EL 204 – PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING LESSON 8
THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO FIRST - In this case the child produce a series of related
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION practise sentences and use language creatively
without imitate the other’s speech.
Theories of first Language Acquisition 2. The innatist perspective
- Language acquisition is the process by which - Noam Chomsky is the best known and the most
humans acquire the capacity to perceive and influential American linguist of the second half
comprehend language, as well as to produce of the Twentieth Century.
and use words to communicate.
- He has made a number of strong claims about
- First language acquisition refers to the child’s language.
acquisition of his mother tongue, and how he
comes to understand and speak the language - He argued that children are biologically
of his community. programmed for language and that language
develops in the child as well as the other
biological functions develop.
1. The behaviourist perspective
- To acquire language a child only needs the
- The Behaviorist perspective, Learning is availability of people who speak to him.
explained in terms of imitation practice and
reinforcement. - A child‘s biological endowment will do the rest.
- Behaviorist's view that children learn language Chomsky’s critical review of behaviourist theory
through a process of stimulus (hearing) and
response, in which they imitate sounds and - Chomsky argued that Children’s minds are not
practise what they hear. blank slates to be filled by imitating language
they hear in the environment.
- Thus, correct structures are positively
reinforced and encouraged by their - They are born with a specific innate ability to
environment. discover for themselves the underlying rules of
a language system on the basis of the samples
- Examples of children’s speech of a natural language they are exposed to.
1. Lois: You’re gonna put more wheels in the - Chomsky suggests that language is an innate
dump truck ability that is to say that human beings born
with set of rules about language in the brains
Peter: Dump truck. [Link] truck. called the UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR.
- Children do not imitate adults’ speech in the - It is agreed by the most linguists that grammar
same way as parrots do. is complex.
- They imitate words selectively according to - Proponents of the innatist perspective argue
their own understandings of the sounds or that this complexity could never be learned
patterns. purely on the basis of imitating and practising
sentences available in the input.
2. Lois: Did you see the toys I brought?
- Children must have some innate mechanism of
Kathryn: I bring toys? Choo choo? Lois knowledge that allows them to discover such
brought the choo choo train? complex syntax in spite of limitations of the
input.
The Critical Period Hypothesis
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EL 204 – PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING LESSON 8
The importance of interaction:
- The critical period hypothesis is the subject of a
- Social interactions between a language-
long-standing debate in linguistics and
learning child and an interlocutor play an
language acquisition over the extent to which
important role in development of language
the ability to acquire language is biologically
skills.
linked to age.
- The hypothesis claims that there is an ideal
- This role is illuminated by cases where such
time window to acquire language in a
interaction is missing.
linguistically rich environment, after which
- A child called Jim was a hearing child of deaf
further language acquisition becomes much
parents, his only contact with oral language
more difficult or impossible.
was through television.
3. Interactionist/developmental perspectives Problems
- He did not begin his linguistic development in a
of Innatism
normal environment in which a parent
communicated with him in either oral or sign
- Too much emphasis on the final state, but not
language.
enough on the developmental aspects of
language acquisition.
- Connectionists hypothesize that language
- Language is one manifestation of the cognitive
acquisition does not require a separate “module
and affective ability to deal with the world.
of the mind” but can be explained in terms of
- Cognitive psychologists view that language
learning in general.
acquisition is an example of child’s ability to
learn from experience.
- They argue that what children need to know is
essentially available in the language they are
Piaget:
exposed to.
- He placed the acquisition of first language
within the context of child's mental or cognitive
- Connectionism views language as a complex
development.
system of units which become interconnected
in the mind as they are encountered together.
- He trace the development of children's
cognitive understanding such as object
- The more often units are heard or seen
permanence, stability of quantity and logical
together, the more likely it is that the presence
inferencing etc.
of one will lead to the activation of the other.
- Language can be used to represent knowledge
- Language acquisition is not just a process of
that children have acquired through physical
associating words with elements of external
interaction with the environment.
reality.
Vygotsky: - It is also a process of associating words and
phrases with the other words and phrases that
- He observed that the interaction among
occur with them, or words with grammatical
children and also between children and adults
morphemes that occur with them.
is important in the development of language.
- He argued that language develops primarily Language disorders and delays
from social interaction.
- Language disorders or language impairments
are disorders that involve the processing of
- A supportive interactive environment enables
linguistic information.
children to advance to a higher level ok
knowledge. Than they would be able to do
- Problems that may be experienced can involve
independently as the ZPD.
grammar (syntax), semantics (meaning), or
other aspects of language.
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EL 204 – PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING LESSON 8
- Types of this disability can include: deafness,
articulatory problems and dyslexia.
