32. Why do immigrants think they have a chance of success in America?
Passage Three
Today, in our series of lectures on human language, we are going to be looking at the way in which children acquire language. The study of how people learn to speak has proved to be one of the most fascinating, important and complex branches of language study. So lets look at these three features in turn. Firstly, why is it fascinating? This stems from the natural interest people take in the developing abilities of young children. People are fascinated by the way in which children learn, particularly their own children! Secondly, it is important to study how we acquire our first language, because the study of child language can lead us to a greater understanding of language as a whole. The third point is that its a complex study and this is because of the enormous difficulties that are encountered by researchers as soon as they attempt to explain language development, especially in the very young child.
In todays lecture we will cover a number of topics. We will start by talking about research methods. There are a number of ways that researchers have investigated childrens language and these include the use of diaries, recordings and tests, and well be looking at how researchers make use of these various methods. We will then go on to examine the language learning process, starting with the development of speech in young infants during the first year of life. This is the time associated with the emergence of the skills of speech perception, in other words, an emergence of the childs awareness of his or her own ability to speak. We will continue with our examination of the language learning process, this time by looking at language learning in the older child, that is in children under five. As they mature, it is possible to begin analysis in conventional linguistic terms, and so in our analysis we will look at phonological, grammatical and semantic development in pre-school children.
【大学英语六级考试听力模拟试题四】相关文章:
最新
2017-01-16
2016-10-21
2016-10-08
2016-10-08
2016-10-08
2016-10-08