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After reading this article you will learn about the egocentricity in child language.
The child starts with babbling and goes through the various stages of acquiring linguistic units and also learning of the rules of grammar. An interesting feature in this whole scheme of development starting from around the third year is, what is called, egocentricity. The use of linguistic terms at this stage reflects the absence of an attitude of objectivity. Reality is assumed to be one as perceived by oneself and the other person is assumed to share the same reality.
The attitude of egocentricity is seen not only in speech but also in thought, perception etc. In an interesting conversation with a young child Piaget asked the child, “why does the sun set?” Pat came the answer “because Johnny must go to sleep”. The whole world is organised around one’s own reality. The above is an illustration more of thought and perception but it is also true of language.
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Thus, a child in-spite of knowing the word window, often refers to the same as a small door. At this stage, some correlations may be understood but do not prove very effective. A number of studies by Piaget and others have shown that this phenomenon is not due to any lack of speech or basic linguistic abilities. But, the child at this stage, places himself at the centre of things and assumes that things are as he or she perceives, thinks and sees.
The whole speech process is centered around oneself. This is not to be mistaken for selfishness or self-glorification. It is simply that the child does not understand the informational need from the other person’s point of view and assumes that others understand things as he or she does a simple failure in objectifying.
In a very interesting study, Flavell required a child to explain a game to some others who were allowed to see what is happening and also to some others who were blind-folded. The child knew that the blind-folded subjects could not observe what he has demonstrated. But still the child went on saying, “pick up this, pick up that, place this, etc.”.
Here, the child did not quite effectively appreciate the fact that the blind-folded subjects could not see all that he wanted them to see and also carry out directions like picking up, placing etc. This means, the child was not sensitive to the informational limitations of the blind-folded subjects.
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Egocentricity sometimes causes problems of communication. The adult and the child very often find it difficult to communicate. But this phase passes off soon, around seventh year at the latest, and in many cases even earlier. However, it has been shown that sometimes even adults tend to be egocentric in their speech.
An interesting illustration of this may be seen in the following:
Suppose you are in a new city and driving your car; you would like to know how to proceed to Garden Road, You stop and ask a passerby “Sir, how do I reach Garden Road?” Here, comes the reply, “turn into Canal Street and turn left after the mail box”. Here the person definitely wants to help you, but is not aware that you are a total stranger to the city and that you are blissfully ignorant of the existence of Canal Street and the mail box.
He takes it for granted that you know these things, and only do not know how to reach Garden Road. This is very similar to the ego-centricity of the child. The child, like the adult passer by assumes that you know many things he knows. One may also see the occurrence of egocentric speech, when children talk to their dolls and expect the dolls to reply as they would or even reply on behalf of the other.
According to Piaget, egocentricity occurs because of the fact that the child has not developed the ability to decenter the expressions and also experiences, to empathies with the informational and communicational situations of others. It should be clearly understood that this is not self-glorification or self-exaggeration. In fact, an artist when he paints a scenery, as he sees it, is also being egocentric.