COMSATS UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD

Basic Linguistics

Assignment#1
Topic: Preference of English as L1 and as Co-L1

SUBMITTED TO
Mr. Asif Javed

SUBMITTED BY
Saira Jaffer (SP19-BPY-067)
____________________________
 English as L1

Case#1:
“People who prefer English as their children’s L1.”

 Case Details:
To study this case, I chose my ex teacher’s family who preferred
English as a first language for her kids. She has three children; two daughters and a son.
They are studying in Beaconhouse Primary Branch, Rawalpindi. They are living in nuclear
family system. The children’s parents are well educated and they use English language
for all type of interaction and communication with their children.

 Conclusion from Observation:

When the parents were asked that why did they prefer English
as first language? They provided following reason for preferring English as L-1:
 They prefer English as it is the most widely used language in almost all the
institutes whether they are educational or organizational. So according to them,
they are helping their children to perform better at school and are preparing
them for future as well. As the people who are good at speaking English usually
gets more job opportunities.
Although children are quite good at English as it is their first language and they use it
excessively but when they need to communicate with their grandparents and other
relatives in Urdu, they face a lot of difficulty because of not being good at Urdu. Their
school result of Urdu Subject also seems to be below average.

English as Co-L1:

 Case#2:
“People who prefer English as their children’s Co-L1.”
  Case Details:
In order to study this case, I chose my cousin’s family. He has two
kids; a daughter and a son. They are studying in The Educators School and are living in a
joint family system. Their parents are well educated and interact with the children in
both the languages; English and Urdu. Children’s first language is actually Urdu but they
were taught English alongside Urdu.

 Conclusion from Observation:

When the parents were asked that why
did they prefer Urdu as first language and taught their children English alongside Urdu?
They provided following reasons for focusing on both languages:
 According to the parents of the children, they preferred Urdu as a first language
because they are living in a joint family system where children need to interact
not just with the parents but with the grandparents too. Their grandparents can
only speak and understand Urdu that’s why the children’s parents focused more
on Urdu.
 The reason for focusing on English alongside Urdu is to make children capable of
performing well in their academics.
Parents reported that their children can speak and comprehend both languages easily. They
communicate with their teachers in English while for communicating with parents,
grandparents and friends they keep on switching between both languages.

Q: What utility of today’s class discussion you find in your future career of psychologist?
As we were discussing in class that how do we use chunks of information from the situation to
comprehend any language. A student shared his experience that he went to Turkey and he
understood that in Turkish language water is called “Su” by observing the Turkish people while
they drink water and use the term “Su”. So he associated “Su” with “water” and hence
comprehended it correctly.
This discussion helped me to understand that how can we associate words of different
languages with the repeated behavior. This would help me in future when I, being a
psychologist, will interact with the people belonging to different backgrounds and I would be
able to associate their behavior with the words of their language which I might not know.
Through this, I would be able to communicate with them in a better way as effective
communication is the first must for any Psychologist.