Theories of Language Development

Question 1

Noam Chomsky

Answer 1

Nativist Theory - 1965
- Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
For
- Language Development Stages - children all develop similarly at similar ages
- Virtuous errors are made by the knowledge of rules
- Not all children are exposed to child directed speech (different cultures), yet develop their understanding of language.
- Fis phenomenon (Berko & Brown)
Against
- Genie - had no interaction for her whole childhood and never was able to develop her understanding of the english language
- Skinner argues that interaction, imitation and reinforcement are important in language development.

Question 2

Bruner

Answer 2

1983 - LASS: A system where caregivers support their child’s linguistic development in social situation.
- Children who are deprived of language early on don’t seem able to acquire it easily later.

Lenneberg (1967) - Critical Period Hypothesis: without linguistic interaction before ages 5-6, language development is severely limited. (Genie)

Question 3

Skinner

Answer 3

1957 Behaviourist Theory - Imitation
Children repeat what they hear and caregivers reward their effort with praise. Caregivers repeat words and phrases back and correcting mistakes.
Against
- Children can construct new sentences they’ve never heard before, so they aren’t always directly imitating.
- They don’t memorise thousands of sentences to use later.
- Imitation can’t explain overgeneralisations (virtuous errors) e.g. ‘he runned away’, as they don’t copy these as adults done make errors.
- Fis phenomenon - children can recognise a much larger range of words than they are able to use.

Question 4

Piaget

Answer 4

Cognitive theory
a child cannot articulate concepts that he or she does not understand.
e.g. a child must understand what the past is before they can use the past tense. ‘discovery learning’
For
- children do not seem to grasp language until they are ready
Against
- fis phenomenon (Berko & Bruner) suggests children’s cognitive understanding can be present but their physical development may still impact their ability to use language.

Question 5

Social Interactionist Theory (Bruner)

Answer 5

• Gaining attention - getting child’s attention on object or thing
• Querying - asking the child a question
• Labelling - telling the child what the answer is
• Feedback - responding to child’s utterances

e. g.
mum: ‘Look at this, can you see the duck? WHat sound does a duck make? They go ‘Quak Quak’ don’t they?’
child: ‘quak’
mum: ‘yes well done they go quak quak’

Question 6

Outline the behaviourist theory of language acquisition

Answer 6

suggests children learn language through imitation and reinforcement. - Skinner

Question 7

What evidence is there to suggest that all children have an LAD?

Answer 7

• fis phenomenon
• children from all over the world pass through similar stages at similar ages despite cultural differences.
• Grammatical errors (virtuous errors)
  
  • overgeneralisation - past tense ed on irregular verbs such as ‘go’ - you wouldn’t hear an adult say ‘goed’, suggests the inbuilt knowledge.
• not all children are exposed to child directed speech

Question 8

What is object permanence?

Answer 8

Piaget - (8-9 months) - objects continue to exist even when one cannot see them.

Question 9

Outline Bruner’s theory of the LASS

Answer 9

A system where caregivers support their child’s linguistic development in social situation.

• Children who are deprived of language early on don’t seem able to acquire it easily later.
• there are patterns of interaction between a child and caregiver in everyday social situation