beings, and objects alike. Centuries has passed, the universal language has changed from Greek, to Latin, to French, and eventually to English. English is the simplest and easiest language in the world. Some languages, like Japanese and Chinese, are quite simple yet, they have complicated scripts. If Chinese Language is written in Latin manuscript, it will have a potential to be the universal language. In the case for “Universal Language” the simplicity and easiness weren't the reasons to make English as a Universal Language. As I said earlier about Chinese language, it is commonly used and understood by most of the people in this world but, they are having a hard time in writing. One of the factors or explanations that contribute to English as universal language is influence. It is established for dominant civilization through the expansion of UK and incursion of USA as the first world power. In other words, English has become the first language basically through all the conquests, the commerce, the religion, the education and the technology. Another factor is because it has been understood almost everywhere. It has been the “Business language” that is used when the different countries needed to have some...
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...LANGUAGE: THE UNIVERSAL TOOL All our thought process is conducted in language. It is an aspect of humanity, and learning what fellow human speaks, teaches you more about mankind as a whole. Language influences culture. So learning a language helps one to understand how other people think and do thing basically their culture. India is a multilingual society with more than twenty two official languages and nearly thousand dialects. One of the important contributions of British colonisation is the introduction of English as the major link of communication within the country. More than three hundred million people speak English which is the third widely spoken language in world after Chinese and Spanish. First and foremost, one of the most important reasons to learn a foreign language is the stimulation it offers one’s mind .Like Child grappling with the language for the first time, it makes curious at every turn and also sharpens you memory. In the era of globalisation mastering another language really gives you a competitive edge in every aspect .Knowledge of foreign language is important for those working in business, communication and nearly every other career track .Nevertheless, for the young generation in future it will be mandatory for the career enhancement. Recent study shows Chinese, Spanish, Japanese and German are going to be the dominant languages of 21st century. Chinese and Spanish are the first and the second most spoken language in the world. Interestingly...
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...concept of language universals as proposed by two scholars, Noam Chomsky and Joseph H. Greenberg. Both of these scholars bring in their different points of view concerning their understanding of language universals and they stipulate the rules underlying their proposals. In the last part of this term paper we try to show the relationship between language universals and language acquisition. Language universals are a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages potentially true for all of them. For instance, all languages have verbs and nouns and they have phonological aspects such as consonants and vowels The research in this area of linguistics is nearly connected to the study of linguistic typology and also intends to portray generalizations across languages such as cognition and perception of the mind. Noam Chomsky His arguments on language universals were mainly on grammar. He proposed that if human beings are brought up under normal conditions, then they will always develop language with a certain property e.g. distinguishing function words from lexical words. As a result this property, it is considered to be a property of universal grammar in the most general sense. He argued that there are theoretical senses of the term universal grammars well. The most general would be that universal grammar is whatever properties of a normally developing human brain cause it to learn languages that conform to the universal grammar. Using the notion above, universal grammar...
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...discussion of the validity of Noam Chomsky’s perception of Universal Grammar (UG), some past & current researches which maintain & contest Chomsky’s UG from different areas are represented. The essay focuses on: 1) Chomsky’s Universal Grammar in brief, in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) context; 2) Evidences supporting Chomsky’s UG - views offered by linguists such as Williams and White, etc, to provide arguments to support UG pertaining to first language acquisition and second language acquisition; 3) Evidences refuting Chomsky’s UG - according to Piaget and Haspelmath, etc, based on the insufficient assumption of SLA and also biological evolutions; 4) UG and language teaching; 5) and in the conclusion, I shall add my two-cent worth of perspective as a language teacher. 1) Chomsky’s Universal Grammar in Brief Universal Grammar is the brainchild of Noam Chomsky, adopting the cognitive approach. Human beings have implicit knowledge of grammar but may not be able to explain how they get this ability. This is because they have no conscious awareness of the processes involved. 1) Universal grammar is a theory of knowledge: It is mainly concern with the internal structure of the human mind, suggesting that the speaker knows a set of principles that apply to all languages, and parameters that vary from one language to another. It makes precise statements about properties...
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...OF THE MESSAGE. The Bible has a universal appeal, whether people read it during the first century of the church or in the modern twenty-first century. There seems to be a common spirit in receiving, interpreting, internalizing and applying the message of the Scripture. Although nearly 2,000 years old, the Bible always seems to be up to date and meets the needs of its readers. The universal appeal extends to all races. Seldom does anyone take the attitude that Orientals wrote the Bible. As a matter of fact, many linguists have pointed out that the “translatableness” of the Bible is another demonstration that it is a unique book whose Author is God. No matter what language, the Bible’s message comes through clearly when it is translated from one language to another. The argument for the universal appeal applies to the rich as well as to the poor. The Bible is found in the bookcases of the rich, as well as on the coffee tables of the poor. And, finally, all ages love the Word of God, from children to the elderly. Because God wanted to communicate to all people, in all circumstances, at all periods of time, and at all levels of society, He supernaturally endowed the Bible with His Spirit so that it would have a universal appeal. While not a conclusive argument, it reaffirms the others when taken en masse. We’re living in the world of many different culture, different languages, different social status, but for...
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...Language Acquisition As according to Skinner, He defines Language acquisition as 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. The capacity to acquire and use language is a key aspect that distinguishes humans from other beings. Although it is difficult to pin down what aspects of language are uniquely human, there are a few design features that can be found in all known forms of human language, but that are missing from forms of animal communication. B. F. Skinner believed that language acquisition, an important development in childhood, occurs because of reinforcement, that is, because children’s' parents or other caregivers reward them when their initially random sounds most resemble speech. Language is a cognition that truly makes us human. Whereas other species do communicate with an innate ability to produce a limited number of meaningful vocalisations (e.g. bonobos), or even with partially learned systems (e.g. bird songs), there is no other species known to date that can express infinite ideas (sentences) with a limited set of symbols (speech sounds and words). This ability is remarkable in itself. What makes it even more remarkable is that researchers are finding evidence for mastery of this complex skill in increasingly younger children. Infants as young as 12 months are reported to have sensitivity to the grammar needed to understand causative sentences (who...
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...different types of knowledge that has been controlled by language and further more influenced by culture. This helps us generate our feelings like expressing our moods, behaviour, what we want; and emotions expressed through the use of language. The statement states that our knowledge is not possible without language and to prove this I will use common everyday life examples to show that knowledge and language cannot be separable. Language in general is always controlled by knowledge as they come hand in hand. It can be expressed through different forms depending on the context and media. Language can be communicated verbally, through the use of words, using signs and signals. For example, a small issue like making a phone call can be shown using actions, signs and words, however this relates to the knowledge one has about making phone calls, hence the language has to be there. Also, on the road, drivers are very familiar with road signs all around the world as it is universal, this makes it an issue considering if knowledge is universal. In my opinion, knowledge is universal because all the drivers anywhere in the world can understand the content and therefore be able to communicate fully without hesitation. The question that arises is that; do you know knowledge the same as I do, and if we speak different languages to express the same knowledge, can the knowledge we wish to express be different? In some languages, there are situations where there is no particular word to...
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...Language Acquisition and Development By: Name Institution Affiliation: Date Submitted: Introduction At infancy during child development, children tend to find ways of expression in order to communicate with the adults. They tend to have a sensitivity to grasp vocalizations, symbols and other expressions used by adults in communicating with each other. They try to figure out the causative sentences to understand the actions by the adult species. Previous research into child language development, the mechanism enabling children in segmenting syllables and words out of the strings of sounds they hear, and to acquire grammar to understand and produce language is still quite an enigma. In other words, Language acquisition is the transformation or process by which children acquire the adult like speech through utterances. Development of Language at early stages Previous research works have tried to explain language acquisition. Skinner (1957) argues that language acquisition and development is through environmental influence. This he terms as behaviorism. Based on his research, children learn language through reinforcement principles associating words with their meanings. Positive reinforcement is enhanced when the child comes to realize the value in his correct utterances in terms of words and phrases. An example is when a child utters a word like ‘milk’ ,the mother then smiles and offers the same thus this gives the child a rewarding effect enhancing language development...
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...English? English is the language of globalization-of international business, politics, commerce and communication. It is also the language of computers and the Internet. Obviously, English has achieved some sort of global status. It is a widely spoken language. It is being used by a lot of people with different nationalities. Many people can understand it than any other languages. Because of this, I can say that English is our universal language. We now have a lot of mediums available for communication. There’s the telephone, computer, mobile phones, fax machines, television and etc. The world is becoming more globally oriented. Families, friends, businesses and many other groups are able to transcend geographic boundaries. But despite the very high-tech form of communication nowadays, it is useless if it can’t be processed and understood. So in order to achieve a true and complete globalization, we would have to eliminate language barriers and develop a universal standard according to which everyone could interact at the same level of understanding. In many ways, this is already happening in that English is becoming the universal language of this global era. A very good example is the internet. You see, internet is used by almost all people across the globe. And the Internet is basically English oriented. This alone has been a huge effect on globalization. When people go to other countries and aren’t familiar with the language, what do they use? Isn’t...
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...Theories Of First Language Acquisition English Language Essay Imagine a blank template, a white sheet of paper, thats how human being starts off. From a crying baby in a cradle, to babbling, to simple single words, slowly progressing into two-words, then finally a complete sentence, ever wonder how one acquires the ability to produce the language? Linguists throughout the ages have tried to find out how does one ACQUIRE a language, is it a deep structure as claimed by Kimball? Or is it an innate ability, a build-in human capacity propagated by Chomsky? Various theories have arose since language studies came to fore, and the ability to acquire language has interested various parties since the dawn of man. From the dunes of Egypt, Psammeticus, the Pharaoh during the 7 th century BC, believed language was inborn and that children isolated from birth from any linguistic influence would develop the language they had been born with. Fast forward to the 15th century,King James of Scotland performed a similar experiment; the children were reported to have spoken good Hebrew. Akbar, a 16th century Mogul emperor of India, desired to learn whether language was innate or acquired through exposure to the speech of adults. He believed that language was learned by people listening to each other and therefore a child could not develop language alone. So he ordered a house built for two infants and stationed a mute nurse to care for them. The children did not acquire speech, which seemed to...
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... since w’out truth: may be wrong. - “things immediately know to me just as they are.”: sounds like some concrete, independent from experience knowledge. someone’s color blind? Russell lists 5 kinds of things we know by acquaintance: sense data, our memories, our own thoughts (by introspection), our (probably) our own self, and universals. [Universals are general ideas which can apply to many different particular things in the world. We have acquaintance with the data of the senses, and in introspection (---thoughts, feelings, desires, etc.; we have acquaintance in memory with things which have been data either of the outer senses or the inner sense. Further, it is probable, though not certain, that we have acquaintance with Self, as that which is aware of things or has desires toward things. [[Include memories n thoughts: that this classifying of experience does involve an unconscious process of inference; and that this unconscious process of inference may be mistaken or then produces false memories, or delusions).]] In addition to our acquaintance with particular existing things, we also have acquaintance with what we shall call universals, that is to say, general ideas such as whiteness, diversity, and brotherhood, and so on. Every complete sentence must contain at least one word which stands...
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...English – the universal language of the Internet Generally speaking, English is the universal language on the Internet, but it has no official status, and it will never have. In truth it is really a vague collection of languages called “English” because the common origin was the national language of England. The variants are considerable. So how did this happen, why is it so? Well, firstly the Internet was the concept of a US Military research division DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency), as a means to share information on defence research between involved universities and defence research facilities. Also as a method of communication that could be used in the event of a nuclear first strike on the US mainland. Less than 5 years ago 90% of computers connected to the Internet were located in English speaking countries and more than 80% of all home pages on the web were written in English. Interestingly, whilst computers connected to the internet located in native English speaking countries has declined to around 63%, the home page percentage remains similar to that of 5 years ago. Today more than 80% of all international organisations use English as either their main, or one of their main, operating languages. The highest use of the Internet in non-English speaking countries, such as Malaysia, is in the urban areas, partly because of infrastructure availability. However these areas also have a rapidly increasing “middle class” who understand the need for...
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...descriptive complexity, Kolmogorov–Chaitin complexity, algorithmic entropy, or program-size complexity) of an object, such as a piece of text, is a measure of the computability resources needed to specify the object. It is named after Andrey Kolmogorov, who first published on the subject in 1963. For example, consider the following two strings of 32 lowercase letters and digits: abababababababababababababababab 4c1j5b2p0cv4w1x8rx2y39umgw5q85s7 The first string has a short English-language description, namely "ab 16 times", which consists of 11 characters. The second one has no obvious simple description (using the same character set) other than writing down the string itself, which has 32 characters. More formally, the complexity of a string is the length of the shortest possible description of the string in some fixed universal description language (the sensitivity of complexity relative to the choice of description language is discussed below). It can be shown that the Kolmogorov complexity of any string cannot be more than a few bytes larger than the length of the string itself. Strings, like the abab example above, whose Kolmogorov complexity is small relative to the string's size are not considered to be complex. The notion of the Kolmogorov complexity can be used to state and prove impossibility results akin to Cantor's diagonal...
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...September 20, 2013 Essay 1: The Code Talker Paradox In the chapter “The Code Talker Paradox” by Mark Baker, he argues that language is surprisingly complex and paradoxically simple. This claim backed by evidence of similarities and differences between languages has also lead Baker to conclude that grammar is universal among children. He arrived at this concept because of the easiness for children to pick up language while the smartest of adults struggle endlessly to learn. When one looks at how complex language is, the only proof that can explain this phenomenon is that any child with a healthy brain must have an innate universal grammar that must coincide with all languages. One difference between the languages of Navajo and English is the that while in English the direct object of a sentence goes after the verb, in Navajo the direct object is before the verb. So if in English one were to say, “Boy saw girl”, even if the Navajo knew the word translation they would have no idea what you were saying. While vice versa in Navajo if one were to say that it would read to an English person Boy girl saw, which wouldn’t make any sense in English. Even if one can understand the translation of words, to make sense of a sentence is incomprehensible. Another example showing the complex differences between the two languages having to do with word order is the Navajo’s primal importance placed on nature in their tongue. In a Navajo sentence humans are placed at the top of the...
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...diffusion D. cultural relativism Right Points Earned: 1/1 Your Response: C 6. The process of introducing a new idea or object to a culture is known as A. innovation. B. diffusion. C. globalization. D. cultural relativism. Right Points Earned: 1/1 Your Response: A 7. Sociobiologists apply ______________ principle of natural selection to the study of social behavior. A. Herbert Spencer's B. Charles Darwin's C. Karl Marx's D. William Ogburn's Wrong Points Earned: 0/1 Your Response: A 8. An American touring different parts of China wants local meat for dinner, but is shocked to learn that the specialty in one restaurant is dog meat. This feeling illustrates A. a counterculture. B. a dominant ideology. C. a cultural universal. D. culture shock. Right Points Earned: 1/1 Your Response: D 9. Which...
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