child language aquisition

Question 1

behaviourist theory

Answer 1

• B.F Skinner
• children are most likely to learn as a result of the consequence of their behaviour e.g positive/ negative reinforcement

Question 2

problems of behaviourist theory

Answer 2

-children seem to follow observable patters of acquisition regardless of how much reinforcement they get from their parents
-children do seem to generalise rules to produce utterances they wouldnt hear elsewhere

Question 3

nativism/innatist theory

Answer 3

• chomsky
• the brain contains an LAD ( language acquisition device)= brain is ‘hard-wired’ as long as there is enough exposure to it

Question 4

problems of nativism/innatist theory

Answer 4

did not have any practical experiments, relying on hypothesis

Question 5

interactionist theory

Answer 5

-j. bruner
- if language is assisted by the carefully-constructed input given by care-givers ( care-giver speech)
- motheres, parentese, care-giver language, child directed speech
e.g repetition and slower speech
dimunitive words
simplified sentences

Question 6

problems with interactionist theory

Answer 6

• children produce language that is merely repeated from interaction with care-givers
  -children cannot acquire language at a rate beyond their own pace

Question 7

cognitive theory

Answer 7

• j. piaget
• language comes with understanding
• cla is part of a child’s wider development
• passive construction is not only syntactically sophisticated and requires understanding of nature of relationship between subject and object
  e.g children avoid lang related to concepts they dont understand

Question 8

problems with cognitive theory

Answer 8

children with severe language difficulties and cognitive problems still manage to use language far beyond their actual understand

Question 9

zone of proximal development (ZPD)

Answer 9

• L. Vygotsky
• importance of the wider social environment
• ‘more knowledgable other’ (key word) e.g children and adults play an important role in a child’s language
• can do something with guidance

Question 10

pre-verbal

Answer 10

• 0-3 months
• crying allows baby to recognise importance of language and community
• experimenting with the articulators in their mouth
  -baby produces different cries for different meanings
  -mothers and babies begin to engage in turn-taking skills that reflect turns in conversation

Question 11

babbling

Answer 11

• 3-12 months
• babies engage in turn-taking interaction
  -mostly vowels produced
• babies engage in ‘vocal play’, where babbling sounds like they are ‘talking’.
• intonation and pitch are experimented with= sounds like a story
  -reduplication is common ‘ba ba ba’

Question 12

one-word

Answer 12

12-18 months
-can use single words at a time
-object

Question 13

one-word

Answer 13

12-18 months
-can use single words at a time
-object
- children are naming lots of things in their immediate environment
- content words especially nouns and verbs
-adverbs ‘no’ or ‘yes’
- children are discovering connections b/w sounds and meaning

Question 14

two-words

Answer 14

-1-2 years
-demonstrating relationships b/w words
- 2-word utterances
- rely on open-class words
- vocab of 50-200 words
- tend to omit inflectional morphology

Question 15

telegraphic/ early multi-word

Answer 15

• 2-3 years
• range of function words and inflectional morphology are emerging
• word order is generally standard and children are joining utterances
• expanding vocab ~ 1000 words

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Question 16

later multi-word

Answer 16

• 3-4 years
• can use language creatively in play, engage in make-believe
• range of plural and past tense forms are evident
• sentence becoming longer, combining 4 or more words
• can talk about things not in their immediate environment