AQA A2 Level English Language B

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FOUR MAIN THEORISTS

CHOMSKY…

Noam Chomsky stated that children are born with an innate knowledge of language

when they are born and learning of their native language is at high speed when

hearing it from others. This links to children over regularising and putting

grammar into utterances when they are not needed.

Chomsky is one of the most famous theorists on child

language acquisition and his theories were based on his own intuitions about

English and not actually studied on real children.

Chomsky created the LAD - Language Acquisition Device

1. Baby already knows about linguistic rules, as they are born with an innate

knowledge of language.

2. Baby hears examples of his/ her native language

3. The linguistic rules help Baby make estimations and presumptions about the

language it is hearing.

4. From these estimations and presumption Baby works out grammatical sets of

rules. As more language is heard the grammar becomes m

like adults.

SKINNER…

B.F. Skinner bases his theory of children acquiring language through

behaviourism. Skinner states that all behaviour is conditioned through:

Positive Reinforcement –

Rewards, repetitions, following through of requests and demands

Negative Reinforcement –

Punishment, ignoring, denial of wants

This happens again and again until the behaviour is learned

and becomes natural and automatic. So, babies imitate their parents/carers and

are either reprimanded or praised according to their accuracy. Skinner believes

that biology plays almost no part in the way children learn language.

PIAGET…

Piaget's theory on children learning language is mainly focused around

“cognitive development,” meaning language is controlled by the development of

thinking. If a baby can use sentences involving phrases such as, "more

than", "less than" it is obvious that the concepts of "more

than" must have been grasped, before the child uses the phrase in an

utterance. Put simply, until the child thinks of a concept, they cannot

vocalise it and the higher their thinking the more they vocalise.

BRUNER…

Bruner created and argued for the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS).

Bruner states through LASS that parents often use books and images to develop

their child’s naming abilities and their ability to get involved in

conversation.

1- Gaining attention- drawing the babies attention to a picture

2- Query- asking the baby to identify the picture

3- Label- telling the baby what the object is

4- Feedback- responding to the babies utterances

This is also called SCAFFOLDING, where the child is

supported in their learning of language by carers and once they have learnt it,

the support is taken away.

OTHER THEORISTS

BERKO AND BROWN…

Found that a child

who referred to a plastic inflatable fish as a ‘fis’ substituting the ‘s’ sound

for the ‘sh’ sound, couldn’t link an adult saying ‘fis’ as the same object

(only responded to adult saying ‘fish’).

JEAN AITCHSON…

Stages of lexical development

1- Labelling – Linking words to objects to which they refer, understanding

labels

2- Packaging – Exploring labels and where they can apply, over/underextension

occurs in order to gain meanings.

3- Network-building – Making connections between words, understanding

similarities and opposites in meaning. They start with a HYPERNYM (a general

word that can have more specific words under it) and explore HYPONYMS (words

that fall under a hypernym’s category)

HALLIDAY…

Functions of child language; the most commonly used is

instrumental and regulatory, which are learnt, along with interactional and

personal, at a young age. Representational is used by 6-8+ year olds.

o Representational - "I've got something to show

you" - language showing how they feel, declarative

o Regulatory - "Do as I tell you" - requesting/asking for things

o Instrumental - "I want"- expressing needs/wants

o Interactional - "Me and you" - speaking to other, establishing

personal contact

o Imaginative - "Let's pretend" - imaginative language, used with

play, to create imaginary world. Crystal talks of 'phonological' function as

playing with sound.

o Personal - "Here I come"- child expresses their feelings/expressing

personal preferences

o Heuristic - "Tell me why"- uses language to explore environment/

seeking information

JOHN DORE…

Describes language functions that focuses more on individual

utterances

o Labelling – Naming a person, object or thing.

o Repeating – Repeating an adult word or utterance

o Answering – Responding to an utterance of another speaker

o Requesting Action – Asking for something to be done for them

o Calling – Getting someone’s attention

o Greeting – Greeting someone

o Protesting – Objecting to requests from others

o Practising – Using language when no adult is present.

FEAUTRES OF

CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISTION…

Holophrases - one word

(12-18mths), then two-word stage (after 18mths), then telegraphic speech (after

2yrs) - sometimes grammatically correct but omit determiners like 'a' and 'the'

Underextension - 'car' only

for family car, but not other cars

Overextension - 'car' for

tractor, van, etc

Fis phenomenon - Berko and

Brown - child pronounces fish as fis but when a parent asks if it is a fis, the

child says no - when asked if it's a fish, child says yes. can understand a

word without being able to pronounce it - comprehension before speech

Simplification - deletion,

substitution

Intonation - Cruttenden -

found children find it harder to recognise intonation

Questions - inflection

often used at first to show it's a question, then question words learnt during

2nd yr, firstly what and where, then why, how and who. results in 'where daddy

gone?' as they've not learnt auxiliary verb, 'has'. auxiliary verbs learnt 3rd

yr, and how to form qus is learnt too (reverse subject and verb order). 'joe is

here' --> 'is joe here?' but wh- words not always inverted correctly - 'why

joe isn't here?'

Critical period for

learning - Cases about twins who were kept locked up by their family, but they

were rescued young so developed normally. Feral children like Genie, who was

forced not to talk, and hence only made limited lang progress as she is thought

to have missed the critical period for learning lang. Two girls were found wolves

in a wolves' den and had trouble learning to speak etc

"After three years, Kamala had mastered a small vocabulary of about a

dozen words. After several more years, her vocabulary had increased to about

40.To compare, a normal two-year-old child, at the peak of its language

learning, would find it easy to pick up 40 new words in a single week. Also,

Kamala's words were only partly-formed and her grammar stilted"

Stages of negatives:

Aged 0-15months - Gestures

are used to indicate a negative

15-18months - single words

"no" "not" are used

2-2 1/2 yrs -

"no" and "not" are used either at the beginning or end of a

sentence e.g. "no eat" "going not"

3yrs - negatives are used

with the correct syntax i.e. intergrated into the sentence

4/5/6yrs - more subtle

negatives i.e hardly, are used, as well,

"can't" "won't" etc. Implied negatives are understood, i.e.

"we'll go later"

Look at how much is said by

each person, who controls what is being said, who takes the lead, pragmatics,

social context, as well as the actual things that are being said

TIPS FOR

ANSWERING LANGUAGE CHANGE QUESTIONS…

Stick to frameworks

Get as much context as you

can in - eg look at the date and try to think what would have been happening at

the time.

A key period is following

the introduction of the printing press (1476) and the introduction of the first

dictionary (1755 - Samuel Johnson). Also remember the grammar books that

appeared at the time - the writers that tried to "fix" the language

(Robert Lowth's Short Introduction to English Grammar was written 1762). All

these had an influence on the language, and helped it to become standardised

(slowly - remember it didn't all happen at once).

Important point: the

dictionary (Samuel Johnson 1755) was prescriptivist! It taught people how words

should be defined and spoken, Mr Johnson also excluded words he found

unfashionable from the dictionary. To end on, the finished version was very

expensive and could only be afforded by the wealthy.

Where

some English words have come from

English is a Germanic

language

Some words can be Latinate

- tend to be the more fancy, scientific words, or ones to do with legal

stuff...introduced mainly during the Renaissance to make the words sound more

impressive

Norse words - tend to be

things like "window" and "sky" - everyday outdoor objects

Saxon/Celtic words - words

to do with family relationships?

French influence - along

with Latinate, return to "correct" spelling which led to the

"b" in "subtle" and "debt" as a reminder of the

latin origin (debt comes from debitum which has a "b"). Also, some

words have entered English twice. "Chief" and "Chef" both

have the same french root, which is thought in turn to come from the latin for

"head".

Samuel Johnson's dictionary

(1755) wasn't the very first, but was the first substantial one that people

refer to

Contemporary language

change- estuary English, slang etc

Terms - like amelioration

(meaning of word becomes better),perjoration (meaning of word becoming worse),

broadening (word means more than one thing), narrowing (word means fewer things

now), coinings/neologisms (new words, like 'kodak'), loan words (words from

other langs etc) etc. These are all examples of semantic change.

REASONS FOR

LANGUAGE CHANGE…

Blurring of the class

structure - fewer extremes

Proliferation of TV and

film

Education - compulsory

education etc

New technology

Rise of youth culture

Media & public

broadcasting

Impact of foreign invasion

(Norse, Norman French)

Printing press - introduced

by William Caxton in 1476 - used East Midlands dialect - dialect of education

(Oxbridge) etc, became Standard Eng. Printing press worked by ordering letter

blocks, so the actual font needed to be standardised. As well as that, spelling

and language was standardised to a certain extent as well. Perhaps most

importantly is that it was the portal into the world of written texts, which

allowed them to be passed around and transported all across the country, which

may have contributed to standardising language.

Rise of merchant classes

Scientific

development/technology

King James Bible

Also remember, language is still changing.

Through media, travel, politics, etc.

English has become a

significant global language due to expansion of the British Empire, and, more

recently, the significance that the USA have across the world.

English exists as many

different varieties due to the influence of the native languages of the

countries which adapt English into their culture.

It is possible that all

these varieties of language could lead to language decay, whereby no-one would

be able to understand the other varieties of English

English could become more

'standardised' among nations due to the increase in communications (internet,

tv, film, media in general) that a shared culture is created --> A shared

culture means a shared language is required.