language acquisition Flashcards
What is the name of Skinner’s theory and what did he claim?
Behaviourism theory. He claimed that children acquire language by imitating the speech of others and being rewarded for it.
How does Skinner’s operant conditioning work?
When a child produces words successfully they receive a reward
such as praise, encouragement.
If we do something and it has pleasant consequences, we’re
more likely to do it again.
How is Skinner’s behaviourism theory supported?
a) Children will copy words their parents say
b) Children usually acquire the same pronunciation as their parents
c) Children usually acquire politeness from their parents
How does Berko criticise Skinner?
Wug experiment - suggests language is not being copied as they have never learnt the word before
How do Berko and Brown criticise Skinner?
Fis Phenomenon - Sometimes children can’t produce the phoneme /ʃ/, but know it’s different from the phoneme /s/. They cannot copy it even though they know it.
How does Chomsky criticise Skinner?
Claimed that language used by adults when speaking to children is ‘impoverished’. Criticises copying, suggesting children would never learn to be adult speakers if they could only copy what adults said to them (would have limited syntax, grammar may be poor).
How is Skinner’s behaviourism theory criticised?
a) All children acquire language in the same order and usually at the same rate regardless of parental attention (e.g. Nelson’s 50 words)
b) Children often say things they’ve never heard an adult say e.g. virtuous errors
What is the name of Chomsky’s theory and what does he claim?
Nativism. He claimed that children have an innate ability to understand grammar, and that in our brains is a Language Acquisition Device (LAD).
Describe the LAD.
The LAD enables children to listen to language and extract the rules of grammar from it. Chomsky believed that all languages share the same ‘deep structure’ e.g. the difference between nouns and verbs. He called this ‘Universal Grammar’.
What are used to support the existence of the LAD?
Virtuous errors. They show that the child is attempting to apply rules of grammar they have figured out.
What would the existence of the LAD explain?
a) The rapid speed at which children acquire language
b) The fact that all children acquire language in the same stages
c) The fact that some grammatical features are common to all languages
What case study could be used to support Chomsky’s Nativism Theory?
The escaped enslaved people in Suriname - they were forced to communicate in a limited Dutch pidgin which their children developed into a fully sophisticated creole.
How is Chomsky’s Nativism Theory criticised?
a) It just focuses on grammar. Sentences can be grammatically correct but still semantically meaningless e.g. ‘Colourless green dreams sleep furiously’.
b) Genie - Between 20 months and 13 years, Genie was locked in isolation by her father. When she was finally rescued she was unable to speak. Despite intensive support, she was never able to speak beyond a very basic level.
What did Eric Lenneberg propose?
The ‘critical period’ - the age before which you must be exposed to language and social interaction or you will be unable to learn it (up to 5).
What did Macnamara say?
Rather than having an in-built language device, children have an innate capacity to read meaning into social situations. It is this capacity that makes them capable of understanding and learning language, not the LAD.
What should you look for in a transcript for Chomsky’s Nativism Theory?
Evidence of children of similar ages being in similar stages, children making up new utterances they can’t have possibly heard before.
What is the name of Piaget’s theory and what does he suggest?
Cognitivism. He suggests that language acquisition is just a part of a child’s wider cognitive development.
He believed that children develop mental skills and abilities, which he called a child’s Cognitive Development, in predictable stages. Children can only acquire an aspect of language once they have the cognitive skills to understand the concept involved.
What is object permanence and how do children acquire language from this?
Children learn that objects continue to exist whether or not they can see or feel them. Once children learn that things are stable, they begin to learn their names more readily.
What is classification and how do children acquire language from this?
Children learn to classify objects and actions e.g. some things are eaten, some are played with. Once children learn that things come in groups, they can divide words into linguistic categories e.g. nouns, verbs etc.
What is seriation and how do children acquire language from this?
Children learn that things come in a series or an order e.g. stories have a start and a conclusion. Children learn to use comparative terms.
How is Piaget’s Cognitivism Theory criticised?
a) Many people with language difficulties do not have poor cognitive development.
b) Piaget’s work only considers the role of language in conveying thoughts. It neglects the social function of language; its use to establish and maintain relationships.
What is Bruner’s Input Theory and what does he suggests?
He suggested that language used by parents when talking to children (CDL) is specifically designed to help children learn.
What is the LASS?
Bruner claimed that children-directed language works as a ‘Language Acquisition Support System alongside Chomsky’s LAD.
How does child-directed language operate as a support system?
a) Parents speak more slowly and simply to children as it’s easier to understand and imitate.
b) Parents expand children’s speech.
c) Parents introduce new words by using repeated sentence frames.
d) Parents use more pauses to give the child time to absorb the speech.
How is Bruner’s Input Theory supported?
a) Research suggests that mothers who talk more have children with larger vocabularies (Clarke-Stewart).
b) Children who were corrected in their speech tend to develop more slowly.
How is Bruner’s Input Theory criticised?
Not all cultures use CDL but their children still learn to speak e.g. Tsimane tribe of Bolivia.
What does Vygotsky suggest?
Vygotsky developed Bruner’s theory, noting that adults often provide ‘scaffolding’ to help children to form an utterance e.g. expansion, repetition.
Outline 5 features of child-directed language
Repeated sentence frames, expansion, re-castings, repetition, largely concrete nouns and dynamic verbs
