Culture and Gender Influences: Language Development
There are many facets of language development including: the brain, delayed speech, and expected milestones. Biological factors in newborns are—for the most part—the same across the world. However, once introduced into their culture the differences begin to emerge, and it appears that there are some biological factors that influence gender based language development.
Craig and Dunn (p 164) identifies play differences as one of the determining factors of gender differences in language development. It was found that it does not make a difference if a girl or boy plays with a doll, they will both have a higher level of interactive language response. Nurturing language from both parents and children emerged when dolls were the subject of playtime. Conversely, when trucks were the used as toys, there was little verbal exchange. Studies such as the following from Hammer and Maczuga, have identified that girls tend to develop language skills faster than boys. However, this may not be a determination of nature, but instead nurturing qualities derived from gender based play.
Children’s gender can add to the likelihood of language difficulty. According to Hammer and Maczuga (2010) “males appear to be at a greater risk than females for speech-language impairment. The majority of studies that have investigated rates of impairment in males and females have found larger proportions of males with this diagnosis”.
Researchers, For-Wey, et al. (2009) used the Bayley scale to look at the validity of language development of children at 6 to 36 months. The research showed a basic disparity between the character and temper of male and female children. Biologically, the most well-kno...
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...es in Schools.
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In her essay titled “It Begins at the Beginning”, professor of linguistics Deborah Tannen describes how girls’ and boys’ communication and language patterns differ from an early age. Tannen’s essay, which is adapted from her book titled You Just Don’t Understand, she states that in the world of communication boys and girls have vast differences, which makes itself apparent in the way that they play. The author backs this up with two explanations. First, is that people not only talk to boys and girls differently, but also accept different ways of talking from them. Second, children learn communication not only from their parents but also from their peers, and there are major differences in the way boys and girls play together and speak to each other.
When most people think of the process of language development in “normal” children, the concepts that come to mind are of babies imitating, picking up sounds and words from the speakers around them. Trying to imagine that a child who cannot hear one single sound a person makes can learn to speak a language is absolutely fascinating. These children range from amazin...
There are many expectations on the way males and females are suppose to talk. As a baby and toddler one’s parents wants them to talk
In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into misconceptions. Usually, stereotypes are utilized to humiliate and degrade the person or group; they also do not provide any beneficial outcomes. Stereotypes focus on how a particular group acts because of the radical ideas and actions of the few, how a particular group looks, or how that group is physically lacking in some way. These stereotypes often lead to conflicts because the group does not appreciate the way it is being perceived. Seldom are the stereotypes placed on a group of people truthful and accurate. Some hardly even apply to the particular group people it claims to. It is true that how people are perceived has a big impact on how other individuals interact with them; however, people are not perceiving these groups correctly.
Differences in Language and Gender There are many differences in language between male and female. This is why we sometimes do not understand the opposite sex. These differences can be lexical, phonological, grammatical or conversational. There have been many studies into gender and conversational behaviour one of which answers the most common question of who talks the most this was conducted by Fishman '90.
2. What patterns characterize language production and comprehension, and how do the children with language impairments compare to those who are typically developing?
Bacon, C. K., & Wilcox M. J. (2011). Developmental Language Impairment During the Preschool Years. In Anderson N.B., & Shames G. H. (Ed.), Human Communication Disorders: an Introduction (8th ed.) (pp. 308-312). Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.
In many cultures around the world, males are encouraged to be self-assertive and to be able to manage their emotions. Girls on the other hand are encouraged to be social in order to express concern for others and to control their assertiveness. Girls tend to develop faster than boys in their language development. Gender differences on short-term memory tasks focus on differences in strategy use and the difference in women’s adaptation to tasks that require efficient retention of sequences (Kimura, 1999). Males tend to prefer action...
The second article, Examination of early childhood practitioners’ general perception of gender differences in young children, suggests that the research indicates the stereotypical perception of children’s gender differences is existed in early childhood teacher’s verbal expression (Hyun & Tyler, 2000). The research has collected data and responses for several topics including “Frequently Mentioned Descriptive Words by Gender”, “Words by Gender that May Reflect ‘Constructive’ and Active Learner Characteristics” (Hyun & Tyler, 2000). The results of the data collection have shown that gender bias is identified in early childhood teachers’ perception and verbalisation in terms of children’s characteristics, learning styles and classroom interaction (Hyun & Tyler, 2000). For example, words used to describe boy’s group learning style including “active, builders, challenging”, whereas girls are described as “cooperative, creative, curious” (Hyun & Tyler, 2000). Although learning styles and learning abilities are largely determined by the biological sex differences, how they respond to children with different genders would influence how children perceive their gender and their postnatal development of learning. When boys are perceived to be more cable than girls, teachers are very likely to have higher exceptions on boys and design considered developmentally appropriate activities for them instead of providing them the same materials as girls’. Consequently, the existing boys’ social dominance may be further supported and girls may suffer from the unfair perception that “they are passive learners in some extent” so they are dependent and need more help from teachers (Hyun & Tyler,
Child development language is a process by which children come to communicate and understand language during early childhood. This usually occurs from birth up to the age of five. The rate of development is usually fast during this period. However, the pace and age of language development vary greatly among children. Thus, the language development of a child is usually compared with norms rather than with other individual children. It is scientifically proven that development of girls language is usually at a faster rate than that of boys. (Berk, 2010) In other terms language development is also a crucial factor that reflects the growth and maturation of the brain. However, this development usually retards after the age of five making it very difficult for most children to continue learning language. There are two major types of language development in children. These include referential and expressive language development styles. In referential language development, children often first speak single words and then join the words together, first into –word sentences and then into th...
Among the major social determinants of linguistic variation, gender is widely considered to be one of the most significant ones. According to research on a range of linguistic features, gender may even be the dominant factor.
Communication is an ongoing process in which individuals exchange messages whose meanings are influenced by the history of the relationship and the experiences of the participants. (Adler, p.384) Communication depends on relationships between the people who are communicating, and on common basics between them. Problems in communications between people may arise due to differences in cultures, perceptions, values, and expectations from life.
Further in this term-paper I am going to describe the stages in child language acquistion starting from the very birth of an infant till the onset of puberty.
Language is crucial to young children’s development; it is essential for learning and communicating with others. Children learn most effectively through being involved in rich experiences and practical activities promoted through play, and adults need to join this play talking with and listening to them. There have been several theories about how young children acquire language. Some argued that the environment is an important factor, while others state that language is innate and that environment has a minor role in shaping knowledge.
The book An Intorduction of Sociolinguistics is an outstanding introductary book in the field of sociolinguistics. It encompasses a wide range of language issues. In chapter 13, Wardhaugh provides a good insight to the relationship between language and gender. He explains gender differences of language-in-use with concise examples. Wardhaugh riases questions about sexist language and guides readers to look closer at how people use language differently because of their own gender in daily life. According to the Whorfian hypothesis, which indicates that the way people use language reflects their thoughts, different genders adapt different communication strategies.