Chapter 7.2 The Origins of Language Development

Question 1

Learning theory approach

Answer 1

Perspective: Says language acquisition follows the fundamental laws of reinforcement and conditioning, emphasizes the basic principles of learning.

Evidence: a child who says a word is reinforced, which makes the child more likely to say the word

Criticisms: It doesn’t explain how children acquire rules of language as readily as they do, especially when they are reinforced for errors in their speech.

Question 2

Nativist approach

Answer 2

Perspective: Says that a genetically determined, innate mechanism directs the development of language

Evidence: Findings showing that language processing in infants involves brain structures similar to those in adult speech processing, suggesting an evolutionary basis to language. Also recent findings identifying a specific gene related to speech production

Criticisms: Certain primates are able to learn at least the basics of language, which calls into question the uniqueness of the human linguistic capability.

Question 3

Universal Grammar

Answer 3

a similar underlying structure shared by all the world’s languages according to linguist Noam Chomsky

Question 4

Language-acquisition device (LAD)

Answer 4

a neutral system of the brain hypothesized to permit understanding of language structure and provide strategies for learning the particular characteristics of language

Question 5

Linguistic-relativity hypothesis

Answer 5

(Language Shapes Thought)
the theory that language shapes and may determine the way people of a given culture perceive and understand the world
- ex. Thinking that Eskimo children have many words to describe “snow”

Question 6

Interactionist perspective

Answer 6

Suggests that language development is produced through a combination of genetically determined predispositions and environmental circumstances that help teach language

Question 7

Piaget’s view of the development of language

Answer 7

(Thought shapes language)

Says that the emergence of symbolic function is a key aspect in the development of language skill

Question 8

Language and thought influence each other

Answer 8

Suggestions that although initially language and thought may develop more or less independently, by the time children are two years of age, language and thinking work in a tandem