Child Language Acquisition

Question 1

Nativist Theory

Answer 1

•proposed by Chomsky
•children have an inborn faculty for learning language known as LAD
•LAD is a mechanism for working out the rules of a language
+Over-generalisation in children
+When particular places of the brain are damaged, they may lose their ability to speak
-There isn’t a particular research done on this
- He only looked at the concept of grammar and not aspects like turn-taking

Question 2

Behaviorist Theory

Answer 2

•proposed by Skinner
a child imitates the language of its parents and carers
•successful use of language is positively reinforced
•unsuccessful use of language is punished
+ Children usually have the same accent or dialect as their carer
- Children hear non-standard English but still learn non-standard English
- Children are sometimes unable to repeat what an adult says
- Studies show that correction to a child’s grammar actually impedes the child’s learning

Question 3

Social Interact Theory

Answer 3

•children learn through interaction with their caregivers
+ Routines teach children about turn-taking
- some cultures that don’t promote interactions with children still become articulate and fluent in language

Question 4

Cognitive Theory

Answer 4

•proposed by Jean Piaget
•Children have to understand a concept before they can acquire a particular language
• E.g a child who hasn’t learned the concept of size won’t be able to use words like ‘bigger’ and ‘biggest’
+ Studies show that at 1yrs children seem to be unaware of the existence of objects
-People with cognitive disability are able to use language beyond their understanding

Question 5

François Grosjean - Bi-lingual household

Answer 5

he found that bilingual children learn language at the same pace as other children and don’t confuse both languages.
they learn them discreetly

Question 6

Patricia Kuhl et al

Answer 6

•they found that the more social interaction a child had the more ready they were for school
•they suggested that social interaction is critical in a child’s language learning journey.
•she suggested that by 12 months, babies are ‘culture bound listeners’, children don’t speak yet but still receptors to langugage

Question 7

Brooks et al

Answer 7

they found that children who were skilful at following eye gaze at 10 months had more vocab size at 2yrs

Question 8

Ofsted research

Answer 8

They found that children born during the pandemic lack communication skills

Question 9

MAK Halliday

Answer 9

•we need physical development before we can talk
•there are 7 reasons why language is used :
•Instrumental (fulfill a need)
•Regulatory (influence or command)
•Interactional (strength social relationship)
•Personal (develop self / opinions)
•Representational (convey facts or information)
•Heuristic (to gain knowledge)
•Imaginative (used for play/creativity).

Question 10

Katherine Nelson (Holophrastic stage)

Answer 10

60% of a child first 50 words are nouns

Question 11

Jean Aithchison (Holophrastic stage)

Answer 11

at 18 months, a child develops a ‘naming insight’ and rapidly develop new lexicon to attach labels to it

Question 12

Roger Brown (Two word stage)

Answer 12

He identified ‘meaning relations’ how words are differently linked together to convey meaning

Question 13

What are the 3 main features of early speech

Answer 13

1. Question Formation
2. Pronoun Formation
3. Negation Formation

Question 14

David Crystal (negation)

Answer 14

Children learn skills of using ‘maybe’ instead of saying ‘no’ as a pragmatic method

Question 15

What is Coupla

Answer 15

A verb used to join or ‘couple’ a subject to a compliment e.g. ‘Mummy is nice’

Question 16

What is CDS?

Answer 16

Child directed Speech

Question 17

Name 6 features of CDS

Answer 17

•pronounced intonation to draw attention to key lexiems
•simplified vocab to establish key words
•simplified grammar (short utterances)
•actions to accompany speech
•higher pitch
•’yes’ ‘no’ questioning
•present tense
•exaggerated pauses for turn taking cues
•repeated grammatical frames eg. children’s book

Question 18

Jerome Bruner LASS Model

Answer 18

•Language acquisition support system
•interactions help acquisition like scaffolding
•ritualised activities- occurs daily with same language rules and meaning of interaction, explicit for children to learn
E.g “bye bye” and prosodic indicators such as pitch and intonation

Question 19

Zone of Proximal development

Answer 19

•proposed by Vygotsky
•It is the difference between what a child can do with and without guidance
•parents provide linguistic support or work with children to move them towards knowledge/competence

Question 20

What is Question Formation

Answer 20

•when children are in the Two word stage, they use intonation for questioning, then later use the 5 W’s ‘What’ ‘Where’
•’When’ is acquired last because children are not aware of time.

Question 21

What are the 3 stages for Pronoun Formation

Answer 21

•Ursula Bellugi
1. Children use their name in place of pronouns
2. They recognised how to use ‘I’ and ‘me’
3. They learn to put they in the right place (object, subject)

Question 22

Negation Formation

Answer 22

•Ursula Bellugi
1.use no as negation at start or end of sentence
2. They move no to inside the sentence
3. They can attach negatives to auxiliary verbs

Question 23

Desmond Morris

Answer 23

the first 6 month of a baby’s life all babies of different nationality will sound the same
after 6 months they then start to sound different depending on their nationality.

Question 24

Brown and Levinson

Answer 24

they suggested the politeness theory
positive face - to seek social approval and be include
negative face - a display for their unique feeling

Question 25

John Dore

Answer 25

he suggests we use language for specific functions
Labelling, Calling, Greeting, Answering, Practicing, protesting, Repeating, Request action

Question 26

Ursula Bellugi (Negation development)

Answer 26

1. they use ‘no’ or ‘not’ at the beginning of or at the end of sentences
2. they put ‘no’ or ‘not’ inside the sentence
3. they can attach auxiliary verbs to negations

Question 27

Morpheme acquisition stage

Answer 27

•proposed by Roger Brown
1. Inflection ‘-ing’
2. Plural ‘-s’
3. Posessive ‘-s’ (e.g. Billy’s car
4. Articles (e.g. the, a, an)
5. Past tense ‘-ed’
6. 3rd person singular inflection (e.g. she walks)
7. Contraction of verbs (e.g. he’s happy)

Question 28

Question development stage

Answer 28

•proposed by Roger Brown
1. children only use prosodic cues such as rising intonation.
2. Interrogative pronouns e.g. what, when etc.
3. Syntactic inversion of the auxiliary verb e.g. is be gone?

Question 29

Wug test

Answer 29

by Jean Berko Gleason
children were able to connect suitable suffix to produce past tense and plurals

Question 30

Berko & Brown

Answer 30

‘Fis phenomenon’
they found that children couldn’t produce the fish sound but were able recognise when someone else isn’t saying it right

Question 31

Bard & Sachs

Answer 31

• a boy called Jim who was son of two deaf parents, although he was exposed to TV and radio his speech was impeded
• this suggests that exposure to langugage from TV etc is not an effective stimulus to language learning; human interaction is important

Question 32

Vygotsky

Answer 32

•he suggested that children need an MKO who supports the child to move to the ZPD

Question 33

Jerome Brunet - Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)

Answer 33

•she stated that language learning is an innate ability, but it needs to be activated through LASS
(Incp)

Question 34

Eve Clark study

Answer 34

She found that common adjectives such as ‘nice’, ‘good’, and ‘bad’ are often among children’s first 50 words, but spatial adjectives such as ‘wide’ and ‘narrow’ are acquired later