Theories of First Language Acquisition

1
Theories of First Language Acquisition
2
Behavioristic Approaches Bloomfield, Fries,
Pavlov, Skinner

• Focus on the immediately perceptible aspects of
  linguistic observable behavior the observable
  responses and the relationships or associations
  between those responses and the events that
  surrounds them.
• Effective language behavior is the production of
  correct responses to stimuli.
• If a linguistic response is reinforced, it
  becomes habitual or conditioned otherwise is
  abandoned

3
Skinners theory of Verbal Behavior (1957)

• learning occurs by operant conditioning
• a response or operant is maintained by
  reinforcement from another person
• verbal behavior is controlled by its consequences
• Theory does not adequately account for
• The human capacity to acquire language
• Language development and language creativity
• The abstract nature of language

4
Other behavioristic options

• Charles Osgoods mediation theory (1953) A
  linguistic stimulus word or sentence elicits a
  response that is self-stimulating of following
  responses by a process that is invisible
  (abstract)
• Jenkins and Palermo (1964) the child may acquire
  frames of a linear pattern of sentence elements
  and learn the stimulus response equivalences that
  can be substituted imitation is essential
  aspects of stimulus-response associations.
• Theory does not account for the abstract nature
  of language and for the fact that all sentences
  that we utter have underlying/deep structures
  that are intricately interwoven in a persons
  total cognitive and affective experience

5
Generativist Approaches (cognitive) Chomsky,
Lenneberg, Berko

• The Generative Model The focus is on abstract
  rules freedom from the scientific method/the
  observable. The approach offers a systematic
  description of the childs language as being
  innately determined, ruled-governed and operating
  in a parallel fashion. Human languages are all
  alike at the deep structuretheory proposes a
  number of potential properties of Universal
  Grammar UG.
• Eric Lenneberg language is human and certain
  modes of perception, categorizing abilities, and
  other language related mechanisms are
  biologically determined we are born with the
  capacity to learn language.
• Berko (1958) The child learns the language not a
  a series of discrete units, but as an integrated
  system.

6
Chomsky (1965)

• Chomsky Language is innately determined.
  Language innate properties explains the childs
  mastery of his native language in such a short
  time despite the abstract nature of linguistic
  rules.
• LAD--language acquisition device is a little
  black box that we all have in our brains that
  allows humans to master a native language
• Ability to discriminate human sounds from other
  sounds and to determine which sounds and
  structures are not part of our native language
• Ability to organize linguistic data
• Ability to construct a complex system such as
  language out of limited linguistic input.

7
Other contributions of the theory

• Universal Grammar UG Explains why is it that
  children, regardless of their environmental
  stimuli (the language around them) learn a
  linguistic system and how they are innately
  equipped to build it and their contribution to
  the acquisition process.
• The childs linguistic development is not a
  process of developing fewer and fewer incorrect
  structures, not a language in which earlier
  stages have more mistakes than later stages.
• The childs language at any stage is
  systematicthe child is always making hypotheses
  in speech and comprehension that are continually
  tested, revised, reshaped or abandoned.

8

• According to the model generative rules are
  connected serially. However,
• Spolsky (1989) Proposes the distribution
  processing model PDP--the childs linguistic
  performance may be the consequence of many
  interconnected levels of simultaneous neural
  interconnections acting in a parallel fashion,
  rather than a serial process of one rule being
  applied, then another, then another
• The human brain enables us to process many
  segments and levels of language, cognition,
  affect, and perception all at once in a parallel
  fashion a sentence has a phonological,
  morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic,
  discourse, sociolinguistic and pragmatic
  properties.
• A sentence is not generated by a series of rules,
  rather sentences are the result of simultaneous
  interconnection of a multitude of brain cells.

9
Constructivist Approaches (functional) Piaget,
Vygotsky, Bloom

• The study of language now centers on the
  relationship of cognitive development and the
  construction of meaning in the environment
• Language is seen as one manifestation of the
  cognitive and affective ability to deal with the
  world, with others, and with the self
• Language must be understood from two stand
  points
• the abstract, formal, explicit rules proposed
  under the generative grammar form of language,
• the functional level of meaning constructed from
  social interaction.

10

• Cognition and Language development
• Bloom (1971) Children learn the underlying
  structures and not superficial word order
  however an utterance carries meaning that is
  context-bound
• What children know will determine what they learn
  about the code for speaking and understanding
  messages
• Piaget (1969) The childs development is the
  result of his interaction with the environment,
  with a complimentary interaction between their
  developing perceptual cognitive capacities and
  their linguistic experience.
• What children learn about language is determined
  by what they already know about their world
• Children appear to approach language learning
  equipped with conceptual interpretive abilities
  for categorizing the world (Gleitman and Wanner,
  1982)

11

• Social Interaction and Language development
• Social constructivist emphasis of the
  constructivist perspectivethe functions of
  language in discourse language functioning
  extends beyond cognitive thought and memory
  structure
• Language development is a reciprocal behavioral
  system that operates between the
  language-developing infant-child and the
  competent adult language user in a
  socializing-teaching-nurturing role
• Language is used for communication it has a
  social function

12
Piagets Theory of Cognitive Development

• What children learn about language is determined
  by what they already know about the world.
• Cognitive development is at the center of the
  human organism --language is dependent upon and
  springs from cognitive development
• Cognitive or mental structure scheme.
• Meaning is construed based on previous background
  knowledge structures.

13
Vygotskys Language/Thought Relationship

• Language is used for communication it initially
  serves a social function.
• Social interaction, through language, is a
  pre-requisite to cognitive development cognitive
  and communicative development evolves from the
  social function of languageevery child reaches
  his or her potential development (including
  language development), in part, through social
  interaction.
• Language and thought are distinct and develop
  independently when the two systems fuse with the
  development of inner speech, logical reasoning
  develops.

14
Current ApproachesConstructivism

• Constructivism is a social construction and
  negotiation of meaning
• Learning is a dynamic process that is both social
  and mental language is a representational system
  formed by the child as she relates symbols to
  concrete concepts and experiences
• Language and thought interact to promote
  intellectual growth thus such representations
  function as a medium for intellectual growth.
• Childrens language use reflects their underlying
  cognitive abilities and their social and
  emotional growth Childrens language is
  culture/community basedit reflects their
  experiences.

15
Brunners constructivism (1994)

• Children are the active transformers of their
  experiences with the world they pick and choose
  what they need to make their own world in their
  head
• Children construct meaning by means of social
  contact and negotiation
• Childrens learning occur within a socio-cultural
  plane and is internalize to the cognitive plane.

16
Language from the perspective of Constructivism

• Language is a representational system formed by
  the child as she relates symbols to concrete
  concepts and experiences
• Language and thought interact to promote
  intellectual growth thus such representations
  function as a medium for intellectual growth.
• Childrens language use reflects their underlying
  cognitive abilities and their social and
  emotional growth.
• Childrens language is culture/community basedit
  reflects their experiences