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Socioeconomic Impact on Language Learning

Socioeconomic status plays an important role in language learning, as children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to acquire language more slowly, know fewer vocabulary words, and use simpler sentences compared to children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Research shows children from higher socioeconomic statuses learn more vocabulary over time and are able to express themselves using more complex and varied language. Additionally, people with higher levels of education tend to use formal language, proper grammar, and complex vocabulary regardless of country or language, while those with less access to education do not focus as much on these aspects of language.

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İrem Demir
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59 views3 pages

Socioeconomic Impact on Language Learning

Socioeconomic status plays an important role in language learning, as children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to acquire language more slowly, know fewer vocabulary words, and use simpler sentences compared to children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Research shows children from higher socioeconomic statuses learn more vocabulary over time and are able to express themselves using more complex and varied language. Additionally, people with higher levels of education tend to use formal language, proper grammar, and complex vocabulary regardless of country or language, while those with less access to education do not focus as much on these aspects of language.

Uploaded by

İrem Demir
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Effects of Socio-Economic Status on Language Learning

There is a rapidly growing trend worldwide and that is implementing early language learning
programs. The majority of these programs usually takes English as a target language because
English is assosicated with economic and political power. However, socio-economic status
plays an important role while learning a language. There are several researches about this
topic and we can say that there are huge difference in terms of pronounciation, vocabulary
ang grammar between low-income families and high-income families when we look at the
results.

Language acquisition is the first level on which education and socioeconomic status affect
language. Children who come from a lower socioeconomic status acquires the language
slower from the ones who come from a higher socioeconomic status. Furthermore, we can
clearly see the vocabulary difference between the ones that has lower socioeconomic sttaus
and higher economic status. Even the words they choose while speaking English differs. In
addition, the researches shows that the children who come from a higher socioeconomic status
learns way more vocabulary than the ones who come from a lower socioeconomic status.

Socioeconomic sttaus also effects how language improves over time and it has a huge impact
on how they express themselves. As I mentioned in the prior paragraph, children with lower
socioeconomic status chooses simple words and simple sentences while expressing
themselves. On the other hand, the children with higher socioeconomic status uses much more
complicated sentences and they also use variety of words. People with great deal of education
tend to prioritize language, verbal skills and comunication. As a result, children growing up in
these families develop more verbal skills and tend to be a good speaker and they do good job
giving speeches.

Across conturies and languages, people with high education background tend to use formal
language while speaking and they use proper grammer and complex vocabulary. On the other
hand, people who have lower acces to education do not pay much attention to these things.
Even the slang words change according to the socioeconomic status.

I have given English lectures to several students. Of course everyone is different from each
other, so all of theem had different socioeconomic status. I will give some examples from my
real life experiences. I was giving lectures to two students last year. They were both at the
same age. One had a high socioeconomic status, his parents were also educated well, and the
other one had lower socioeconomic status, I did’t ask to his parents about their education
background but I can tell that they didn’t have the acces to education at all. I will name the
kid with the high socioeconomic status “A”, and the kid with lower socioeconomic status “B”.
The thing that attracted my attention was their choosing of words and the lenght of the
sentence. For example;

T: So tell me why didn’t you do your homewroks earlier?

A: Because we went to holiday with my parents and aunt. I didn’t have the time to do
them. Actually, I was going to take the homeworks with me and do them in the holiday but I
forgot.

This is how he answered me. He didn’t hesisate to talk and he was very comfortable while
speaking. However, when I asked the same question to the other student I got an answer like
this;

T: So tell me why didn’t you do your homeworks earlier?

B: I didn’t want.

No one has to be an educator to realize the difference in case of language development


between people who have higher socioeconomic status and lower socioeconomic status.

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