Theories of language acquisition ! Flashcards
Behaviourism: Skinner
suggested that language is acquired solely by observing and imitating the behaviour of others. Positive/negative reinforcement (operant conditioning) from parents supports the learning process. Children do indeed acquire the accent of their primary caregiver, and may repeat those lexemes heard most often.
Nativism: Chomsky
believed that humans are born with a Language Acquisition Device. This is a part of the brain evolutionarily pre-programmed with every grammatical feature possible. As the child hears people speaking around them, the LAD will turn on/off the principles and parameters relevant to their native language.
Lenneberg (1967)
promoted the idea of a critical period for language acquisition. Based on the cases of isolated individuals like Genie, it may well be that the LAD must have input within a limited time-frame in order to process language correctly.
What is LAD supported by
Chomsky believed that virtuous errors were a logical byproduct of, and proved the existence of, an LAD. His theory is further supported by linguistic universals observed across all languages, and the fact that children across the world go through similar stages of language development.
Interactionist theory: Bruner
argued that humans are social creatures who learn through their social environment. It called this the ‘Language Acquisition Support System’, which is different for every child.
Bruner- supported by
His theory is supported by the fact that children with a poor linguistic environment tend to start school with inferior language skills !
Zone of Proximal Development: Vygotsky
theorised that children learn language by interacting with a more skilled partner, who can provide them with an intellectual scaffold. This may explain why children won’t respond to or repeat corrections. Vygotsky asserted that internal mediators were crucial, e.g. inner speech, imagination and pretend play
Cognitive theory: Piaget
proposed that a child cannot learn a word until s/he understands the concept it represents, e.g. object permanence, time, relative sizes. Interaction with peers is imperative, namely through playgroups and imaginative play. Piaget was also interested in egocentric speech, which children grow out of as their experiences widen.
Berko and Brown (1960): Fis phenomenon
babies hear others correctly even if they m don’t pronounce a word correctly themselves
What theory supports Piaget- children don’t learn words unless they understand the concept behind them
Spelke - infants find these categories easiest to understand, Cohesion: clearly defined in shape! Continuity: doesn’t disappear! Solidity: is solid!
Contact: doesn’t have a life of its own!
Another theory to support Piaget
Eva Clarke found that common adjectives are more likely to be included in the child’s
first 50 words than spacial adjectives !
Crystal
Overall Crystal’s theory was that children learn in amorphous stages by trial and error to successfully learn the language. They learn in stages of grammar, different types of questioning e.g. intonation and recognising the rhythms of voices.
Aitchinson
In 1987, she identified three stages that occur during a child’s acquisition of vocabulary: labeling, packaging and network building.
Piaget Stages
Sensori-motor, pre-operational stage, concrete operational stage, formal operational stage
Piaget sensor I motor
Sensori-motor Stage (0 – 2 years) Baby can differenciate from self and objects Parent: Where’s the ball? Child: *points to ball* Ball! P: Yess! And now where’s Tommy? C: *points to self* P: Yesss!
Pre-operational stage Piaget
Pre-operational Stage (2 – 7 years) Can classify objects as a single feature P: Tommy, can you make a pile of all the yellow bricks? C: Yes mummy look! P: Well done! Still thinks egocentrically
Concrete operational stage 7-11 years
Can think logically about objects and events and achieve conservation of number
C: Tomorrow I start ballet, and then I will go every week
Teacher: Oooh! Thats lovely! How old are youy now?
C: 7!
T: Now – please can you put these in order for me?
C: Yep! gets it right
Formal operational stage 11 years +
Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems
C: When I grow up I want to be a doctor
P: And how will you achieve that?
C: I’m going to work really, really hard at school and then get lots and lots of money and then get married, and have children, and live happily ever after!
Holophrastic stage age
11-18 months
Two word stage age
18-24 months, Express questions through intonation!
- Omit pronouns and copula verbs !
- Use interrogative pronouns in isolation!
Study about grammar that links to Chomsky
Roger Brown’s study found that children from all language backgrounds make the
! same grammatical relationships between concepts e.g. subject + verb, so, sc, vo
Gestures
Volterra and Erting (1990): Gesture usage precedes language production and provides a
‘cognitive bridge’ between comprehension and production
Telegraphic stage:
2-5 years
• Mean length of utterance is 3-5 words!
• The child will make rapid progress grammatically
• Children continue to omit nonessential grammatical terms, namely determiners,
inflexions and pronouns!
• A child will often repeat standard adult utterances telegraphically, disproving behaviourism
• By the age of 5, most grammatical rules have been learnt!
• However, the passive voice is yet to be mastered !
Post-telegraphic stage:
5+. A child is now relatively competent grammatically!
• However, they still struggle with:! a) Interrogatives!
• The child must learn:!
- Auxiliary insertion, e.g. do you like singing?!
- Conjugation of main verb to infinitive, e.g. do you like to sing?!
- Use of interrogative pronouns, e.g. what do you like to sing?!
- Inversion of pronoun/auxiliary, e.g. can you sing?!
During the telegraphic stage, the child will:!
Begin using pronouns and possessives!
- Conjugate verbs incorrectly !
- Struggle to invert the auxiliary !
- Omit the ‘do’ auxiliary !
- Begin adding negation, namely negative modals in closed questions
During the post-telegraphic stage, the child will:
Begin to use auxiliaries but continue to conjugate them incorrectly !
Begin mastering inversion, but still struggle, especially when used with interrogative
pronouns!
Struggle to conjugate the main verb into the infinitive form
What must a child learn about negation
Different negatory particles are used in different grammatical contexts to deny the affirmative!
Negation follows an auxiliary or copula verb. If neither is present, add the correctly conjugated form of ‘do’ and make the main verb an infinitive !
The negatory particle does not change word order! Double-negatives are viewed as grammatically incorrect!
Ursula Bellugi (1967) suggested three stages for child negation development/ 2.0, MLU 2-3! Stage 1
Add negatory particle ‘no’ to beginning or end of sentence
Bellini negation- Stage 2
2.3, MLU 3-4!
Use contracted negation of ‘can’t’ and ‘don’t’, likely because these have been learnt as units.
Place the negatory particle in the correct position. Omit auxiliary and verb tense.
Bellini negation stage 3
2.9, MLU 4+!
Struggle to change the verb tense into the infinitive form in the presence of an auxiliary. Limited ability to use and conjugate ‘do’.
May use double-negatives.
Use ‘not’ instead of ‘no’.
Stage 4 Bellugi
Will not
Bellugi negation example of stages
1- no want. 2- I not want that. 3- I don’t want to. 4-I do not want to
Bellugi negation- What is the order that negative forms are acquired in according to Bellugi?
Uses ‘no’ or ‘not’ at the beginning/end of a sentence.
Moves no/not inside the sentence.
Attaches the negative to auxiliary verbs and the copula ‘be’ successfully.
What feature supports the idea that we benefit from input from our environment and supports Skinner?
Manners. They are not innate. If a child hears manners being used, they will imitate
