Communication Roles of Languages in Multilingual Societies

Nida, Eugene A.; Wonderly, William L.

doi:10.1177/000608447102200103

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Understanding the intricacies of language acquisition in young children is a topic of great interest in developmental psychology (Azucar et al, 2018;Slonje & Smith, 2008). Among the various linguistic structures children acquire, declarative sentences are a fundamental aspect of their communicative repertoire (Nida & Wonderly, 1971). Declarative sentences, which convey statements or information about the world, play a crucial role in allowing children to express their thoughts, share their experiences, and engage in social interactions.…”

Section: Acquisition Of Declarative Form Sentencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Acquisition of Declarative and Imperative Sentences in five-year-old Children

Budi,

Halimah,

Indarto

2024

JCELL

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This study aims to describe the language acquisition of a five-year-old child. This research focuses on declarative and imperative sentence forms, using a descriptive qualitative approach with recording techniques. The analysis results show that the syntactic acquisition in declarative sentences has four forms, and imperative has five. The category of language acquisition at the syntactic level is good enough because there is minimal deviation from the form of speech produced. In summary, five-year-old children will likely use declarative and imperative sentences as they develop their language skills. They may start to use declarative sentences more naturally to convey information and use imperative sentences to express commands or requests, although their usage of these sentence types may vary in complexity and grammatical accuracy. Shortly, the results showed that children's utterances dominate in imperative sentences.

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Section: Acquisition Of Declarative Form Sentencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Acquisition of Declarative and Imperative Sentences in five-year-old Children

Budi,

Halimah,

Indarto

2024

JCELL

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“…: 157). Nida and Wonderly (1971) argued that in order for a language to be projected as a national language, it should be accepted by the masses, because if it is laden with political biases, it would simply be a vessel through which the group that speaks the language extends its dominance, a point Rufai (1980: 28) explores in the Nigerian context. Rufai explains that despite the wide usage of Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba, the adoption of one over the others may ignite inter-ethnic conflict.…”

Section: Does Pidgin Promote Social and Economic Advancement?mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Sociological Perspective on Pidgin's Viability and Usefulness for Development in West Africa

Time¹,

Pryce²

2021

Cont. J. Afr. Stud.

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This essay examines the viability and usefulness of pidgin for development in West Africa. Pidgin in West Africa has endured as a unifying medium of communication among people who do not share a common language. It has been lauded as a neutral language that facilitates trade, commerce, and everyday dealings among people of all walks of life. Some have proposed supplanting English, which is the official language in most of the West African countries where the use of pidgin is prevalent, with either pidgin or some other indigenous language. Contrarians, however, consider pidgin to be a limiting factor, in that, it is a barrier to speaking, reading, and writing standard English, and thus impedes upward mobility. They argue that projecting pidgin or some other indigenous language may create some political backlash, and strife among the people. Using qualitative analysis, we examine this debate from a sociological perspective.

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“…My present understanding of the world language hierarchy developed while I was writing a book on its place in Thailand (Smalley 1994). See also Smalley 1988a and1988b.Perhaps the first seed of these ideas about language hierarchy was planted in my mind by Nida and Wonderly 1971. 4. These languages belong to three different language families, Kuy and Northern Khmer to the Mon-Khmer family, Lao and Standard Thai to the Tai family, and Chinese languages to the Sino-Tibetan family.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Missionary Language Learning in a World Hierarchy of Languages

Smalley¹

1994

Missiology

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Languages are organized into a hierarchy of multilingualism based on patterns of learning and use. Native speakers of English, at the top of the hierarchy. find the popularity of English to be convenient. However, it is also detrimental to the work ofEnglish-speaking missionaries, as many are inhibited by hierarchical assumptions from gaining the level of skill which they need in the languages ofthe people to whom they want to minister. Missionary language competence therefore seems to be decreasing throughout the world as English increases, and only conversion of the typical Anglo missionary worldview can reverse the decline.Af mon gl man from Laos, living in a Thailand refugee camp, studied English by poring over discarded English-language magazines like ime. He looked up the words he did not know in an English-Thai dictionary and memorized them. He had only a high school education, but Thai was already his fourth language, after Hmong, Lao, and French; English was becoming his fifth. As soon as he gained some facility in English, he got a job interpreting for foreign medical personnel in the camp hospital and took off in use of the language from there. I knew him as a student at the University of Minnesota.On the other hand, a missionary responsible for the business affairs of a mission in Thailand could not speak Thai even after many years of residence. He said it was to his advantage not be able to speak the language because lower-level business people and government officials who could not talk easily with him would shunt him up in the bureaucracy, referring him to someone who spoke English well. He said he got his business done more efficiently that way, dealing with people who had authority.These are extreme examples. In using them, I do not want to discount important language-learning factors like individual intelligence, aptitude, or William A. Smalley, now retired, was a missionary with the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Laos and Vietnam before serving as a translation consultant for the United Bible Societies in Southeast Asia for 23 years. Part of that time, he was concurrently principal of the Toronto Institute of Linguistics.

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Communication Roles of Languages in Multilingual Societies

Cited by 9 publications

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Language Acquisition of Declarative and Imperative Sentences in five-year-old Children

Language Acquisition of Declarative and Imperative Sentences in five-year-old Children

A Sociological Perspective on Pidgin's Viability and Usefulness for Development in West Africa

Missionary Language Learning in a World Hierarchy of Languages

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