First-order reality and reflexive practices in children's language development

From a phenomenological perspective, Maurice Merleau-Ponty distinguished between ideas about one's own body (body image) and the functioning of the body in its immediate environment (body schema). To capture the dynamics of the characteristics of language as suggested in second-order linguistic negotiation of meaning and in spontaneous first-order linguistic behaviour, this article proposes to conceptualize the embodiment of language in children's development in terms of a language image and a language schema. The article points to some of the complexities involved in processes of analytical imitation and reflexive enculturation and offers an interpretation of the first-order reality involved in a narrative performance of a four-year-old.