EL120 AOU

Question1=400 words

Introduction

Human being race is mainly has a very important distinguishing characteristic that makes him prior to all creatures which is language communication. In the current assignment, there will be discussions of linguistics and language study in addition to presenting definitions for branches included in linguistics science for the purposes of understanding languages, linguistics and language learn.

Body

A language is a word that could have the definition of : the way of communication among human being that is practiced by a system of mind that uses units, symbols and signals which could differ from a language to another. To define linguistics we can say that it is the study of language using scientific methods and strategies that use analytical techniques that detect evidence based theories of studying language and this language can be studied generally or to study a language on its own such as English, Italian or any other language spoken in a specific area. Each language bears its own elements and components but there are main components shared in most languages such as phonology system, lexicon and others. Studying the components of a language makes it easy to master this language quickly and perfectly. (Taylor et al, 2001) Any language consists of main components and these components include phonology which represents phonemes functions, morphology which represents words formed by morpheme units, lexicon that represents the words, syntax which concerns with rules and grammar points, semantics that cares for meanings and how sentences are meaningful and discourse which cares for sentences relations. (gamu, 2014) There are many different branches of linguistics which are all set for the best study of language components as the general linguistics, comparative linguistics descriptive linguistics,  anthropological linguistics, , applied linguistics, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics and corpus linguistics and each branch has its main functions of language study as for example: the general linguistics is based on using theories for studying language, the comparative linguistics makes compared studies on different languages, anthropological linguistics studies the relation of language and culture of human beings and the descriptive linguistics is based on different descriptions of the methods of language speaking.  

Conclusion

Human beings is blessed by the language communicative way which helped in mankind progress on Earth. Languages are based on systems and has main components which form these systems and linguistics is a science that consists of branches set for studying languages to understand everything about them and to make people master them.

Question2=400words

 Introduction

adults and children are both able to learn and acquire foreign languages and their abilities to learn fast and master the languages may differ. This assignment is discussing how age could play a role in learning foreign languages and it tries to find out if children can learn foreign languages faster and better than adults or not according to previous researches and experiences.  

Body

There are linguistics researches that say that it is better to learn a foreign language in childhood as the chances of fast learning is bigger and that the adults are not as good as children in acquiring a new language because some researchers found out that there are parts in child's mind that automatically respond to learning a foreign language. (Tippin, 2011)There is an opinion says that children do not take the matter seriously that's why they learn easier as they think it is a game and specially when the language is presented in a funny way.(International Linguists Community Online, 2014). Yet many opinions and studies say that the adults are better and faster in learning new foreign languages than children due to their awareness and determination to learn if put in a good learning environment and as they are having the advantage of abstract thinking that enables them to master a foreign language easily and quickly. The cognitive abilities of a child are not as ripen as those of an adult according to researches of Pringannti in addition to the fact that training adults is much more important than thinking of their age when teaching them a foreign language as Kara Morgan-Short and Michael Ullmann  suggested in their researches. (Lebowitz, 2012) The methods used by teachers in presenting a foreign language decides how much success can learners gain whatever age they are as for example the listening matter should come first before reading and writing in order to enable aged learners to acquire good pronunciation. Methods of testing and measuring language learning also make great differences when adult are learning a foreign language. Another factor that makes adults' learning harder is that teacher do not accept their mistakes easily as with children. (Ausubel, 2014)

Conclusion

Training and good learning environment are main important factors needed for teaching both children and adults a foreign language in addition to find out problems that learners face and age is not a deciding factor in learning foreign languages.