cla theories

Question 1

behaviourism
skinner

Answer 1

says a child learns language based on positive and negative reinforcement of ideas

Question 2

interactionism

Answer 2

believes that a child is born on a blank slate and learns language based on their interaction with caregiver - argues ‘nurture’

Question 3

child directed speech

Answer 3

process of talking to a child

Question 4

bruner

Answer 4

• believes a child must interact with caregiver to learn how to use language
• created LASS to ‘scaffold’ a child in learning language

Question 5

LASS

Answer 5

language acquisition support system

Question 6

catherine snow

Answer 6

created ‘mothese’ - the language used by mothers to talk to their children

Question 7

strategies
bruner and snow

Answer 7

1. recasting and reformulation - repeats what child says containing anything missing
2. expansion - caregiver makes the utterance more complex by expanding on what they said
3. exaggerated prosodic cues - exaggerating, varied pitch
4. expatiation - expressing what child said giving more information
5. over articulation - caregiver stretches out vowel sounds

Question 8

grice’s maxims

Answer 8

1. quantity
2. quality
3. manner
4. relation

Question 9

challenging interactionism
chomsky

Answer 9

questions how children produce utterances that are grammatically non standard to the point where no caregiver would have said them - errors often happen

Question 10

myzor

Answer 10

believes that CDS helps to aid social development but doesn’t help linguistic development

Question 11

nativism
chomsky

Answer 11

argues ‘nature’

Question 12

poverty of stimulus

Answer 12

chomsky’s theory states that children can’t learn through the imitation of their caregivers alone because they produce a ‘poverty of stimulus’ which states that caregivers don’t provide a good enough standard of language and children must have something inbuilt to help learn language (LAD)

Question 13

LAD

Answer 13

language acquisition device - turns off at age of 7 then is harder to learn languages

Question 14

virtuous errors

Answer 14

errors made with good intentions
eg. ‘I hurted his feelings’

Question 15

universal grammar

Answer 15

states a set of rules on how to structure language

Question 16

the ‘wug’ test
berko

Answer 16

test invented nouns and verbs to test pluralisation and overgeneralisation

Question 17

genie

Answer 17

case study supports chomsky as she had passed the critical age to learn how to speak, he would argue that her LAD expired and also supports idea that children can’t learn language from interaction with only caregivers

Question 18

tomasello critics chomsky

Answer 18

dismissed chomsky as an ‘armchair linguist’ which questions validity of his theory

Question 19

pinker critics chomsky

Answer 19

points out every utterance a child produces is a brand new combination of words so he questions whether a child can learn from imitation

Question 20

cognitive theory

Answer 20

states that children need a cognitive understanding in order to use language so children cannot linguistically articulate what they don’t understand

Question 21

cognitivism
piaget

Answer 21

children start life in a egocentric way so feel world revolves around them - often seen when a child starts cringe when primary caregiver moves out of sight

Question 22

cognitive deficiency
vygotsky

Answer 22

theory proposes there’s a gap of knowledge - zone of proximal development - and states a more knowledgeable other is needed to help fill the gap