Never underestimate…

The ability to learn language is value neutral.  Each child will learn whatever is current parlance in the child’s environment.  Some children will learn to mouth a string of obscenities, because that is what is modelled by significant others and other adults.  Others may learn a quite specialised vocabulary if that is the linguistic climate they grow up in.  For this reason some young children will learn words or phrases that many older children do not know, such as, for example, ‘biodegradable’ or ‘sibling rivalry’.

Very few 6 year-olds know these words, because few adults use them when talking to young children.  But if a 6 year-old hears, for example, ‘sibling rivalry’ and someone explains it as ‘brothers and sisters fighting over something they both [or all] want’, the child will be able to report accurately “there’s a lot of sibling rivalry at our house.”

If you’re a parent, minder, or teacher of very young children, bear the following in mind.  When children begin making sentences, they structure them in the order of subject – verb – object, as when they say “Mommy give juice!” or “I want ball.” and this is the standard word order in English.  Passive constructions don’t make sense to children under 5 years of age.  In the passive construction the word order is reversed: objet – verb – subject.  When young children hear a sentence such as “The truck was bumped by the car.”, they think the truck did the bumping.  They assume that what comes first causes what comes next.

Young children also think that the order of ideas in a sentence and sentence order is a clue to time sequence.  So to a child under 5 years of age a sentence like “You can go outside after you pick up your toys” can mean the reverse of what was intended, i.e. ‘go outside, then pick up your toys.’  Consider then what is likely to follow from “Before you eat your dinner, you must wash your hands.”!

In my first posting on NLP and language I told you that this topic would be comprehensive enough to warrant several entries!  And I always stick to my word!  After all, NLP has the linguistic part in its name: Neuro-Linguistic Programming.  So, here’s another perspective on language.  In addition, this entry could fit into the UnLearning Difficulties category of this NLP blog as easily as it does in the one of Life Coaching and NLP since many learning difficulties revolve around language.  Wouldn’t you agree? Read the rest of this entry »

One of the peculiarities of the English language is the phrase “do you know what I mean?” And another is the phrase “I didn’t mean it that way!”   NLP has repeatedly proven that yes, you did mean it exactly that way – every time you said it!   How come?  I’ll show you… Read the rest of this entry »

Language is in the heart of NLP and in its very name too!  If NLP means Neuro-Linguistic Programming, we’re talking about the linguistic part of our programming.  So language definitely deserves a huge chapter!

Another credible reason why language is important is that be it verbal or nonverbal, it is the basis of communication of living creatures.  Animals have their language.  And if language wasn’t important, would people bother to develop hundreds of its forms? Read the rest of this entry »

Simply put: because they’re confusing. And why are they confusing?  Because they’re vague.  And why are they vague?  Because of the language used in them.  Read the rest of this entry »