What is language …show more content…
Children are born into a culture and learn to communicate using the dialect of the language spoken at home which extends into the community. Mutual language provides meaning to how we exist and supports children with a sense of belonging and shapes personal identity (Emmitt, 2010 p.52). Some Children are exposed to more than one language due to the difference between the language spoken at home and in the community, hence making them bilingual (Peterson, 2014). This is typical in countries like Australia, where the country has been built on the backbone of immigrants from Europe and other non-English speaking countries around the world. Culture can also refer to the belonging to a group of mutual friends or interest such as a soccer team or art class who communicate using the same discourse (Crystal, …show more content…
This demonstrates the diversity of cultures and the many languages which continue to be spoken from generation to generation. Although these thousands of languages are diverse to each other, children of all cultures learn to apply the same principle known as universal grammar, or universality to form syntactical sentences using nouns, verbs and adjective (McDevitt et al, 2013). When discussing diversity in language we tend to associate with different languages spoken rather than the different standards of language. Take English as an example. There is no universal English, but it is a global language that demonstrates the variety of Englishes (TED, 2009). These varieties have stemmed from when British settlers moved to these countries and adapted British English to reflect the circumstances and local interests of the habitat (BritishCouncilSerbia, 2013). Each standard has an accent and dialect that reflect the identity of regional origin and social background of one’s culture. The accent relates to the sound or pronunciation of words. Whereas the dialect refers to differences in vocabulary and grammar. ‘For example, Australian Standard English and British Standard English have differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, but they are still understandable to each other’. (Farmer,