Language Development and the Representation of the System of Reading in Relational Terms
Keywords:
Learning, Language, Reading, Relational Networks, BrainAbstract
This article is expected to be of special interest not only to linguists and language philosophers, but also to educators of different levels. The issues of how we learn to speak and how the reading system is represented are fundamental for those who are dedicated to language teaching, but such issues are not always explicitly characterized. The general objective of this work is to show that relational linguistics offers an explanation that is consistent with the neurological evidence of how we human beings learn to speak and, in relation to this very complex phenomenon, an explanation of how the reading system is represented in neurocognitive terms. Thanks to the relational approach, represented mainly by the work of neurolinguist Sydney Lamb, it can be understood that the development of language is not built on the basis of an innate grammar but from a proto-language, that is, a two-level system in which meanings connect directly with the means of expression, such as sounds and gestures. By the second year of life, proto-language gradually evolves towards a three-level system in which the meanings are connected to the phonological nodes by means of the lexico-grammatical nodes. On the other hand, the relational perspective also allows us to understand that the internal reading circuit is configured around the internal speech circuit.
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