Language Acquisition Theories

Language Acquisition Theories

1. Jean Aitchison (1987)- suggested 3 development processes

   • Labelling
     • when a child links a sound with an object
   • Packaging
     • makes connections between words: e.g. opposites,similarities
   • Network-building
     • begin to understand the range of meaning

2. Nelson (1973- first words can be put into categories

   • 1. Classes of objects- dog,shoe,ball,car
   • 2. Specific objects- mummy, daddy
   • 3. Actions/Events- give,stop,go,up,where
   • 4. Modifying things- dirty, nice, allgone
   • 5. Personal/Social- hi, bye-bye,yes,no

3. Skinner (1957)- language is acquired through imitation and reinforcement

   • Positive reinforcement- is when behaviour is rewared
   • Negative reinforcement- is when undesirable behaviour is punished with the intention that it will not be repeated
   • Children learn all the specific pronunciations of individual words by copying an adult- therefore is an important part of their phonological development

4. Piaget (1896-1980)- stated that a child needs to have a developed certain mental abilities before acquiring particular aspects of language

   • Sensorimotor (up to 2)- child experiences the physical world through the senses, object permanence develops
   • Pre-operational (2-7)- language and motor skills develop and become more competent, language is egocentric (focused on the child or used by the child)
   • Concrete operational (7-11) children begin to think logically about concrete events
   • Formal operational (11+)- abstract reasoning skills develop

5. Bruner (1982)- suggests there is a Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)

   • This is a system where the caregivers support their child's linguistic development in social situations
   • linguistic support at meal-times, and bath-time gradually teaches a child to play a more 'active part' in social situations, e.g. asking the caregiver questions.

6. Chomsky (1965)- argued that a child's ability to acquire language was inbuilt.

   • He suggested each child has a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), which allows them to take in and use the grammatical rules of the language
   • The approach explained how children end up making overgeneralisations and why they acquire inflections in a certain order- its like the brain is preprogrammed

7. Vygotsky (1978)- suggests social interaction and experiencing different social and cultural contexts are important for language development

   • Two significant factors that contribute to language development
     • Private speech- when a child talks aloud to themselves
     • Zone of Proximinal Development (ZPD)- when a child needs a caregiver's help in order to interact

8. Halliday (1975) states that early language of children has 7 functions

   • Instrumental- to get something
   • Regulatory- to make requests or give orders
   • Interactional- to relate to others
   • Personal- to convey a sense of personal identity and to express feeling and emotions
   • Heuristic- to find out about the immediate environment
   • Imaginative- to be creative through language that relates to play, storytelling, rhymes and humour
   • Representational- to convey information

9. Lenneberg (1967)- proposed the Critical Period Hypothesis

   • Without linguistic intercation before ages 5-6, language development is severely limited