The importance of our language

Today I would like to talk to you about language. Haven't you ever wondered, how is it possible that we have this wonderful capacity?

Our language is a human rank human activity, it shares many characteristics with other psychological activities or processes, such as memory or thought (for many, our thinking is sustained in language, mother language influences in a decisive way in our form of think).

While it is true that language is not the only way to communicate that we have, it is the richest and most complex. It is also the most important achievement of our species. Imagine what our civilization would be like without him. It would not exist, as we know it, right?.

Content

• The vision in language psychology
• Language and communication
  • The versatility of the words and intention of the speaker
• Speech development
  • Do you have your child (or someone close) problems in speech development?
• Nonverbal language
  • References

The vision in language psychology

Psychologists study the language that people use when they speak and when they understand what they hear. A living, multiple and changing language.

In our day, influenced by Vygotsky's theories (Russian psychologist 1896-1934) many scholars have analyzed the role of language as a cultural mediator and instrument to know, communicate and create worlds.

It is in 1954 when the book "Psycholinguistic" (Osgood and Sebeok) is published giving the firm step to unite psychology and linguistics. Its main purpose is the increasingly broad understanding of the processes of production, understanding and evolution of normal and pathological language.

Neuropsychology traces, for example, the mental processes that allow the acoustic stimuli that reach the ear internal become nerve impulses and reach the brain to be interpreted and translated, that is, decoded into understandable parts. On the other hand, linguistics will take care of finding out what are the individual and collective processes that make people communicate.

Psychology addresses language analysis by distinguishing between its components formal either Structural (such as speech sounds or laws that govern the formation of words, phrases and texts), their CONTENTS (What about language) and its components functional (In what ways you can operate on our environment through language).

As you have seen, it is multidisciplinary, it constantly has to resort to linguistics and neuropsychology, among others, by addressing language psychology.

Language and communication

There are many types of communication that do not require the use of language, we will reserve the term "language" to designate an organized human activity as a complex structure signs system.

With the term "communication", on the other hand, we refer to a broader set of phenomena, including all those actions in which we manage to influence the physical or social environment through it or the interlocutors.  For example, body communication is a form of communication, but not a real language, since its components are not organized in a complex structure and the contents that allow expressing.

The versatility of the words and intention of the speaker

Language has various functions and, more important for psychologists, these functions are not determined only by the form of spoken expression.

A fact is evident: with the same word or phrase, very different effects can be achieved, depending on the situation in what occurs and the intentions of those who speak.

Think, for example, when we say “Can you pass me salt?”, We are not asking if our interlocutor has that capacity, right? What we want is to pass it to us. And so, surely many examples come to mind.

Speech development

At age, babies go from emitting sounds to pronounce words and call objects. It is debated among experts if required, for this, the existence of an adequate environment.

Everything is communication, especially for that social being that is man. In the early stages of life we ​​learn to talk automatically, playing. In a short time we acquire the lexicon of our mother tongue and familiarize ourselves with its grammatical rules, exceptions included, and with the social conventions of linguistic uses.

As Annette Karmiloff-Smith, from the University of London, demonstrated, The brain can still react to sound differences between unknown languages. That is, we do not lose the ability to distinguish sound nuances. However, the sounds that are not part of the mother tongue are inhibited, outside the conscious perception. It is evident that the brain considers them superfluous.

Do you have your child (or someone close) problems in speech development?

Data you must know:

18 % of the children of a course have, without apparent cause, problems to learn their mother tongue. At the age of two years these "toured to speak" pronounce less than 50 words and are not able to build phrases.

Some "Tardos in speaking" recover their delay, but about 7%face a "specific language development disorder" (TEDL). To avoid long -term disorders, at most three years they should undergo personalized logotherapy. Often these late disorders usually manifest in school.

Cognitive development of childhood: language and emotions

When a child of 24 MONTHS The logotherapist speaks little:

• If there are speech problems in the family
• If pregnancy and childbirth normally passed
• If there has been a special event (a hospital admission)
• How extragothic development proceeds until then
• If in the first year the child "babble" (pronouncing repeated syllables as "Ba-Ba-Ba" or "Da-Da" the child trains his phonic apparatus)
• When he pronounced the first words and what were
• How do you communicate with parents and other children
• If the child is aware of his disorder and how he manifests it
• What words and phrases pronounce. This is explored by the therapist based on parents' drawings and words lists: does the child have a vocabulary of less than 50 words?
• If you combine words from each other
• How many and what words do you understand

To the 30 months, The following criteria are considered alarm signs:

• Have an active vocabulary of less than 100 words
• Do not use any type of words combination
• Have difficulty understanding phrases
• Present other extraglystic difficulties, for example emotional. This must be clarified by the corresponding specialists
• In case of serious delay you have to start the logotherapy

To the 3 YEARS The logotherapist has to make a complete diagnostic profile, which includes all linguistic fields.

In the event that a delay is still observed, the therapy must immediately be launched. Although the child has recovered, it will have to be explored occasionally to detect a "false recovery".

Nonverbal language

Gestures, movements, postures ... also transmit messages. It's about a unpalled language that says much about our unconscious. The issuance of nonverbal messages depends on our character, the mood, our feelings towards the interlocutor, etc. Eyes are a first -order communication instrument. Looking at the other can indicate many things: interest, affection, self -security, sexual attraction, challenge; Avoiding your gaze can express shyness, discomfort, betrayal, shame, inferiority (how this reminds me of the series "Lie To Me", if you have the opportunity to look for it and see it, do it. You will love it, it is also inspired by Paul Ekman's work). Another example is when we maintain a certain distance with others, because we need that space to feel comfortable, it is worth mentioning that the distance, as well as the other postural elements, also depends on the culture. If you know any Italian you will see that gesture more than the English.

More examples that surely you know; The movement of hands, showing the palms indicates friendship; Always display the back, disinterest. Anyway, this is a world to continue discovering.

References

• The language (2007). In Encyclopedia of Psychology (Vol. 3, 47-90 pp). Spain: Ocean.
• Kauschke, c. (2006). Tardo to speak. Mind and brain. No. 20, 36-40 pp.