Mesut Deniz

Final Project
Ill give you a perspective of how my weekly postings and Power of Babel posts reflect my teaching
and learning.
Week I: What Is Language?
For the first of week of Language Development Ive written language is the tool to communicate each
other, express our feelings and carry our messages. We use language to express inner thoughts and
emotions, make sense of complex and abstract thought, to learn to communicate with others, to fulfill
our wants and needs, as well as to establish rules and maintain our culture. This is a broad
conceptlanguage is a system that relates sounds or gestures to meaning. Language is expressed
through speech, writing and gesture. Language has to be systematic and conventionalized. Sometimes
language can be complex and specialized skill which develops in the child spontaneously, without
conscious effort or formal instruction and it is more distinct from more general abilities to process
information or behave intelligently.
I agree with the definition that states language develops spontaneously without effort for children. And
it is getting harder and requires more time to learn a language as we grow up. I observe how easy my
daughter can pronounce the words and pick up its meaning and start using it very quickly.
I also think that every language has its own cultural identity. Language without culture and culture
without language is worthless. The culture shapes the language and leaves its tracks in it.
Week II: Critical Period Hypothesis
The critical period hypothesis is the subject of a long-standing debate in linguistics and language
acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age.
Children are much quicker at learning a foreign language because their brains are still forming and
accept new information much easier. It seemingly appears that children are able to absorb language and
adapt to common usage at a much more relaxed and viable rate that adults. I knew that children acquire
a language faster than adults and the critical period hypothesis paper proved what I know about
language acquisition and deepened my learning about it. There is a popular belief that children as L2
learners are superior to adults (Scovel 2000), that is, the younger the learner, the quicker the learning
process and the better the outcomes. I think whether or not learning a second language, it is affected by
age when you start.
I start observing my students language skills and saw the difference between age groups. After puberty
students ability to learn a language is decreased. Although some research have pointed out that adults
will learn a language faster initially, however a lot of researches shows that by the time they fully attain
a second language, children outpace adults later on. The biggest thing that makes the differences as far
as the age I would say the accent. If you dont learn the language as a child, your accent will be very
noticeable as an adult. It is much more difficult to form those phonological abilities later on.

In this graph , as you see, when the age of acquisition of

new language increases the language score decreases.

Week III: Fallstaff and Language Formation

His character is part of McWhorter's Power of Babel because it demonstrates the transformation
of language. Spoken language is much more ever-changing than written language, and is always in the
process of becoming a new language.
I have learned that Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in a play by William
Shakespeare, whose words Theres never none of these demure boys come to any proof used by
McWhorter to exemplify using double negations in English language which is spoken in 1500s.
I didnt know that, unlike todays English double negations in 1500s are used to strengthen negativity.
In todays English double negatives are grammatically incorrect. When you use two negative words in a
sentence they will cancel each other out and create a positive meaning just like negative integers do in
math.
In addition to what I learned; the written form of English is sort of frozen in time, and does not
change as quickly as spoken English. Based on the fact that languages are both written and spoken, and
that the correct forms of a language are mostly arbitrary, I dont feel that the use of double negatives
can be logically seen as incorrect. The spoken form of a language simply changes differently and more
quickly, and the correct written form is usually simply an opinion asserted by a dominant group of
people. I think double negatives are not appropriate in written form, but can be tolerated when in verbal
communication.
I also learned that how children develop language skills by observing and imitating people around them.
It is a natural occurrence. Nobody teaches how to use grammar correctly to a child yet every child is
able to speak his or her native tongue fluently. I can see this result from my daughter. Shes fluent in
English but not that much fluent in Turkish. Her learning environment is not rich enough to teach her
speaking Turkish without an accent. There is not enough people around her to observe and imitate them.
Week IV: Writing and Language Socialization
It was interesting for me to read Gaddas article about Writing and Language Socialization. I, as
a parent of an EL student and a quadrilingual person, very much aware that how culture and
socialization effect language skills. Me and my daughters native language is Turkish which has a very
different structure than English. For example, we have a lot of suffixes can be added to a word that
sometimes makes the word more than twice the long than its origin, but English doesnt.
At the beginning it was so hard for me and my daughter to shift our brains to acquire this new
language. I can imagine the same problem for my students, too. Especially in California, people are
coming from all around the world. We should always consider what culture our students are coming
from to teach them proper language skills.
Week I-IV: Power of Babel
I am amazed by reading McWhorters Power of Babel and learning how all those languages are sharing
the same roots and how cultures and dialects affect the development of languages.

I can see these differences by comparing two close languages. These are Anatolian Turkish and
Azerbaijani. Both are originated from same root. Theyre two different dialects of Turkish language.
But over the time both have changed due to cultural isolation after World War I and II and Russians
Iron Curtain.
According to McWorther, language change is a process which occurs very slowly. It gradually
morphs, year by year, generation after generation into its new form. This process can be broken down
into five Principals such as Sound Change, Extension, The Expressive Cycle, Rebracketing and
Semantic Change. In all languages, there is a strong tendency for sounds to erode and disappear over
time. This gradual process starts pronouncing the sounds less distinctly in casual speech. This erosion
has a particularly dramatic effect in that, whereas some sounds in a word serve no particular purpose.

What I Have Learned From This Course

I have learned a lot of things about languages, developing a language, how children acquire new
language skills, how culture affect the language and most importantly how an English language learner
develops his/her skills in the classroom environment.
I am amazed by reading McWhorters Power of Babel and learning how all those languages are sharing
the same roots and how cultures and dialects affect the development of languages.(Just like Turkish
dialects).
According to Brown; lessons and activities may be generated, shaped and revised according to the
cultural diversity of the classroom. It was so useful for me to learn about Browns ideas of how culture
interacts with classroom activities. Cultures of the students are an important part of their language.
Finally, I have learned how I can use those language acquisition skills in my life science/biology
classroom. I thought, science class may be irrelevant class to implement EL activities and lessons;
however it turned out I, as a science teacher, even need to use EL strategies in my classes.
Mini Earth
Yes were rich, lucky and healthy. Im thankful to God for that. The idea of representing the whole
world population using 100 people was brilliant (Giving Percentage).