Honestly, I’ve been sorta considering and… Linguistics are fairly darn cool.

I’ve been actually excited for this lecture I’m taking in the meanwhile and whereas it’s loads of theoretical stuff to learn… and pages upon pages to arrange earlier than and after lessons, I’ve actually actually loved the concept of getting additional into it.

I imply, I’m learning English Studies and Philosophy at University with the intention of turning into a trainer. So, after my Bachelor of Arts, I’m at present aiming for a Master of Education… however relying on how the superior lectures go, I would really intention for a Master of Science or Combined Master of Arts…

I’d love to show however fuuuuuuck, analysis sounds fairly cool.

I imply, linguistics is attention-grabbing as a result of the pursuit of what’s theorized as “Universal Grammar” is fairly darn cool.

The entire concept (however simplified) principally comes right down to this:

We all have a Language Acquisition Device in our mind someplace… and it permits us to be taught languages… however finally it’s quite a bit more durable to amass a brand new language.

And I’m utilizing “acquire” right here and never “learn” as a result of children will simply take in languages actually simply. “By the time you’re five or six years old”, my professor stated, “you’re fluent in your mother’s tongue and maybe another language or two depending on circumstances. Once you hit secondary school though, learning French or Latin becomes a lot harder.” – And the query right here is… Why is that?

Another attention-grabbing query (which could possibly be related for my Bachelor’s thesis as a subject… perhaps?) is at what level is it finest to introduce a brand new language (i.e. English, French, Latin, Spanish, and so forth.) into the schedule of a younger pupil.

There are examples of children that know 4 or 5 languages however none extremely effectively who then get confused within the early phases of their faculty profession… and there are additionally different examples of those who develop up solely figuring out one language and who get launched to a second language too late, leading to them “only” actually figuring out two languages at most.

So, that’s really an attention-grabbing query proper there. Is {that a} good factor? Is {that a} unhealthy factor? What ought to their lecturers or dad and mom have carried out otherwise in these instances (if in any respect)?

Something new that I discovered was that children don’t be taught by imitating their dad and mom or whoever is elevating them. Rather, they “acquire” languages.

That’s proven by the truth that children will know a language completely even when adults don’t converse stated language completely. At the identical time, children might make errors initially (i.e. “I holded the baby rabbit that I petted”).

They gained’t realise their mistake as a result of guidelines they took away from how language works – and but, they don’t reply effectively to being informed that one thing is fallacious, relatively studying out of the expertise (“holded” -> “held”).

And in some unspecified time in the future, you simply know that one thing “sounds wrong”.

It’s an thrilling subject.

I do know this publish is far and wide however for linguists, sure issues are tremendous attention-grabbing. The factor that each one languages share, the so-called common ideas underlying all languages (i.e. what our common grammar (UG) seems like), in addition to how language is acquired by a baby, and the way language is represented within the mind are just some matters that sound extremely intriguing and that I can’t wait to be taught extra about.

Okay, and whereas I is probably not that within the mind stuff (neurolinguistics) in the meanwhile, I discover it attention-grabbing as a subject. Psycholinguistics is extra about how the system of language is utilized in our manufacturing and comprehension of speech… whereas developmental linguistics or language acquisition research focus extra on the query of “how do we acquire a language”. Theoretical linguistics are additionally actually cool as they ask the query as to what’s the character of the cognitive system which we determine with figuring out a language…

I don’t know. I’m simply actually enthusiastic about these things and whereas learning, I actually wished to jot down a little bit about it…

Who is aware of? Depending on how issues go, I is perhaps keen on going into analysis and learning these kinds of issues. I’m having fun with the literature by Chomsky that I’ve to learn in the meanwhile. I like listening to concerning the principle as effectively over right here… and it form of makes me really feel passionate concerning the subject as I personally grew up talking two languages, one being my mom tongue and the opposite being German.

So, that’s sorta why I’m keen on studying extra about linguistics, I reckon…? And I assume in principle I might afterward nonetheless educate linguistics to college college students if I wished to… or I’ll keep on with turning into a trainer. There’s time. For now, I gotta make my solution to college once more, as I have to catch my subsequent bus, lol.

This publish was first printed on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you want what you see right here and wish to see extra, you may verify me out on Twitch and YouTube as effectively.