Language Acquisition

Question 1

Language Acquisition

Answer 1

Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate.

Question 2

Theories of language acquisition

Answer 2

Various theories and approaches have been emerged over the years to study and analyze the process of language acquisition.

Question 3

Imitation, Nativism or Behaviorism :

Answer 3

Based on the empiricist or behavioral approach

Question 4

Innateness or Mentalism :

Answer 4

Based on the rationalistic or mentalist approach

Question 5

Cognition :

Answer 5

Based on the cognitive-psychological approach

Question 6

Motherese or Input:

Answer 6

Based on the maternal approach to language acquisition

Question 7

Imitation

Answer 7

• Children start out as clean slates and language learning is process of getting linguistic habits printed on these slates
• Language Acquisition is a process of experience
• Language is a ‘conditioned behavior’
• Stimulus~ Response~ Feedback~ Reinforcement

Question 8

Imitation main figure:

Answer 8

B. F.Skinner

Question 9

Imitation :Children learn language step by step

Answer 9

Imitation~Repetition~Memorization~Controlled drilling~Reinforcement

Question 10

Imitation: Reinforcement

Answer 10

Reinforcement can either be positive or negative

Question 11

Imitation: Popular View

Answer 11

Children learn to speak by imitating the utterances heard around them and analogy

Children strengthen their responses by the repetitions, corrections, and other reactions that adults provide, thus language is practice based

Question 12

Imitation: General perception

Answer 12

That there is no difference between the way one learns a language and the way one learns to do anything else

Question 13

Imitation: Main focus

Answer 13

Is on inducing the child to behave with the help of mechanical drills and exercises

Question 14

Two Kinds Of Evidence Used To Criticize Behaviorist Theory

Answer 14

1. First Evidence: Based on the kind of language children produce
2. Second Evidence: Based on what children do not produce

Question 15

First Evidence: Based on the kind of language children produce

Answer 15

First piece of evidence taken from the way children handle irregular grammatical patterns

While encountering irregular items, there is a stage when they replace forms based on the regular patterns of language

Gradually they switch over to the process of ‘analogy’ – a reasoning process as they start working out for themselves

Question 16

Second Evidence: Based on what children do not produce

Answer 16

The other evidence is based on the way children seem unable to imitate adult grammatical constructions exactly

Best known demonstration of this principle is provided by American Psycholinguist David McNeill (1933)

Thus, language acquisition is more a matter of maturation than of imitation

Question 17

Nativist or Innateness Theory

Answer 17

Limitations of Behaviorist view of language acquisition led in 1960’s to the alternative ‘generative’ account of language

Children are born with an innate propensity for language acquisition, and that this ability makes the task of learning a first language easier than it would otherwise be.

The human brain is ready naturally for language in the sense when children are exposed to speech, certain general principles for discovering or structuring language automatically begin to operate

Question 18

Nativist or Innateness Theory: Main Argument

Answer 18

Children must be born with an innate capacity for language development

Question 19

Nativist or Innateness Theory: Main Figure

Answer 19

Bloomfield & Noam Chomsky

Question 20

Chomsky originally theorized:

Answer 20

That children were born with a hard-wired language acquisition device (LAD) in their brains. He later expanded this idea into that of Universal Grammar

Question 21

Universal Grammar (Chomsky):

Answer 21

A set of innate principles and adjustable parameters that are common to all human languages. The child exploits its LAD to make sense of the utterances heard around it, deriving from this ‘primary linguistic data’ – the grammar of the language

Question 22

LAD is exploited:

Answer 22

To explain the remarkable speed with which children learn to speak, and the considerable similarity in the way grammatical patterns are acquired across different children and languages

Question 23

According to Chomsky:

Answer 23

The presence of Universal Grammar in the brains of children allow them to deduce the structure of their native languages from & quot;mere exposure”.

Primary data is then used to make sentences or structures after a process of trial and error, correspond to those in adult speech

Question 24

Two distinct views about how LAD functions: #1

Answer 24

LAD provides children with a knowledge of linguistic universals such as the existence of word order and word classes

Question 25

Two distinct views about how LAD functions: #2

Answer 25

LAD provides children only general procedures for discovering language to be learned

Question 26

Innate Theory is criticized for:

Answer 26

The role of adult speech can not be ruled out in providing a means of enabling children to work out the regularities of language for themselves

It has proved difficult to formulate the detailed properties of LAD in an uncontroversial manner, in the light of the changes in generative linguistic theory that have taken place in later years, and meanwhile, alternative accounts of the acquisition process have evolved

That there are principles of grammar that cannot be learned on the basis of positive input alone

The concept of LAD is unsupported by evolutionary anthropology which shows a gradual adaptation of the human body to the use of language, rather than a sudden appearance of a complete set of binary parameters (which are common to digital computers but not to neurological systems such as a human brain) delineating the whole spectrum of possible grammars ever to have existed and ever to exist.

The theory has several hypothetical constructs, such as movement, empty categories, complex underlying structures, and strict binary branching, that cannot possibly be acquired from any amount of input.

Mentalists’ emphasis on the rule-learning is over-enthusiastic

Question 27

Chomsky (1965)

Answer 27

Provides a distinction between competence and performance – between the underlying ability which allows linguistic behavior to take place and the behavior itself

Question 28

According to UG

Answer 28

The learner’s initial state is supposed to consist of a set of universal principles common to all human languages

Question 29

Structure Dependency

Answer 29

This principle states that language is organized in such a way that it crucially depends on the structural relationships between elements in a sentence

Question 30

Parameters

Answer 30

Determine the ways in which languages can vary

Question 31

Head Parameter

Answer 31

Specifies the position of the head in relation to its compliments within phrases for different languages

Question 32

Criticism of UG Theory

Answer 32

Linguistically, this approach’s primary concern is only syntax

Question 33

Noam Chomsky (1957)

Answer 33

Published Syntactic Structures , in which he developed the idea that each sentence in a language has two levels of representation — a deep structure and a surface structure

Question 34

Surface Structure

Answer 34

Represents the Physical properties of language

Question 35

The deep structure

Answer 35

Represented the core semantic relations of a sentence, and was mapped on to the surface structure (which followed the phonological form of the sentence very closely) via transformations .

Question 36

Cognitive Theory: Main Argument

Answer 36

Language Acquisition must be viewed within the context of a child’s intellectual development

Question 37

Cognitive Theory: Most influential figure

Answer 37

Genevan Psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) who proposed the model of cognitive development

Question 38

Cognitive theory is criticized for:

Answer 38

It is highly difficult to show precise correlations between specific cognitive behaviors and linguistic features at the very early stage of language acquisition as the children become linguistically and cognitively more advanced in the course of time

Question 39

Input Theory

Answer 39

The studies of Motherese in the 1970’s focused upon the maternal input

Question 40

Input Theory: Main Argument

Answer 40

Parents do not talk to their children in the same way as they talk to other adults and seem to be capable of adapting their language to give the child maximum opportunity to interact and learn

Question 41

Input Theory: Main Figure

Answer 41

C. A. Ferguson (1977)