CLA Theories

CLA Theories

1. SKINNER

   • Children will acquire language by imitating the speech of others
   • When a child produces words successfully, it receives approval and encouragement
     • The reinforcement motivates the child to repeat the behaviour
   • FOR
     • Language is a behaviour like any other and behaviours and learnt by imitation
     • Imitation plays a large part in phonological development
     • Children develop regional accents which indicates that they imitate the sounds they hear around them
   • AGAINST
     • Children have the capacity to understand an infinite number of sentences that are entirely original
     • Children develop an understanding of how grammar works... They are not imitating these mistakes
     • All children go through the same stages of language development, therefore if they were totally dependent on parents, there would be much more variation between individual children

2. CHOMSKY

   • Children have an innate ability to extract the rules underlying language from the words they hear being spoken- the 'language acquisition device' (LAD)
   • Different languages have different surface structures but they all share the same deep structure :EXAMPLE~ UTTERANCES CONTAINING S,V&O ARE COMMON TO ALL LANGUAGES
   • The brain is ready to analyse what is heard and able to understand and apply to rules of grammar
   • FOR
     • An innate LAD would explain impressive speed which children learn to speak
     • LAD explains the fact that children from all cultures pass through similar stages of language development
     • LAD explains the existence of the grammatical features that are common to all languages- linguistic universals
   • AGAINST
     • Underestimates the role of interaction with others in language development
     • Implies that if a child is exposed to language, its acquisition will happen automatically

3. PIAGET

   • Suggested that a child who had not reached the seriation stage, would not be able to learn and use comparative adjectives; like 'bigger' and 'smaller'
   • Piaget's theory takes the view that creating knowledge and intelligence is an inherently active process
   • Believed that there were 4 stages:
     • Sensinimotor
     • Pre- operational
     • Concrete operational
     • Formal operational

4. BRUNER

   • Suggests that the language behaviour of adults when talking to children is specifically adapted to support the acquisition process
     • This support is described as SCAFFOLDING for the child's language learning

5. TREVARTHEN

   • He studied the interaction between parents and babies who were too young to speak
   • He concluded that the turn- taking structure of conversation is developed through cames and non- verbal communications long befoe word are actually uttered

6. BROWN, CAZDEN AND BELLUGI

   • "It seems to be truth value rather than well formed syntax and chiefly governs explicit verbal reinforcements by parents...
   • ... which renders mildly paradoxical the fact that the usual product of such a training schedule is an adult whose speech 'is highly grammatical but not notably truthful'"