When Do Children Learn the Concept of Numbers? Volume 2 - Issue 3

Meisam Ziafar¹ and Ehsan Namaziandost²*

• ¹Department of English Language Teaching, Ahvaz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz, Iran
• ²Department of English, Shahrekord Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord, Iran

Received: July 08, 2020   Published: July 13, 2020

Corresponding author: Ehsan Namaziandost, Department of English, Shahrekord Branch, Islamic AzadUniversity, Shahrekord, Iran

DOI: 10.32474/JAAS.2020.02.000140

 

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Abstract

According to Galister, Gelman, and Cordes [1] the cultural history of the real numbers began with the positive integers. Kronecker is often quoted as saying, “God made the integers; all else is the work of man,” by which he meant that the system of real numbers had been erected by mathematicians on the intuitively obvious foundation provided by the integers. Weise [2] poses the question what role does language play in numerical thinking? and maintains that numerical thinking developed in a pattern of co-evolution of number concepts and counting words, indicating that language played a pivotal role in the emergence of systematic numerical cognition in humans. Weise [2] proposes an evolutionary scenario: we can think of the co-evolution of number concepts and counting sequences as a development in four main stages. Stage 1 starts with iconic representations of cardinality. These representations can be non-verbal (like notches), or verbal, that is, constituted by words. At stage 2, the elements of some verbal iconic representations (that is, words) appear in a stable order, supported by their correlation with body parts, in particular with fingers, that are also used for cardinal icons. At stage 3, this stable order supports indexical links between individual words and individual cardinalities. At stage 4, these indexical links give rise to dependent links: a counting sequence is born. The pattern of association can now be generalized to cover non-cardinal as well as cardinal contexts, supporting a full-blown, unified number concept.

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