Language cannot be defined in one way because of the enormous ease it provides us for expressing ourselves. But this simplicity in itself is very complex to understand. It is because of language that we are able to speak out what we think and operationalise our words into actions. A baby who has not yet learnt to speak cries or points to things so as to let others know its needs. Hence we cannot say that language consists of only spoken words. Language is also useful to represent experience.
James Britton says that the child gradually builds up a representation of the world in his/her head. If we try to think of the various elements that make this representation, we can say that it consists of symbols: names of objects and people; narratives; images acquired by the sense of sight, sound, movement, touch, smell and taste; images drawn from myth, religion and the arts; our feelings; our ideas and beliefs about the world.
Although there is no particular order in which these symbols may get organized in the mind, but putting name in the first place needs little explanation. When a child learns to speak, he does not all of a sudden start talking sensibly in grammatically correct sentences. Rather what he discovers first is the existence of the name for every single object around him. By the age of eighteen months, he starts uttering names of objects which are in his immediate environment without framing any sentences. Once the child knows the name and function of a particular object, he learns to categorize them which further help him in differentiating one class of things from another. Thus he faces less difficulty in re-classifying by adding new items to the language. The way in which colours are put into one category once he knows what is a color is the evidence of the fact that we could not handle experience at all if we did not first divide sense data into classes.
By the time the child is somewhere around three years old, his ability both to understand and to use words becomes more and more independent of the present situation. At earlier stage, it is the presence of objects that enables him to revive his past experience. But at a later stage he is able to name them in their absence, talk about them and even find them out physically. He starts referring to things and events that are not present but with which he is familiar.
Even though he begins to identify elements of his environment, it is quite interesting that he doesn’t recognize himself as an individual. He refers himself by his name and not “I”. But gradually as he recognizes his belongings and his relationship to others, he becomes aware of himself and thus a representation of his own identity is built up in his mind. To sum it up, while expressing himself, he puts not only the representation of world in front of others, but himself too. The child by this time has no such thing called inner dialogue which may lead him to think about expected actions to result in an anticipated outcome. But once he develops his own individuality, this inner speech comes into play and stimulates him to act in a certain manner which will give him a satisfying result.
Events are not permanent, it is the representation that prevails and keeps modifying itself because of addition of new experiences. Storing of the past experiences helps in recognizing the familiar aspects of the present and building up probability for the future. This experience is used to introspect into our representations so that we can make a sense out of it and also get others response on it. It is of utmost importance to rebuild the representation after listening to others’ experiences because what a child thinks of and behaves in a society depends largely on how he relates his representation of world with others and how well he accepts them.
The organization of these representations in the mind consists of multiple relations between various language structures. Similarity between events, objects, and a group of people helps the child to store such experiences together in one part of memory. For example, he can very well classify fruits, vegetables, colors, animals, festivals into separate classes. While likeness is useful in categorizing objects, oppositeness is another relation which makes it easier to develop a relation between objects and their properties. He realizes that sometimes associating an object to a feature it doesn’t have makes it more meaningful. Asking question in a negative tone when he is anticipating an affirmative answer is again a way of using oppositeness in representing his thoughts.
Hierarchy is one of the most important and widely used relations in language for representing the complex world in a simplified manner. It consists of representations in a generalized pattern just like similarity, oppositeness of objects etc. Keeping groups at different levels on the basis of common and striking features helps in formation of intricate thought process.
Grammatical relationships form one more part of this organization. It not only involves the relationship between various classes of parts of speech such as nouns, verbs and adjectives but also the syntactical relationships. The use of this relation in representing his world view helps him in constructing imaginary concepts. For example, he can talk about his experience in an amusement park by describing the giant wheel as a colorful, accelerating carrier of children to the heights of sky. His actual experiences come out more beautifully with the help of such imaginary thoughts about objects.
To answer over what span of time is this representation built up, it is difficult to trace the development. In the first few months, they learn to relate certain noises with happiness or distress. But there is no evidence if such noises are actually intended to communicate his feelings. At about three months, he starts playing with sounds that make some sense to him and by six months he even begins imitating sounds made by other people and to which he can connect something meaningful to his needs as well. By the age of eighteen months, as stated before he names and can even refer to objects and events in their absence after some days. But the representation of world in mind is a continuous process. Our experiences keep on adding to the existing ones and modify them to suit the present need.
Till now, we have brought up our discussion on the basis of what Britton has said about a child’s representation of world in mind. But there are some theories which although not completely opposite but have a different perspective about this idea. Let us see in brief what they say:
Noam Chomsky suggested that a child has the innate capability to grasp certain rules of sentence formation although the sentences may not be completely grammatical. He said that a child does not require much help and stimulus from his environment to learn language. Chomsky points out that a child could not possibly learn a language through imitation alone because the language spoken around them is highly irregular and adult’s speech is often broken up and even sometimes ungrammatical.
According to Jerome Bruner, a child first learns language and gains control over his speech. It is only after the ability to handle symbols that he achieves power of conceptualizing his thoughts. The organization of thoughts is done after the organization of words in speech. To put it in another words, a child first utters something and then inspects the difference between his speech and what he actually observes or thinks. Then he rephrases it and expresses in correct manner with the help of symbolic processes.
In his research on the cognitive development of children (1966), Jerome Bruner proposed three modes of representation:
- Enactive representation: It involves encoding action based information and storing it in our memory.
- Iconic representation: This is where information is stored visually in the form of images
- Symbolic representation: This is where information is stored in the form of a code or symbol, such as language. This is the most adaptable form of representation, for actions & images have a fixed relation to that which they represent.
He strongly believes that students are active learners who construct their own knowledge. Bruner, like Vygotsky, emphasized the social nature of learning, citing that other people should help a child develop skills. According to him, symbolic representation is very essential for cognitive development.
Piaget’s theory says something else. He says that a child first performs actions which lead to symbolic thoughts. After building up these symbolic thoughts, he develops the language capability. The work of Piaget on sensori-motor experience shows how a movement, once successfully accomplished, becomes interiorized to form a schema, and he relates this to imitative representation. He did not give much importance to adults’ role in child’s language development. He categorized the content of education as per ages of children which Bruner disagreed with.
We can associate this form of representation by a child, to his education in certain ways. The use of language as a representation of world begins from the day a child learns to speak and continues forever. Family members play a crucial role in developing the child’s ability to imagine and express his views openly. He learns his mother-tongue and finds less difficulty in adding up to it his new experiences. The actual problem arises when he goes to school. In school, he has to learn a common language which he might not be able to grasp quickly. This also hinders his thought process because he is not able to assimilate both the languages together into his imagination. Thus, schools should try to include child’s mother-tongue as well as a common language like English to help the child build up his representation easily.
When a child goes to school, everything starts from scratch and thus he is made to forget or wipe off what he has learnt before since infancy. Learning should never focus just on present and future prospects but also the past so that the child is able to include his knowledge and experience. The representation that he has made of the world before coming to school should act as a foundation for newer experiences and wisdom to be gained throughout his life.
As I have discussed earlier, speech follows the child’s conceptualization process. He starts talking more and more to people and to himself with the expectation of making his words meaningful and so as to get others’ response to his thoughts. In school, more importance is given to reading and writing because of which the speaking goes into background. This should not happen because learning by talking is very influential and impactful on the child’s mind. He interacts with people and comes to know more about the world and perspective of others too. Reading and writing alone to build up concepts in a language not familiar to him will only stop him from expressing himself. Thus in education, in early years, focus should be on making the child speak more and share his representation so that his peer group and even the teachers could add to it and help him modify the pre-built representation.
Narratives form one of the most significant elements in the child’s representation of world in his mind. His interaction with his family members, friends, neighbors and teachers together make up his view of the world. Not only the direct communications, but the overheard talks, mythological and fantasy stories, TV and radio telecasts, etc form a separate entity of representation in mind which he later uses for his own convenience. In education field, the inclusion of stage-plays, dramas, poem recitations and story-telling should be encouraged. The child finds himself in a responsible position when he acts in a drama; he has many images of certain characters, parts of a story in his mind which can actually help him in performing well. He can easily relate and remember the lessons being taught if he is made a part of it in a narrative fashion.
Thus we see that the significance of building up a representation of world in mind is the most essential part of a child’s learning process. Some of the academic debates related to this kind of representation have also been discussed and it can be observed that there is a parallelism in all the issues with difference in perception of how a child processes thoughts. I have tried to focus more on the educational implications of this concept and suggested some of the measures which can be implemented to improve the children’s ability to build their own ideas and outlook about the world and consequently perform better in all aspects of life.
REFERENCES
Britton, J. (1970). Language and learning. London: Allen Lane. [2nd ed., 1992, Portsmouth NH: Boynton/Cook, Heinemann.]
Britton, James. (1970). “Words and a World”. In Jones, Anthony and Mulford, Jeremy. Children Using Language: An Approach to English in the Primary School. London: Published for National Association for the Teaching of English by Oxford University Press. Pp.27-39
Langer, Susanne K. (1942), Excerpts from Ch.2,”Symbolic Transformations.” Philosophy in a New Key: a study of the Symbolism of Reason, Rite and Art. New York: A Mentor Book. Published by the New American Library. Pp. 32-41
McLeod, S. A. (2008). Bruner - Learning Theory in Education - Simply Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html on September 14,2013
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