Question

I need a full summary analyzing Chapter 2 of Piaget’s book “The Language and Thought of a Child”

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary. Also, the full chapter wasn’t available online; you may have to add things from the chapter if you have the book.

(Answer) To better decipher Piaget’s explanation on the use of language in a child and adult, it can be illustrated with an example. Let it be assumed that an adult named John has discovered a new marketing technique at work and has to use the technique for his work. Also, a child named junior has just discovered that apples can be red or green.

When John thinks about his marketing technique, he thinks about how his colleagues will react to his work, how he will beat the competition, how he will be praised for his work, how he will deliver his plans etc. The more John thinks about it, the better he will be able to present his idea to the office in a way that they will understand it. John basically will develop a language that would best enlighten the topic from the perspective of the audience.

On the other hand, junior begins to draw apples. He will say, “I am drawing apples.” Junior will say, “I will colour the apple red and another one green.” Junior tells his neighbour, “Apples can be red or green.” In this way, junior isn’t thinking about what he is saying, planning it or thinking about the point he has to make, the goal of the conversation etc. Junior is simply stringing words together and thinking out loud.

In this way, Piaget suggests that language is perceived as a different device for an adult and a different device for a child under the age of 7 or before they can socialise in school. This is why the child generally views language as an ego-centric tool that they use to convey their needs, speak their thoughts and mumble words, gestures and mimic without consideration to a social perspective.

To understand the way in which language is developed in a child, one might even refer to Piaget’s stages of development. They are:

Jean Piaget’s Stages of Development: Piaget’s stages of cognitive development –

Sensorimotor (0-2 years) Infant develops learning based on what is absorbed through the senses.

Preoperational (2-6 years) Child uses images to understand objects but does not understand them logically.

Concrete operational (7-12) Child can think logically about concrete objects. They can add, subtract and observe.

Formal operational (12 and up) The child understands abstract terms and is able to hypothesize.

Based on these stages, one might be able to pinpoint the levels of development in a child’s language and the use of this device. In the formal operational stage, the child has begun to use language as an adult and uses it for operational tasks. For instance, the grown child will finally start using language to achieve their goals in communication and not just to speak arbitrarily.