Language Aquisition

Language Aquisition

1. Language is used by all walks of life but exclusive to humans

2. Theorists agree that development follows a pattern up until the age of five

   • Stage 1 (fist year): Development of gestures, sounds and become familiar with words. Children begin to use phonemes, and near the end of this stage can hear the difference between sounds.
   • Stage 2 (second year): Increasingly able to initiate conversation, join in with simple games and develop song and rhyme. A first word shows the understanding of meaning attached to a series of sounds. Nominal insight is also developed, the knowing that all objects can be named. This can develop into an assumption that all things similar to say a "ball" fall under the same word, however this isn't always true. A child must then use other characteristics to distinguish between objects and words
     • Children often form sentences using their own perceived grammar rules in the early stages.
     • Pivot Grammar: Categorising words into open and Pivot. Words like down, up and off would be pivot words, whilst others like car ball, dog would be open. Words are regularly added to the open class but rarely added to the pivot section. Sentences are then structured with a pivot and open word or vice versa, but rarely the same twice.
       • Ball up, Car gone, Dog off
       • Off up, Car ball,
   • It takes children approximately 18 months to build up a vocabulary of 50 words
   • Stage 3: Rapid development (third and fourth years). Their language meets most of their needs referring to past, present and distant events. Extended conversation and play become regular. Phonemes become proficient as well as constant clusters. Have developed a questioning sentence structure. Morphology improves and interestingly learning things like form rules can actually hinder a child when it comes to irregular verbs that they've used in the pas e.g. I ran becomes I runned.
   • Beyond stage 3: Maturity. Children begin to link and bridge sentences together with "and" to begin with but gradually more complex ways. Abilities to understand metaphors and meaning behind sayings becomes clearer. Children learn when and in what circumstances to use specific words or where to avoid them. Social interaction develops stages relevant to situation or formality.

3. Theories of Language Acquisition

   • Imitation and Reward: Behaviourist Theory. This believes that language is picked up from parents copied and rewarded if correct. It goes somewhat to explain accents and the passing down of dialogue but also has a number of issues. Firstly it cannot explain the speed in which children learn new words (not enough interaction and reward). Secondly it doesn't explain some of the creativity that we see in children's sentences. (Skinner)
   • The language instinct: Nativists approach. (Noam Chomsky) Chomsky argues that we are all born with a Language acquisition device (LAD) which helps us understand the grammatical structures we hear. Chomsky argues that much of what we hear as a child is incomplete and may contain errors so its this disposition that helps us make sense of it all. Some evidence supports this, like the ability for a child to master a language so quickly. The opposite side, of not learning a language before the age of 12 means you may never fully master it.
   • Learning from community: Interactionists approach. (Jerome Bruner). Similar to Chomsky Bruner suggests their is a language acquisition support system (LASS). Improved by the countless interactions we experience everyday from birth. Whether it be the high pitch and over enthusiastic simple sentence that comes from parents to the more mature conversations with teachers and friends in later years. They argue that children are supported with well targeted discussion and language, whilst agreeing the process is a nature/nurture one.