Child Language Acquisition: 3 Theories of CLA Flashcards
What are the 3 theories of CLA?
BehavioursmParameter Theory Emergentist/Usage theory
What is the most outdated of the 3 theories?
Behaviourism
What is the newest of the 3 theories?
Emergentist/Usage Based Approach
What is the idea of Behavioursm?
That children are born with some innate knowledge to help with learning language
Why do babies repeat what their caregivers say?
To test if their caregivers understand them or not
What is a limitation with children testing if their caregiver understands them or not?
They do not get negative feedback so don’t know if they’re wrong
Who created Parameter Setting?
Noam Chomsky
What does Parameter Setting say?
Children have some knowledge when coming in to learning a language
What does Parameter Setting say?
What does Parameter theory say childrens what children know when coming into a new language?
They know the limitations of their language
What are the parameters in parameter theory?
The way children learn what is acceptable in their language
What do parameters for children help them with?
Understand how construct noun and verb phrases
How do children learn how to set parameters?
They are innate
What do Emergentists say?
Thinks children have skills to work more with the input and without innate skills
When do the children develop the ability to learn language easier if it’s not innate for emergentists?
They believe it forms very early on from birth
What are the 2 things emergentists believe children develop early on to help language learning?
Understanding of communicationUnderstanding that if someone says something to you they want you to listen
