¶ … vocabulary we have does more than communicate our knowledge. It shapes what we can know. Evaluate this claim with reference to different areas of knowledge.
Response Question: Does vocabulary limit what we can know or limit what we can express?
The sentiment, "the vocabulary we have does more than communicate our knowledge. It shapes what we can know" expresses only a partial truth. The vocabulary we have only shapes what we can express or communicate to others, but real wisdom and discovery, as encountered in various areas of knowledge, can transcend vocabulary. This is most immediate in the area of knowledge encompasses by the arts. Literature, music, art and poetry can often express the inexpressible, aptly conveying it to the spectator and imparting wisdom to that spectator. The spectator may be fully aware of this, and fully cognizant that he has been touched, but unable to express through words just exactly the thoughts and ideas that have now passed into him. For instance, the first stanza of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, a section of the poem entitled, "Burial of the Dead" has been lauded as some of the most profound and compelling in English literature. The poem begins: "April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain" (Eliot, 7). It's possible that no vocabulary will be able to aptly express the precise meaning and profundity of the sentiments...
Dr. Frank Pajares, writing in Reading and Writing Quarterly (Pajares 2003), points out that in his view of Bandura's social learning theory, individuals are believed to possess "self-beliefs that enable them to exercise a measure of control over their thoughts, feelings, and actions." As has been mentioned earlier in this paper, but put a slightly different way by Pajares ("Self-Efficacy Beliefs, Motivation, and Achievement in Writing: A Review of the Literature")
The reality is that the universal grammar theory attempts to lay general structures that can be traced among languages. Therefore, if a constant 'X' is true then 'Y' will be equally true. It puts down how all languages expand when subjected to a given set of fundamental principles. With these principles, universal grammar enables us to try out word order prediction in languages, the phonemes, syntax etc. Several linguists hold
In the final analysis, people have been learning how to acquire language for millennia without the assistance of scientific investigation, but the need for young people to do so quickly in an increasingly multicultural country and globalized marketplace is more important than ever before because they will probably have to learn a second (or third) language at their earliest opportunity. References Birdsong, D. (1999). Second language acquisition and the critical period
Further, it is in this stage that instructors have the ability to widen the instruction significantly to incorporate many activities that allow students to practice their new knowledge in a variety of different ways and with focus on a variety of different subject matters. In viewing the basic theoretical and practical-use background of the Natural Approach of Language Teaching and Learning, one can understand that basic functions that allow students
Language Acquisition The language theory According to Krashen 'communication' is the purpose of a language. Focusing on communicative abilities is just as important. The relevance of 'meaning' is also stressed upon. According to Terrell and Krashen, a language has its very own lexicon. The stress on vocabulary is apparent here and language is seen as a means to 'communicate meanings' as well as 'messages'. 'Acquisition' takes place in case where people
G., we, society, have done nothing to help cause these crimes; social misfits have committed them). In addition, according to the Mirror: "Weise was described as a loner who usually wore black and was teased by fellow pupils... his father committed suicide four years ago. His mother, who has brain injuries for [sic] a car crash, lives in a Minneapolis nursing home... Weise wrote messages expressing support for Hitler on a
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