the relationship between language and thought. In this section, we will examine how human beings acquire and use language in different age groups. Think for a moment: what would have happened if you did not have a language to express whatever you wanted to say? In the absence of language you will not be able to communicate your ideas and feelings, nor will you have the opportunity to know or have access to what others think and feel.
As a child when you first started saying “ma..ma..ma.”, it not only gave you tremendous boost to continue repeating this activity but also was a great moment of joy for your parents and other care-givers. Slowly you learnt to say ‘ma’ and ‘papa’ and sometime later combined two or more words to communicate your needs, feelings, and thoughts. You learnt words appropriate for situations and also learnt the rules of putting these words in sentences. Initially you learnt to communicate in the language being used at home (usually the mother-tongue), went to school and learnt the formal language of instruction (in many cases this language is different from the mother- tongue), and were promoted to higher grades and learnt other languages.
If you look back, you will realise that your journey from crying and saying “ma..ma..ma” to the attainment of mastery in not one but many languages, has been a fascinating one. In this section we shall be discussing the salient features of language acquisition. You have been using language all your life. Now try to define accurately what it is that you have been using.
Language consists of a system of symbols organised by means of certain rules that we use to communicate with each other. You will notice that language has three basic characteristics: (a) the presence of symbols , (b) a set of rules to organise these symbols, and (c) communication . Here we shall be discussing these three characteristics of language. The first characteristic of language is that it involves symbols.
Symbols represent something or someone else, for example, the place where you live is called ‘home’, the