Socioeconomic Disparities in Language Acquisition: A Sociolinguistic Study - Research Paper

Introduction

Variance in language acquisition by people has been the main focus by sociolinguistic studies especially inclined towards economic status. According to Perkins et al (2013), the economic status of an individual directly or indirectly leverage on the physical and mental health output especially on the development of language. People from the lower economic class mostly exhibit disparities in language development compared to those from high economic class. The variance is particularly present in phonological awareness, vocabulary, and syntax on various developmental stages.

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This paper will focus on two major models for explaining the variance in language acquisition with respect to economic status. The parental investment model and family stress theory connect poverty or affluence with brain organs which influence language acquisition. Specifically, the family stress theory links the emotional distress experienced by the parent to poverty. On the other hand, parental investment theory focuses on the fundamental needs that influence learning and language.

Discussion

The low economic class has been associated with negative physical and mental health outcomes. Sufficient studies have confirmed that low economic class is a distressful factor that is linked to limitations in brain physiology in the brain regions connected to the development of language (Kerswill, 2018). Perisylvian deficits are usually linked to lower economic status or poverty in children and most of the victims are poor in language. Studies also revealed that students with low skills in phonemic awareness had improved Perisylvian functioning in a reading class. Furthermore, lower socioeconomic status (SES) has been directly linked with the level of the left inferior gyrus activation in a language task, especially in young children. This indicates that there is reduced specialization of the language acquisition functions by the left brain hemisphere among children from the lower SES. Therefore, the studies conclude that cognitive, social and neurobiological effects on language development are highly correlational.

Moreover, low SES is also linked to the deficits in memory or executive functioning which are important components of language acquisition and are mostly influenced by stressful conditions. Students from the lower economic class exhibit increased amount in salivary cortisol. This greatly impacts on the areas of the mind that control the production of hormones that regulate stress including the amygdala, hippocampus, and the cortex. All these areas of the brain are significant for memory storage and executive functioning. On the other hand, the level of stress in adulthood is also related to the increase or decrease in volume of the hippocampus grey matter while poverty is associated with the improved activity of the amygdala. This suggests that there is a mechanism in the brain that leads to increased glucocorticoids which results from socioeconomic stress. This eventually leads to a decrease in the level of the hippocampus with the improved activity of the amygdala. This kind of regulation of economic stress responses in the educational settings would most likely interfere with language acquisition either directly through distraction and or through harsh effects in the development in executive function.

Similarly, parental education is positively linked to corticostriatal activation and connections. This is because, during the stimuli that exhibit monetary gains, a lower level of parental education produced decreased amygdala activation and reduced connection in the striatum and the cortical regions. This proves that children in poverty-afflicted families are associated with reduced connectivity of areas in the brain responsible for impulse control and rewards. In fact, there is a stronger relationship between language grasp and socioeconomic stress for some neurocognitive systems. This is because it contributes to a higher standard deviation between students from high and low socioeconomic classes. Eventually, the magnitude of delay in language cognizance could even reach significance such as language impairment or speech impairment. Regardless of other studies pointing out that language impairment and speech impairment are as a result of genetics and environmental conditions, mounting evidence posits that socioeconomic stress serves a significant role in the development of both language and speech impairment. Some study revealed that students with impaired language grasp were born in families with younger mothers who had low levels of income and education. These factors greatly influence the rates of vocabulary development throughout children growth. Indeed, research shows that in an annual increment of $5,000, vocabulary and language scores are enhanced by two points. Notably, vocabulary has greater implications on the learning and education among the students. Further evidence on the significance of language impairment on childhood development revealed that language impairment is associated with poor outcomes and excellence in adulthood academic qualifications. Student's speech and language impairment had to increase socioeconomic stress together with the intelligence quotient (IQ) which sufficiently contributes to a unique variation in academic achievement in language acquisitions.

Children with speech impairment significantly demonstrate deficiencies in early adulthood while those with language impairment exhibit deficiencies in executive functioning and memory at the ages of 19. Alternatively, language impairment has also been associated with increased consequences of mental health such as the attention deficit disorder (ADHD), effective and anxiety disorders, school dropout, suicide, delinquency, and somatic complaint. Language impairment is an aspect that needs more substantial studies to examine the environmental and biological mechanism in play with regard to students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds. Notably, biological and environmental factors have higher risks to children from poor socioeconomic backgrounds due to unstable living standards, inadequate feeding, and low quality of medical attention. For instances, children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds might be affected by chronic ear infections because of poor management of the associated symptoms. This could diminish their concentrations and eventually the ability to sufficiently utilize their auditory processing in differentiating speech vocals.

The interactions between the parent and the child have an influence on the language development of the child for both socioeconomic classes. A parent that adopts a parenting style that involves clear instructions and routine, warmth and high expectations on the child moderates the adverse effects of socioeconomic stress brought about by poverty. On the other hand, the absence of parental love and warmth is displayed by the development of speech and language problems. Therefore, parental warmth comes with numerous advantages in development into adulthood throughout childhood. These positive outcomes include improved memory, high-class performance, income and, language prowess.

Negative mother and child relationship and interactions usually lead to speech and language difficulties. A study that focused on the mother-infant relationships, mothers with higher amount of poor social control mechanisms led their children to adopt few grammatical talk types, short sentence structures, and varied word roots. However, maternal communication and sensitivity in the child's affairs appear to be supportive of the child's self-regulation and executive functioning. Therefore, it is clear that early warm and high-quality parental interaction with the child is vital for the development of the requisite skills for language acquisition and development. Moreover, a study conducted on mother-child interaction involving a videotaped session revealed that maternal education and income affected the quality of the parenting style to the age of three years (Block, 2016). The parents from higher socioeconomic class displayed improved positive regard and sensitivity together with evidence of clear instruction in a teaching task. Parents from a higher SES are also associated with quality assistance and supportive presence on complex activities. Therefore, the quality of the parenting style is associated with the socioeconomic class and mental health development.

The socioeconomic class also affects students in those students coming from low socioeconomic classes risk entering into schools when they have low language mastery and skills compared to their privileged counterparts. A student who comes from a family whereby the parent struggles financially may lack the resources and time required to facilitate reading and learning in general (Li, 2017). This, in turn, affects their emerging skills in literacy. Developing a strong foundation of literacy skills is a process that should be initiated early enough in the developmental stages of a child. The process of developing and acquiring this skill usually commence during birth and therefore parents develop a keen interest in reading with their children. This time as a resource in sufficing this journey is always limited in families from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The variance in vocabulary and linguistic prowess among children from different income backgrounds is connected to the interaction with various vocabularies at their homes. It is estimated that in a time frame of one year, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are introduced to approximately 250,000 words and utterances while their counterparts in high socioeconomic class get to hear around four million (Perkins, Finegood, and Swain, 2013). Furthermore, the topics under discussions in the low socioeconomic households are centered on regular daily concerns in life including mode of actions, what to wear, eat among other practical concerns. This means that such a student will not be prepared for any type of engagement involving school work.

In cognizance of the effects of the socioeconomic class on language acquisition, parents and educators have to employ certain strategies to limit the gap between the children from low and high SES. Most importantly they have to consider early parental intervention and education. Educators also have a duty of enhancing the high level of a quality program for the student to attain best grades especially when the students start attending the programs at infancy. Furthermore, families have to be empowered by teaching the parents on the significance of interacting with their children in terms of reading, talking and building vocabulary. This can be done through meaningful positive regard. Developing a working schedule for multiple generations in the families is the workable mode of promoting language and literacy skills while at home (Takiuchi, 2017).

Language is an important tool as it connects people around the world through communication. Therefore it becomes necessary to enhance the student's communication skills at a very tender age. Sufficient combination of parental warmth and early intervention, it is possible that students from poor socioeconomic class to overcome the gap in achievement in language. The gap in the achievement level in language between the high and low-income students begins at a tender age of at least 18 months. By attaining the age of two years, children from low-income families exhibit approximately a 6-month gap in speech and language skills. By the time children reach three years old, the variance in language and general vocabulary is too large that children from low-income families would need to undergo additional lessons for them to properly catch-up (Romaine, 2015). Moreover, children fr...