LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 12 : 7 July 2012
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Copyright © 2012
M. S. Thirumalai
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The Development of Idiomatic Understanding – A Review

Sudhin Karuppali, M.Sc. (SLP) & Jayashree. S. Bhat, Ph.D. (Speech and Hearing)

Introduction

Although the majority of language development occurs during the preschool years, development persists into the adolescent years too. Adolescence is the period of a child's life as he approaches adulthood and can begin anywhere from 8-14 years of age and continues until 18-21 years of age. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), considers adolescent age range to be between 10-19 years. The hallmark of this period is marked by numerous physical changes as well as certain cognitive, emotional, social, and educational changes. During preadolescent and adolescent years, language develops in a slow and protracted manner. This development includes learning to use more complex language and to communicate differently depending on the situation. Language normally learned when children are in the adolescent years, attending middle and high school, is called later or advanced language development. Linguistic development during this time is subtle but important.

One apparent measure of linguistic development is in the area of semantics. It is the number of words in an individual’s vocabulary. Miller and Gildea (1987) have estimated that at the time of high school graduation, a typical adolescent will know about 80,000 words. Vocabulary sizes being only a part of the adolescent’s semantic development, other parts involve the type of words they learn and what they do with the words and their meanings. These may include the type of definitions provided for words, the ability to complete verbal analogies (like “if principal is to academics then judge is to: ____?”) and skill in detecting and deciphering statements that are ambiguous. There are several reasons for this semantic growth - educational exposure, life experiences, and cognitive shifts into formal/hypothetical thought levels. Adolescence is also a peak period for the use of a number of areas of figurative language. Among these are verbal humor, idioms, metaphors and similes, and proverbs.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Sudhin Karuppali, M.Sc. (Speech Language Pathology)
Corresponding Author
Assistant Professor
Department of Audiology & Speech Language Pathology
Kasturba Medical College
Manipal University
Mangalore – 575 001
Karnataka, India
sudhin.karuppali@manipal.edu

Jayashree. S. Bhat, Ph.D. (Speech and Hearing)
Professor & Head
Department of Audiology & Speech Language Pathology
Kasturba Medical College
Manipal University
Mangalore – 575 001
Karnataka, India
bhat.js@manipal.edu
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