You are on page 1of 5

UNIVERSIDAD DE GUADALAJARA

CENTRO UNIVERSITARIO DE CIENCIAS SOCIALES Y HUMANIDADES

LICENCIATURA MODULAR SEMI ESCOLARIZADA EN DOCENCIA DEL INGLÉS COMO LENGUA


EXTRANJERA
APPLICATION OF THE THEORIES OF THE ACQUISITION OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE

TEACHER JUAN OLMEDA

“WHERE DOES LANGUAGE COME FROM?”

Ortiz_Edmundo_U3A3”

EDMUNDO J. ORTIZ GARCÍA


eddiegj19952002@yahoo.com.mx

CÓDIGO: 217384023
10th March 2019
Introduction

Even though certain animals have been trained to use symbols to communicate in a "human way”, it is also true that certain
criteria are required to call those communicative facts as language. Animals are not able to communicate ideas or situations
when events or dangers are not present. This means that they lack certain criteria that allow the productive activity of human
communication to be called language (Cook, 2003). Some examples or these are listed below:

 Meaning. The intention to communicate something that another person understand.


 Arbitrariness. The words that people use to convey a certain meaning are symbols that have not a direct relationship
with the objects that are mentioned.
 Sounds and categories. Languages have different and limited number of phonemes according different languages.
 Displacement. Language must be able to convey information about things not in the current time and place. Past,
present and future.
 Generative. Limited number of units can combine and produce unlimited number of words, phrases, or sentences.

In this sense, the language goes much further than. It is more than a communicative tool, it implies the creative way of being
able to express in a complex way emotions, feelings and ideas related to our personal psychology, which means that
language allows us to create an adequate social environment to not only survive, but to build an increasingly favorable
reality. The linguistic competence corresponds to the ability that an idealized speaker-listener has to associate sounds and
meanings according to unconscious and automatic rules. The acting, or linguistic execution, corresponds to the
interpretation and understanding (Baron, 2014). Below is a mental map that describes fundamental concepts of the theory
of Chomsky (Baron, 2014) and Hocked (Cook, 2003) with the purpose of understanding why animals even when they have
the ability to communicate, do not have a language in itself.
Conclusions

Communication is not necessarily synonymous with language and, in this sense, both concepts involve different processes.
In the case of communication, the fundamental purpose is to transmit and receive messages through a written or spoken
means, by signs or signs. Communication is the ability to perform intentional behaviors significant, able to interact with other
people. It would be a communicative act any action directed at a receiver and that he can interpret and act on consequence
(Francois, 1973).

On the other hand, language, as a means of communication, it is formed by a system of coded arbitrary signs that allows
people to represent reality in the absence of it. Each sign is formed by a signifier and a meaning. Language must be socially
acquired and only through the social interaction is learned. Language is, therefore, a mental function that allows man to
communicate with his peers and with himself.

In this sense, it can be concluded that non-human animals have the capacity to communicate different needs that involve
present events related to food, sex or danger. However, it is difficult to call language to this act of transmission of sounds
or body movements, since it requires a certain intensity and spontaneity that refers not only to present events, but also
attends to actions and needs carried out in the past or the planning of future events.
References

 Barón, L. (2014). “La Teoría Lingüística de Noam Chomsky: del Inicio a la Actualidad”. Fundación Universitaria Los
Libertadores Oliver Müller Universidad del Rosario Bogotá, Colombia. At:
http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/leng/v42n2/v42n2a08.pdf
 Cook, G., (2003) ‘The “design features” of language’, Applied Linguistics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, and forms
part of The Open University course E854. At:
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/pluginfile.php/619579/mod_resource/content/1/e854_1_design_features_of_l
anguage.pdf
 Francois, F. (1973). El lenguaje, la comunicación. Ediciones Nueva Visión: Buenos 6 Aires.

You might also like