Theories of language acquisition

Question 1

spoken language nature vs nurture- nativists

Answer 1

CHOMSKY AND PINKER
believed we were all born with innate ability to learn language (this is only human)
they believed its innate due to cross cultural findings e.g. babbling
genetics shown through universal grammar
This all happens through the LAD language acquisition device (Chomsky)

Question 2

spoken language nature vs nurture- behaviourists

Answer 2

SKINNER
comes from environment
this is shown as we learn different languages - different dialects and different accents.
learn through imitation and reinforcement (praise)
the more parents/adults speak the quicker their language development

Question 3

evidence against nativist

Answer 3

understates complexity in language- e.g. we have differences in grammar
impossible to test this theory
some grammatical constructions are not learnt till much later- the question is if everything was innate why would we learn it later on if its already there.

Question 4

evidence against behaviourists

Answer 4

children can say things that they have never said before

suggests a huge support from parents to facilitate language development which is actually not possible

Question 5

Interactionist approach?

Answer 5

VYGOTSKY
nativist and behaviourist
biological and social aspects interact

Question 6

extra reading CHOMKSKY 1965

Answer 6

innate ‘language acquisition device’ -LAD

evidence Brown and Bellugi 1964- studied 2 children Adam and Eve - found overgeneralisation of inflictions such as using s as plural (tooths, sheeps, deers) and ed to form past tense (growed, hurted, swimmed) they concluded this is not from adult models but made them themself on the basis of simple grammatical hypothesis thus supporting the LAD model Chomsky 1965 created

Question 7

extra reading - cognition hypothesis CROMER 1974

Piaget views

Answer 7

only when our cognitive abilities allows us to do so can we use and understand certain linguistic structues (e.g. a child can gesture they want a toy even before they can use the holophrase ‘toy’

we may say things in a less complex way even when we have cognitivley grasped an idea as we have not aqquired the grammatical rules to freely express it yet ( they may say ‘have you seen it’ like ‘have u looked yet’)

Piaget believes we do not have an innate LAD but we form schemas from the environment and language development comes after this

Piagetian support interactionist approaches