LANGUAGE BIOGRAPHY

Language Biography

Language Biography

Introduction

Language is a metaphysical conception, acquired in life span, by the vast majority of factors through intricate processes. My biography of language and literacy states my language repertoires. Firstly, I will analyze different theories and key concepts of language, and secondly the acquisition of language. Early literacy attainment and linking them to theories of Piaget, Bruner, Vygotsky and Chomsky, it states that the mother tongue of a person, power in relation to language, registers and leads to gender biases in my language. These are areas incorporated in my language biography.

Mother Tongue and Language Acquisition

My mother tongue is Kalabari. Mother tongue is typically thought as the language one learns first and knows best. The UNESCO defines mother tongue as the language which a person has acquired in early years and which has become his natural instrument and communication (McCartney, 2008, p.202). I acquired Kalabari as my first language by listening family members speaking the language at home, while socializing with competent speakers of the dialects, all these experiences lead to have a significant impact on my language acquisition. Berk (2006) stated that social interactions lead to competence. The Kalabari is a regional dialect spoken mostly in my village. It is the language spoken at my home, amongst my family, relatives and friends. Language acquisition helped me in continuous use of the dialect, which made me acquire the regional accent. Dialect is used to refer to features of vocabulary and grammar that are characteristics to a certain region (Wyse, 2001, 20).

Accents are geographical signs directing towards the origin and the belonging of a person. Accent refers to varieties of pronunciation (Hughes and Trudghill, 1996, p.9). I have Kalabari accent and it is visible in since when I speak English. I am unable to articulate the words well due to my accent; thus people often are able to guess that where I belong to based on my idiolect.

Discussion

The Emergence of Literacy

The definition of emergence of literacy is the notion of the child as an active and motivated learner. It experiments with a wide range of written forms out of sense of curiosity and a desire to learn. Children discover and invent literacy as they participate actively in a literate society (Smidth, 2001, p.177). However, emergence is a gradual process, where for something to emerge there has to be something in there, which is cognition. Vygotsky's Theory states that interaction and talk were necessary for learning, while Piaget's concepts is that the role of adults to support learning were to provide with rich and stimulating environment and full of things to explore.

I learnt literacy through play by reading of nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty, and by singing them to my own. I read stories told from books just before bedtime, and I used jigsaws to play with my brother. This reading culture that I imbibed helped me to pick interest in reading books as a result I became a member of the local library. I preferred fiction books, consequently, because of the ...