At a glance: 'The Death of the Hired Man' by Robert Frost

 The poem "The Death of the Hired Man" is a dramatic narrative poem. It describes the death of an old servant (hired man) in the house of his master, Warren. Warren and his wife, Mary, have sharply divided opinions on the old servant, and their attitudes to him are diametrically opposite. It vividly describes the humane considerations of Mary, and the cruel feelings and unkind considerations of Warren, for their old servant Silas, who comes back to their house after quite a long time in a very weak condition of health, and dies there within a short time after his arrival.

How We Learn to Speak: The Stages of Language Acquisition

 

First language acquisition refers to how infants and young children acquire their native language naturally, without formal teaching. It’s a universal process that happens in predictable stages, although the exact ages may vary slightly by child. Studies of linguistic development have revealed a series of crucial stages in children as they master their native languages. Though the correlation of age with the given stage can vary remarkably from child to child, the particular sequences of stages seem to be the same for all children in first language acquisition.