Discussion on “Words and a World” written by James Britton

James Britton says that as the child grows in the course of a year or some eighteen months it realizes that everything in the world it lives around has a name. It starts representing in its mind the things, the objects, the people and many more things it can see, it can feel, it can play with a specific name. Even further as it grows in age these things are associated and association of things too has a name. Each name sounds differently and repeated hearing and uttering of a name in its day to day journey in different contexts starts strengthening this representation. Here each name is not just a particular sound it is very much associated with a particular visual image, a particular smell, a particular feel or touch or a particular taste. The beauty of this type of representation of the world around, in child’s mind can be seen when the child encounters just one particular aspect of the name, say a stray voice uttering the word ‘apple’, immediately that particular sound triggers all the other aspects and associated qualities the child has represented in its mind like the sight of apple, its taste, its smell etc to come into its conscious. Just like the old mechanical typewriter where each word is printed by pressing the particular keys in order, all sense organs of the child work together to imprint or represent the world around in its mind. We can say that the child has five keys, the taste, the sound, the smell, the touch and the vision at its disposal. The interplay of these five senses imprints or represents the whole world, though the participation of each sense in each representation varies drastically. Child itself strengthens this representation while it is playfully uttering certain words when the objects or things are in front of its eyes.

The gradual breakthrough in this process of representation of the world is seen when the child starts uttering the names even when the corresponding objects or things are out of its sight. It actually means that the child is bringing those objects into existence even when they are not physically present. At this stage the child is able to recall names that are the various representations of the world when it is away from the actual world. It is at this juncture that child finds the need to relate or associate the new representations with the earlier ones. It is an opportunity to classify or organize the representation. By now the child has enough words that represent the world which become the filing pins upon which the successive representations are filed. These words not only represent the material world but events and emotions too. Organized and structured form of words starts representing the experiences, the behaviors and actions of the child. So the language has become a tool to organize the symbols, the thoughts, and the behavior, the pattern of the actions and also the innumerable account of events. Even though the events themselves do not last, the representation of events in child’s mind lasts in time. So the mind becomes the storehouse of all the experiences the child has gone through. When the child recalls the events and tries to make sense out of it, it also interprets and modifies it and with every new experience the child may go back and try to make sense of previous experiences. Here we see that any representation that the child has, is not static, it is dynamic and ever-evolving. Hence we can’t say that child will build a representation of the world over a specific span of time instead it is a never ending process. It starts at birth and ends with the end of its life.

The representation of the world in the child’s mind is constructed all through its life but this representation is not built solely by itself, it is actually built in collaboration with the people around it. Like when the child is talking about its play with other children, if the parents suggest or say few words the representation of events in child’s mind gets modified or tries to accommodate the representation of the parents too. So to a large extent this representation of the world is a collective representation though the child’s individual representation differs from others. This difference in representation of the world between individuals arises out of the fact that each individual is treated differently in this world by others and also each one's way of representing the world differs because of the fact that our own way of representing world also includes our needs and desires.

When it comes to representation of the world in child’s mind there are multiple other things that determine the way of representation. Those are the relations of likeness, of oppositeness, of sequence, of hierarchy and of consequence. These relations help the child to reduce the order of the innumerable things in the world and group them in coherence with its own demands and needs. While the role of people, environment and events around the child are very much significant in the way the child represents the world, the inner dialogue, the motives and the tasks that the child comes across in life plays a commendable role in organizing and giving a specific form to this representation. This also enables it to bring about changes in this representation for the future course of action. The inner dialogue that lets the child to assume the role of spectator helps it to evaluate or reflect upon the pattern of its actions and behaviors. This is also a way of refining its representation of the world.

James Britton says that we build in large measure a common world, a world in which we live together; we become experienced people in the light of other people’s experiences as well as our own. Here he says that child builds a representation of the world which is to a large extent common to everyone because the representation of the world is built in collaboration with the others. Chomsky,on the other hand argues and assigns this commonality to the fact that all the humans share the same underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of socio-cultural difference and the principles underlying the structure of language are biologically determined and hence the common representation of the world. Though both Britton and Chomsky assign the common representation of the world to different factors we see that both equally explain the above observed phenomenon though Chomsky fails to recognize the role of social interaction in shaping the development of language in child. James Britton’s explanation of language acquisition is very much in sync with what the Bruner said, like how the social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of language. While Bruner emphasized that children learn language in order to communicate, James Britton clearly states that language plays much more significant role in the overall development of child than just enabling him/her to communicate. Both Bruner and Britton agree the role of parental input and social interaction in language acquisition by the child. Britton seems to agree with Susanne Langer that the human mind is constantly carrying on a process of symbolic transformation of the experiential data that comes in and generates the ideas spontaneously. While Britton terms it as the mind working upon the representation of the world Langer calls it symbolic transformation of experiences. Sussane says that human mind is continuously in the meaning-making process while Britton attributes this meaning-making process to child’s own desires and needs and also the challenges it comes across.

I see that the way language is taught in the classrooms needs a fundamental shift in its approach. Too much emphasis on grammar in language class leads the child nowhere because the basic structure of the language is somehow acquired by the child in the process of social interaction. So more emphasis should be given for a child to come out with its expressive, referential and poetic faculties by creating enough opportunities within the classroom than teaching the lessons and expecting the rote answers for the questions. Language classes should be very interactive with enough scope for diverse interpretation. Students should be challenged with the tasks that stimulate their inner dialogue. Language learning is a continuous process it stops when the individual stops learning. Language has to be taught as a part of learning many other skills. I also feel that since writing is nothing but a pre-mediated utterance or speech we should first let the child to speak a lot but what we actually do is, burden the child with lot of written assignments. I see no point in making the child write lot of things if it can’t speak out especially in the Indian context where the English is a taught as a second language. We see lot of children graduating out of college but still unable to speak in English. Of course they do know to write the words in English but can’t address anyone in English. Aren’t we teaching the language in an unscientific manner?