Study of language functions

1.    What do you think of the following quotation which opens the chapter: To promise, to marry, to vow… All of these language functions and many more… Create more meaning than words, sounds, and sentences

I think this expression is appropriate because language functions refer to the purposes in which we use language to communicate. We use language for a variety of formal and informal purposes, and specific grammatical structures and vocabulary are often used with each language functions, some examples there are: compare and contrast, persuasion, asking questions, expressing likes and dislikes, cause and effect, summarizing, sequencing, predicting, agreeing, disagreeing etc,

When teaching about language functions, it is important that teachers explicitly teach the vocabulary and phrases associated with each language functions.

It’s different words but with similar meanings, the phrase means that although their meanings are similar these words are used for many different things.

2.    Explain the following statement: Language functions are the socio-cognitive processes of the human’s Neuro-Semantic Language Learning System.

Language functions:  English speaker typically study language from a structural perspective. These structures include words, sounds, morphemes, phonemes, sentences parts of speech, sentences order, sentences structure and vocabulary. The primary assumption is that a speaker learns these structures in the process of acquiring language.

The socio (social) piece is the way that a person uses language to communicate with and to other people. And, the cognitive piece is the way a person thinks.

Social skills are considered as a whole complex interpersonal behaviors. The term skill is used to indicate that social competence is not a feature of personality, but rather a set of learned and acquired behaviors.

At the same time, cognitive skills facilitate the construction of knowledge, operating directly on information: collecting, analyzing, understanding, processing and storing information in memory, and then retrieving it and using it where, when and how it is convenient.

3.    What is the language function of extension and how does extending meaning help develop concrete cognition?

The cognitive component is how the child is learning to think about his or her world. As an extension of the environment, the child connects literally and physically to the world´s surface.

As the child cognitively acquires the perceptual patters of the world´s surface, the child also responds physically with gross motor movements so that muscles develop strength. The child´s own thinking is developing from being an extension of others to being separate; from being parts of the ground the being able to sit independently. 

It is when a person no longer depends on certain things in their environment to help themselves but does it on their own. Expanding the vocabulary helps a lot to the person since it finds ways to be able to solve problems and that way his thinking develops and becomes more critical.

The expanded language functions are probably the most important social and cognitive developments acquired by a child learning to think critically and problem solve. Through these expanded language functions, a speaker can talk about ideas that cannot be seen, such as micro-organisms, or how to take a flight into space even though the person has never been there before, how to invent a new tool, create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, or study ancient Babylon. These expanded language functions begin as soon as a child’s cognitive development begins with the sensory input developing into patterns that form systems of concepts.