child language acquisition - social interactionism

Question 1

What does Jerome Bruner (1983) argue about CLA?

Answer 1

• although children have a genetic predisposition for language, interaction with others is of vital importance in developing language skills
• caregivers build the scaffolding that helps a child develop language

Question 2

What is the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)?

Answer 2

• caregivers respond to children’s current level of development and facilitate their next steps
• this scaffolding can be gradually removed when their language is sufficient

Question 3

Who impacts the LASS?

Answer 3

• parents/caregivers
• teachers/ other professionals
• the child’s environment
• the media
• friends/peers (pragmatic development with turntaking)

Question 4

In what ways does a caregiver support children (LASS)?

Answer 4

• directing attention
• joint reading
• guidance (e.g. visual, verbal prompts, etc)
• encouraging the child and providing feedback through interactions
• providing examples for the child to imitate; games such as peekaboo (Bancroft (1996))

Question 5

What is Lev Vygotsky’s (1934) theory?

Answer 5

• scaffolding is provided by a more knowledgeable other (MKO) - someone who has a higher level of ability than the learner
• they provide guidance and modelling to enable the child to learn skills within their zone of proximal development (ZPD) - the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can realistically achieve with guidance
• as a child’s competence grows = their ZPD expands to encompass new challenges

Question 6

What is the importance of interaction in language acquisition?

Answer 6

• children learn language as they have a desire to communicate with those around them and that language develops depending on social interactions
• he saw that parents and preverbal children used games like peekaboo in ways that may be regarded as supporting the acquisition of language

Question 7

What did Michael Tomasello argue about interaction?

Answer 7

• ‘social interactional routines such as feeding, diaper changing, bathing, interactive games, book reading, car trips and a host of other activities constitue the formats’

Question 8

What is Catherine Snow’s theory?

Answer 8

• coined the term motherese to describe the language used by mothers to talk to their children
• argues that language acquisition happens as a result of the interaction which takes place between the mother and her child
• interactions with fathers use fatherese and anybody else uses otherese