Language Acquisition Flashcards
Children are born with an innate capacity to learn language and are born with knowledge of universal grammar
Cognitive Nativist Theory - Noam Chomsky 1950s
The wug test shows that children understand universal grammar
Jean Berke
Language is acquired through imitation and positive reinforcement (negative reinforcement doesn’t work on children) When a child completes a successful communication attempt, the adult will reward through praise/giving the child what they asked for. This leads to successful utterances being reinforced and unsuccessful ones being forgotten. This is evidenced by children’s acquisition of accents/dialects
Behaviourist theory- BF Skinner
Children develop language through a Language Acquisition Support System and Child Directed Speech. By interacting with adults, children learn how to hold conversations. This is evidenced through children’s acquisition of turn taking and politeness
Social Interactionaist Theory - Jerome Bruner
Language acquisition is simply a part of a wider development of skills and understanding. Children must learn about concepts before they can produce the language to articulate their ideas. This is evidenced by speech becoming more complex and going through 4 stages
Cognitive Theory - Jean Piaget
Universal grammar cannot exist as every language has its own grammar rules. Children are too sophisticated learners than the behaviourist model can account for. Children acquire language through nurture. This happens in 2 stages:
Intention-reading - mutual attention with adults over objects (learning to associate word and meaning through adult interaction).
Pattern Finding - categorising language into separate connections.
Certain parts of the body must be sufficiently developed in order for language acquisition to take place
Cognitive Functionalist Theory - Tomasello
Cognitive development takes place out of a need to communicate.
There are three stages/forms of language in the development process:
Social speech - communication between children and others (usually from the age of 2)
Private speech - private speech that is directed to the self but has not yet been internalised (usually from the age of 3)
Silent inner speech - a child’s internal monologue (usually from the age of 7)
Social constructivist theory - Vygotsky
The critical period of language acquisition is 6 months to 2 years
Lenneburg
Negation is learnt in 3 stages:
1. No/not used singularly or in front of a phrase
2. “Don’t” and “can’t” begin to be used along with “no” and “not” after a subject and before the verb (3rd year)
3. More negative terms added eg “didn’t” and “isn’t”, negative constructions used more accurately
Negation
There are 4 stages of linguistic development:
Up to 1 year old - scribble talk (sounds like speech but lacks meaning)
1 year 8 months - 50 word lexicon, réduplication and overextension
2 years old - 300 word lexicon, inflections emerging, object permanence
3 years old - 10 word sentences, lexicon too large to estimate, contractions being used, struggles with irregular verbs/nouns, parataxis, multiple negation
David Crystal
