Sociology

Working on the first essay to answer I chose to compare and contrast the components of the verbal language between Hindus and my own language which is English.  Hindi, which is the major language of North India, must learn to produce and recognize several new sounds.  Four different d sounds exist.  None is the same as an English d which is usually pronounced with the tongue placed on the ridge behind the upper front teeth.  One d in Hindi, which is referred to as a dental sound, is pronounced with the tongue pressed firmly behind the upper front teeth.  Next is a dental d that is pronounced with air making this sound involves the tongue being in the same position and a puff of air expelled during pronunciation.  Then there is the retroflex sound, made by flipping the tongue back to the central dome of the roof of the mouth.  Also there is the aspirated retroflex d with the tongue in the center of the roof of the mouth and a puff of air.  This process is also done with the t letter.  In Hindi language it follows the same pattern as with the letter d.  Several other sounds in Hindi require careful use of aspiration and placement of the tongue for communicating the right word and in my observation the English does this too but not with the same letters. 
    Languages differ widely in which sounds are important, what words are in important in the vocabulary and how people put words together to form meaningful sentences.  Comparing and contrasting these two languages shows how it involves learning a different set of sounds and how the sounds make a difference for meaning in language.  This is called phonemes and its study of is called phonetics.  With the Hindi language a puff of air at the wrong time can produce a serious error maybe saying the word for breast when you want to say the word for letter.  All languages have a vocabulary which consists of all its meaningful words this is also called lexicon and when looking at culture it is symbolic.  Speaker combines words into phrases and sentences to create meaning, which they use to communicate.  Semantics refers to the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences.  In my contrast and comparison I believe I am applying ethnosemantics as well as a relativist approach which is the study of meaning that words, phrases and sentences have in a particular cultural context.  With an ethnocentristic approach I would have given or gauged value to one or the other language.
Reference
Gambhir, V. (1995).  Teaching and acquisition of south Asian languages.  Philadelphia,     Penn University of Pennsylvania Press.
Ritter, V. (JulySept. 2004).  The language of Hariaudhs Priyapravas Notes toward an archeology of modern standard Hindi.  Journal of the American Oriental Society, 124(3), 417-438.
    For the second part of the essay I chose to observe the interaction of children in daycare, finding relevant studies that I read to help me understand the learning situation this has on children.  With more mothers working for wages today than ever before, daycare has become a significant agent of socialization.  Most of what I researched found that there are concerns about its effects on families and children.  Most researchers have found that the effects of daycare largely depend on the childs background.  Children from poverty-stricken homes, as well as those from dysfunctional families, such as alcoholic or abusive parents, appear to benefit from day care.  Talking with the providers explaining the exercise and discussing the first half of my essay on the comparison of language, I found it interesting that language skills of children from low income homes increase where as daycare for middle class children may hamper the childs development in language.  But it was also noted that when looking at this researchers must keep in mind the quality of the day care.  A high quality daycare which is safe, small attendance, warm interaction and a trained staff with low turnover benefits children, while low quality care has negative effects.
    The research I looked has had many contradictory discussions to this, for example some studies showed that children in day care are more cooperative and secure, while others show that they are more aggressive and insure.  Maybe the fairest summary is that children from stable families receive no clear benefit or detriment from daycare and children in poverty and from dysfunctional families benefit from quality day care.  But one this is positive about socialization and that is as the child has experiences with agents of socialization the influence of the family lessens.  Entry into school or daycares marks only one of the many steps in this transfer of allegiance.  Children move away from a world in which they may have been the almost exclusive focus of parents and learn to be part of a large group of people of similar age.  One of the most significant aspects of education is that it exposes children to peer groups, individuals of roughly the same age who are linked by common interests.  It was interesting to see how the children would separate themselves by sex and how this would develop their world with what they would express as norms as they become adolescents.  I was able to observe how agents of socialization work.  People and groups that influence our self-concept, emotions, attitudes and behaviors are all agents of socialization.  Observing at the daycare along with the research gave me a clearer understanding of how socialization works.  Humans are born with the capacity to develop a self, but the self must be socially constructed, or that its contents depend on social interaction.  Our self develops as we internalize others reactions to us.  The ability to take the role of the other is something essential to the development of the self.