Thesis Sentence
The learning processes to conceive a language come from two very different contributors in a congenital sense along with cultural interactions to determine language development whether derived from the learning from cultural influence, or our biological make-up as human beings as the "instinct to acquire an art."
Opening Paragraph Quotes Pinker(16-17)
"A common language connects the members of a community into an information-sharing network..."
"Language is so tightly woven into human experience that it is scarcely possible to imagine life without it."
Learning from influence/culture
"...verbal communication is the spoken language we acquired as children"Pinker(16)
"...children learn to talk from role models and caregivers."Pinker(18)
Children learn by forms of mocking their caregivers and role models. This form of mocking those around them, is often encouraged by the caregivers of a child due to the fact that a mother wants to hear her child say "mommy" first instead of "daddy." The repeating of words leads to the links between words and objects to help define a child's language. Later in life, children learn to act in different ways in order to get something they want or need. Often times their communication skills seem undeveloped and then are corrected by those around them. Therefore, the learning of language comes from the influence of those who surround them throughout their family and culture.
Biological Make-up
"...it is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains. Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction..."Pinker(18)
"...language ability is "an instinctive ability to acquire an art,"Pinker (20)
The idea that language comes naturally to a child seems plausible. Therefore, it would prove true that language falls under the classification of an instinct. Children feel the need to communicate with their surroundings. Therefore, language seems to lie forever as a pre-determined biological means of communication. The need to express emotions and the needs of a child to communicate, play a major role in the acquiring of the languages people speak today.
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Can Language Express Our Emotions???
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Quote 1: Website http://www.biopsychology.org/biopsychology/papers/what_is_emotion.htm
Emotions are very complex experiences and, to express them, we use a great variety of terms, besides gestures and attitudes. In fact, as good poets show us, we could use all the words of a dictionary to express different emotions. Therefore, due to the infinite extension of emotional phenomena, it is impossible to make a full description of all the emotions that we can experience. However, the usual vocabulary to describe emotions is quite reduced and so; it allows people with the same cultural background, to share them. –Quote gives a great description of language and how it is tied to emotion. Tells how emotions can be described through words.
Quote 2: Website http://www.biopsychology.org/biopsychology/papers/what_is_emotion.htm
In everyday language, we express our emotions with a positive-negative scale and in variable magnitudes, such as "I feel quite well", "I feel well", "I feel very well" (degrees in the positive axis) or "I feel quite bad", "I feel bad", "I feel very bad" (degrees in the negative axis). According to the situation in which emotion is aroused, we choose words such as 'love', 'friendship', 'fear', 'uncertainty', 'respect', etc., that, at the same time, show the emotional sign (positive or negative). And according to the intensity of the emotion we choose words like 'nothing', 'quite', 'some', 'enough', 'very', etc., and, in this way, we compose the description of an emotion. We say, for example, "I feel very well understood" (positive) or "I feel a little deceived" (negative).
--This quote shows use of current emotions, and how the emotions can be specified. Not just bad, but very bad
Quote 3: Website http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue2/huffaker.html
--This isn’t really a quote but it was a test about teens expressing themselves through blog so I thought I could use this … sorry if this is wrong, but I liked how it talked about teens posting their emotions on the web
As adolescents seek to define who they are near the beginning of the 21st century, their forums for self-discovery have expanded. One place that adolescents now spend a considerable amount of time is in online settings, and these online venues, such as multi-user domains), have been linked to identity exploration. One of the newest venues for exploration is the weblog, a reversed-chronological online journal, which is used in a variety of ways, but often as a personal journal or ongoing commentary about oneself. Our purpose here is to examine how adolescents use weblogs to explore their identity. In particular, we examine the language and emotional codes that adolescents use to express themselves in weblogs.
Thesis:
What does happiness mean? While different people have various definitions of happy the dictionary defines it as “delighted, pleased or glad”. It almost seems impossible to find the right words to explain emotions, while it is know that sad refers to a state of grief or sorrow; one must also admit that without those descriptive words like sad, happy, pleased, sorrow it would be next to impossible to explain the emotion. It may be argued that with the infinite amount of emotions it would be impossible to describe each, but without any description of emotion it would be impossible to communicate emotions verbally. Language is also very important in conveying past emotions, a smile might tell the people around you that you are currently happy, but when trying to say “I was really angry yesterday” language is essential.