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Development of Language in Multicultural Environment

& Globalisation !

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Abstract: This article attempts to focus on development of language in the informal setting, its correspondence with multicultural setting and the role of Islam in muslims life to create multilingual or bilingual child in globalisation world. Firstly,
the paper addresses the theories of development of language by linguist and psychologist and its function in general
and then the effect of globalisation brought upon the child on language development. Secondly, it discusses on how Islam view language as the most important form of communication - Adam the first man on earth was blessed with the
ability to talk, revelations were sent in common language to be understood by the public and other factors too. Finally, a
proposal on the specific subject of the development of multilingual languages and the strategies of imparting it are presented in the article.

Introduction
Have you ever wondered how do infants start to communicate with their parents or caregiver without using any language? In addition to that, infants who are growing up in Asian countries tend to
speak more than one languages(native language and other languages as lingua Franca or viceversa). So how do infants pick up multi languages with the aid of adults? Is it possible that they will
be able to learn how to speak, read and write in a matter of time? Does Islam equally encourages
Muslim to pick up languages?
Language structure in the brain
Psycholinguist Chomsky proposed that children are born with mental structure built into the brain"
which enable them to comprehend and communicate. (Zimbardo, Johnson, McCann, 2009) Research has shown that the foundations of language can be found in Brocas area in which is known
as motor speech or Chomsky refers it to these "speech- enabling structure as language acquisition
deceive or LAD. (Zimbardo et al ., 2009) The environment has an important part to play in triggering innate ability to acquire multi languages. Although they are "born with ability to produce all
sounds of approximately 4000 spoken languages, by the age of six months, they will lose the ability" (Zimbardo et al ., 2009) and hence, they will only be able to speak in their dominate language.
Communication - Infant Directed Speech (IFD)
According to Vygotsky, children learn through experiences. Vygotskys sociocultural theory ( Lantolf, 2009 ) also suggested that parents or caregivers and the environment are largely responsible
for the development of higher order functions. Therefore, the caregivers (including the parents) are
responsible in aiding the infants language skill. Usually, adults utilise infant directed speech (aka
baby talk) to communicate to the infants irregardless of any languages spoken in the home environment. It is usually delivered with a "cooing" pattern of intonation which differ from adult speech
(Lisnawati, 2014),high in pitch, with many repetitive or simplifying of words(protoconversation)
such bye-bye , mama or pee pee. Hence, it is more effective than using regular speech in getting
the infants attention.
In addition to that, IFD is an important part of the emotional bonding process between the parents
or caregiver and the child which actually aids the infant in learning the language and helps to pick
up words faster than usual. According to Fernalds conditioned head-turning procedure, a "4month-old infants turned their heads more often in the direction necessary to activate a recording
of female ID speech than female adult-directed (or AD) speech." ( Cooper and Aslin, 1990) As a
result, Infants actually pay more attention to adults who use IFD as the speech consists of repetitive words and slower tone than used in any regular conversation.
According to Monnot, IFD or Child Directed speech "contributes to the acquisition of language as
well as emotional regulation and socialization. (Dominey & Dodane, 2004) such as teaching the
infant about the basic function and structure of language. By just responding to an infant's babble it
actually aids the infant's development as the verbal interaction demonstrates to the child the importance of verbal feedback. Some parents or caregiver may disagree of using solely IFD toward the
infants but would rather integrate some normal adult speech as well. This is to teach the infant the
language structure and grammar rules indirectly through formal conversation. The high-pitched

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sound of IFD gives it special acoustic qualities which may appeal to the infant . (Dominey & Dodane, 2004) Some parents feel that they should refer to the child and others by their names only to
avoid confusing infants who have yet to form an identity independent from their parents or caregiver.
By the age of 4 months, they produce more complicated sounds called babbling. They will tend to
repeat syllables such as mamamammama. (Zimbardo et al ., 2009) Furthermore, from one year
onwards, the children will probably be excited to learn new words by pointing here and there to any
of the objects around them. This is what psychologist call the naming explosion. (Zimbardo,
Johnson, McCann, 2009) As they grow older, they now can convey words according to the context
and by this time, children will attain a vocabulary of nearly a thousand different words.
Though the children have acquired limited vocabulary, they still can use grammar to turn vocabulary into a language that people will understand. Now they know how to "combine and ordering
words to make understandable sentences (Zimbardo et al ., 2009) for example I saw a cat or Cat
saw I. Both uses the same verb but if you switch the order of the words I and cat, it will create a
totally new meaning. In addition to that, different languages have different set of grammar rules for
example in Arabic, most of the time, the verb will always be first and English is much more lax
about verb position.
Children tend to produce "telegraphic speech which consists of short, simples sequence of nouns
and verbs. (Zimbardo et al ., 2009) For example, I fall, I cry.In order for the children to further develop their ability to form full sentences, they have to use modifier and articles grammatically correct such as recognising the subject verb agreement. As their language skills further develop, they
will be skilled in using morphemes such as past tense, noun possession and plurality. This rule is
often applied as generally on any verbs or nouns thus they tend to apply this rule to irregular verbs
or nouns too. (Zimbardo et al ., 2009)
Nature versus Nurture

"Nature
"It has always been a debatable topic on nature versus nature regards the development on lan-

guage of a child. Linguist Chomsky "claims that children are biologically programmed for language
and that language develops in the child in just the same way that other biological functions develop (Chomsky, 1995 ) As such, all of the children are exposed to different languages since birth
and at one point of time, when they are have develop their linguistics skills, they will be ready to
speak unless the child is diagnosed with intelligence disability. In addition to thatChomsky has
explained that "children are equipped with a Universal Grammar (UG), which is a set of principles
that are common to all languages and that allow infants to recognise the structure of their mother
tongue and learn its specific rules.and to develop their innate capacities which allow the infants to
acquire and develop a language in spite of the external influences and environmental circumstances.(Casten,2010 ) Does gender differences actually contribute to the language acquisition in
infants? According to the research conducted by Northwestern University, girls still showed significantly greater activation in language areas of the brain than boys."(Northwestern University, 2008)
This imply that girls acquire language faster than boys. On the other hand, if equal opportunities
are presented to both boys and girls, there will be any much difference of language acquisition between genders.

"Nuture
"In order to increase an infants capability of communicating with others, the infant itself must be

given ample opportunities to explore language. As such, the infants family background, social status and ethnicity do matter. Usually children who are born in middle or upper family class, they will
tend to have more resources than those who are born in the poor family. Thus the differences in
social status and ethnicity will create a language acquisition gap between children with similar age.

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Globalisation has caused the spread of multilingualism
Individual who are born in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and etc are using multi languages to communicate with people to express thoughts and feelings. So how does an infant
managed to pick up multi languages in a short time span while growing up? In Singapore, since
1987, the education sector has introduced "The Bilingual Education" policy,(Dixon, 2005) which
emphasised on using English as lingua franca and learning their native language as second language. Thus most of the parents or caregiver tends to speak either one of the dominate languages
such as English or native language. Decades ago, parents or caregiver tend to speak their native
language at home thus, the child has to learn English in their school. Therefore, the child willhave
difficulty in mastering English due to lack of conducive environment at home.
On the other hand, now there is rising trend whereby in nuclear family which consist of both highly
educated parents, they tend to speak English as the main language at home. Thus the children will
have difficulty of speaking native in school due to lack of conducive environment. So according to
linguist in order to conduct conducive environment for bilingualism or multilingualism to take place,
all the adults at the home has a part to play with. The most common and succesful language systems are One Person One Language (OPOL) and Minority Language at Home (ML@H).
In the family, one person will take charge of speaking one language to the infant. All of this language systems have to be started since the day the infant is born. In Singapore, some of the muslims students go to madrasah (religious school) thus the studet has to learn three languages in allEnglish as lingua franca, Native language (the common language used in madrasah is Malay) and
arabic (the language for Al-Quran and Arabic language). Hence, If the parents follow the OPOL
system, the parents and the extended family such as grandparents or relatives could divide their
parts equally. Usually grandparents are the traditional types thus they will be the one who will be
speaking to the infant or child using their native language such as Malay or Tamil or Mandarin or
etc. Therefore the mother or father could come to an agreement who should speak English or Arabic language to the infant. As for ML@H, both parents could play a part by speaking the minority
language during the weekend or at night time. This in return will encourage the child to practice te
minority language at home.
According to Dickens and Flynn's 'social multiplier effect( Kaufman,2010), by being an individual
who are bilingual or multilingual can make one mentally sharper and have better chances of success than monolinguals as it helps to enhance linguistic skills and improves flexibility in thinking.
Bilingual children are quick learners, might been known to achieve better grades at school. Besides being bilingual or multilingual individual, children are more attached to their family and cultural values than monolingual. Language has become as a vehicle for cultural transmission.
Being brought up in multi races society especially in Singapore, Malaysia and etc, there is a growing trend in society whereby highly educated couples give up their native language and try to totally depend upon English. In return, their future children will not be able to communicate with their
traditional grandparents who largely depend on native language for communication purposes.
Hence, the children are brainwashed to unlearn their native language and make English alone as
lingua franca. Highly educated and modernised parents thought that native language can behave
as interference towards learning English language at a young age. On the other hand, according to
well-known linguists,children are quite fast in attaining new languages skills. Therefore, if they are
taught, multiple languages simultaneously, they can learn multiple languages quickly and effortlessly. That talent of attaining multiple languages will fade away as early as nine months after
birth, as some of our language synapses start getting pruned away.Therefore, the idea that bilingualism can impair children's language development is only a myth.

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Hence by being a bilingual or multilingual child, he or she gains an advantage of code switching or
code mixing words in a conversation. For example, in Singapore there are many races living together and English is used as lingua franca. Therefore for the younger generations, they tend to
used Singlish to communicate with people from other races such as . Hey Ahmad! Sudah
makan? Code switching is additionally skill obtained by a bilingual or multilingual child for future
use.
The role of culture and environment do play an important part of the children in acquiring languages. For example, mother tends to talk more to her daughter than her son, (Zimbardo et al .,
2009) Thus, the son is being denied of language practice with an adult. Besides that, the parents
education background does matter. If both parents are educated, the children have the advantage
of practicing languages at home and also whether the children are from low or medium or high income family. With more wealth, the children will have more resources to increase the language acquisition such as reading story books, attending prestige school and etc. On the other hand, if the
children come from poor family, they will be lacking in resources to acquire languages at a young
age.

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Islamic Views on Language
Adam was the first man created by God therefore according to the evolutionary theorists, the difference between humans and His other creatures is the ability to communicate with language.
Only human beings use languages as a form of communication with one another. In this context,
language is an attribute that is Distinctive behavioural for men in this world. Sapir has defined language as a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas (Ghofur, 2011)
In addition to that, according to Hall, language is "the institution whereby humans communicate
and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols. Hence
language has become a tool to communicate, interact or to express ideas, and to transmit culture
to the next generation."(Ghofur, 2011) Language is often used orally than written language.
As mentioned in Al-Quran:
Surah Al-Baqara Ayat 31 : "And He taught Adam all the names, then showed them to the angels,
saying: Inform Me of the names of these, if ye are truthful.
Surah Ibrahim (14:4) : And we did not send any messenger except [speaking] in the language of
his people to state clearly for them, and Allah sends astray [thereby] whom He wills and guides
whom He wills. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.
Surah Ar-Rum 30:22: "And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colours. Indeed in that are signs for those of knowledge.
All of these Quranic verses proved that since the day Adam was created and he was the first man
created by Him, he was blessed with the ability to talk by using language. Thus according to Darwin, the difference between man and the other creations is mainly due to the capability to communicate through language. Human have the ability to communicate through oral language. By age
four to six or seven, most humans can comprehend, as well as express, written thoughts. These
unique abilities of communicating through a native language clearly separate humans from all animals. Knowing how beneficial this ability is to humans, one would wonder why this skill has not
evolved in other species.
Furthermore, Islam is a religion that covers issues such as beliefs, worship, and behaviour. Therefore He has send Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to deliver His message through the revelation of AlQuran, in Arabic language. In which, language has played an important part of delivering the revelations to the people. It could be concluded that both of the Al-Quran and Sunnah are the two main
sources of Islamic teachings and the message brought by Prophet Muhammad is in Arabic language. With these sacred revelations, the muslims are obliged to learn and understand Arabic language indirectly. According to Imam Shafii,ra , Allah, requires all mankind to learn Arabic, because
the dialogue between God and mankind is through the Holy Quran (Arabic-speaking) and God set
that recite Quran including forms of worship . (Ghofur, 2011) In this case, the muslims are strongly
encouraged to learn Arabic as their second or additional language because both the Al-Quran and
Hadeeth are being written in Arabic language. it is compulsory for mujtahid to master Arabic language so that the mujtahid is able to perform ijtijad. In the view of Islam to be able to learn Arabic
language is considered as a form of gaining pride.
As Prophet Muhammad S.A.W said, "The seeking of knowledge is obligatory for every
Muslim.( Al-Tirmidhi Hadith) In order to instil spirituality, an individual needs to read and understand the Quranic verses that was revealed in Arabic. Thus, by doing so that he will be able to carry out his duties as a muslim faithfully and to avoid making sins which will incur Gods wrath.
Therefore, by learning a language is actually fardhu Ain because you need to learn Arabic language to understand Allahs commands.
In all, Islam does promote acquiring of language since young due to reading Al-Quran which is in
Arabic language. In most cases, most of the muslims are non-arab thus they are indirectly encourage to learn second or third language in order to understand more about Islam.

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Conclusion:
In this article an attempt has been made to highlight the role of multicultural and globalisation settings help the child to acquire multiple languages. Besides that Islam has also strongly encourage
Muslims to acquire other languages such as Arabic. It is mainly due to the fact that Al-Quran was
revealed in Arabic thus non-arab muslims have to learn Arabic in order to worship Him. Thus, by
being a muslim itself, it has indirectly motivated an individual to learn Arabic in order for him or her
to be able to understand the sacred text and worship Him. As such majority of the muslims whom
are non-arabs are bilingual or multilingual. Therefore in multiracial and globalisation settings, it is
easier to pick up multiple languages due to conducive environment which encourages you to
speak more than one language . If the language systems such One Person One Language
(OPOL) or Minority Language at Home (ML@H) are implemented , it will surely will function as effective thar means to help the child to acquire multiple languages in a short period of time. Besides
that, the society will inspire the non-Muslims towards the teachings of Islam and play a very significant role to remove the misgivings about Islam of being backwards especially about education.

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