Child Acquisition - Theorists

Question 1

Who suggested the cognitive approach to language?

Answer 1

Jean Piaget

Question 2

What did Jean Piaget (cognitive approach) suggest?

Answer 2

You can only understand language when you understand concept (e.g. can talk in past tense when you know about time)

Question 3

How could you use the cognitive approach in an exam response?

Answer 3

Cognitive approach, you could talk about if a child is discussing abstract ideas (emotions and ideas that aren’t physical), because they’d only understand them if they understood the concept (comprehension before application)

Question 4

How could you apply the behaviourist approach to an exam response?

Answer 4

To apply a behaviourist approach; if a child was imitating in the conversation, or saying something unusual that they’ve copied off someone

Question 5

How could you apply the nativist approach to an exam response?

Answer 5

If a child is overextending the inflection -s to make feets - they’ve not finished learning through trial and error yet, so you could talk about nativists. Another way you could discuss a nativist approach is if the child adds an “ed” onto a verb which does not make sense - a brief demonstration - “I drawed” instead of “I drew” this cannot be taught to the child, the child has used past information and applied it to recent information without prompt, showing it is innate.

Question 6

HALLIDAY

What is instrumental language?

Answer 6

Instrumental - “I want”- expressing needs/wants

Question 7

HALLIDAY

What is representational language?

Answer 7

Representational - “I’ve got something to show you” - language showing how they feel, declarative

Question 8

HALLIDAY

What is imaginative language?

Answer 8

Imaginative - “Let’s pretend” - imaginative language, used with play, to create imaginary world. Crystal talks of ‘phonological’ function as playing with sound.

Question 9

HALLIDAY

What is personal language?

Answer 9

Personal - “Here I come”- child expresses their feelings/expressing personal preferences

Question 10

What is underextension?

Answer 10

Underextension - ‘car’ only for family car, but not other cars

Question 11

What is overextension?

Answer 11

Overextension - ‘car’ for tractor, van, etc

Question 12

What did Berko and Brown’s ‘fis’ phenomenon show?

Answer 12

Fis phenomenon - Berko and Brown - child pronounces fish as fis but when a parent asks if it is a fis, the child says no - when asked if it’s a fish, child says yes. can understand a word without being able to pronounce it - comprehension before speech

Question 13

What does Chomsky believe?

Answer 13

Noam Chomsky believes that children are born with an inherited ability to learn any human language. He claims that certain linguistic structures which children use so accurately must be already imprinted on the child’s mind. Chomsky believes that every child has a ‘language acquisition device’ or LAD which encodes the major principles of a language and its grammatical structures into the child’s brain.

Question 14

What is evidence that Chomksy’s theory is correct?

Answer 14

Mistakes such as ‘I drawed’ instead of ‘I drew’ show they are not learning through imitation alone.

Question 15

How many stages are there in David Crystal’s theory?

Answer 15

5

Question 16

What do children do in stage 1 of David Crystal’s theory?

Answer 16

This is where children say things for three purposes:
To get something they want
To get someone’s attention
To draw attention to something

Question 17

What happens in stage 2 of David Crystal’s theory?

Answer 17

This is when children usually ask questions, “where” questions come first. Their questions often begin with interrogative pronouns (what, where) followed by a noun or verb such as “where gone?”

Question 18

What happens in stage 4 of David Crystal’s theory?

Answer 18

By now children would be asking lots of different questions but often signalling that they are questions with intonation alone, for example: “Sally play in garden mummy?” This is made into a question by varying the tone of voice.

Question 19

What happens in stage 4 of David Crystal’s theory?

Answer 19

This is when children use increasingly complex sentence structures and begin to:
Explain things
Ask for explanations using the word: “why?”
Making a wide range of requests: “shall I do it?”

Question 20

What happens in stage 5 of David Crystal’s theory?

Answer 20

By this stage children regularly use language to do all the things that they need it for. They give information, asking and answering questions, requesting directly and indirectly, suggesting, offering, stating and expressing.

Question 21

What did Jean Aitchinson propose?

Answer 21

Idea that “language has a biologically organized schedule”. Children everywhere follow a similar pattern.

Question 22

JEAN AITCHISON

What is labelling?

Answer 22

Labeling – The first stage and involves making the link between the sounds of particular words and the objects to which they refer e.g. understanding that “mummy” refers to the child’s mother. In other words, associating a name with something.

Question 23

JEAN AITCHINSON

What is packaging?

Answer 23

Packaging – This entails understanding a word’s range of meaning. This is when Over extension and Under extension become a hurdle in the development of the language.

Question 24

JEAN AITCHINSON

What is network building?

Answer 24

Network Building – This involves grasping the connections between words; understanding that some words are opposite in meaning.Aitchison argued that there are no EXACT dates to which a child reaches a certain stage of learning language – some children learn faster than others. She believed that the speed of learning is influenced by both innate abilities and environment. Language is partly learned by imitation, so parents and brothers/sisters play a role in the acceleration of learning the language. Baby talk whilst learning to speak could hinder the child in learning to speak later on. Speech timetable created from birth to ten years old.

Question 25

What did Jean Berko find?

Answer 25

Looked at the use of overgeneralisations. She gave them a picture of an imaginary creature called a ‘wug’. She asked them what would more than one ‘wug’ be called and 3/4 of the 4-5 year olds formed the regular plural ‘wugs’

Question 26

What did Vygotsky find?

Answer 26

Children often use pivots to support play, but as they get older they will use their imagination instead

Question 27

What is CDS?

Answer 27

Adults in most parts of the world speak to infants differently than they do others. When talking to babies they use high-pitched and elongated words in an exaggerated manner with lots of facial expressiveness. This kind of speech is called child-directed speech