Theories of Language

Acquisition
by: Joannacel Abrina
 At the end of the lesson, I should
be able to:
a. Identify theories of language acquisition;
b. Relate the importance of the theories of
language acquisition to the teaching of a
secondary language; and
c. Create a graphic model to represent the theories
of language acquisition.
 Guess Who?

In the field of education, there are many great men

and women who gave significant contributions in
the field of psychology and linguistics. Guess
who are these major contributors and what they
all have in common.
 An American 
psychologist , behaviorist, author,
inventor, and social philosopher
 Considering free will to be an
illusion, Skinner saw human
action as dependent on
consequences of previous actions,
a theory he would articulate as
the principle of reinforcement
 Wrote Verbal Behavior, a 1957
book, in which he describes what
he calls verbal behavior, or what
was traditionally called linguistics
 a Swiss psychologist
known for his work on
child development. 
 According to Ernst von
Glasersfeld, "the great
pioneer of
the constructivist theory
of knowing.“
 His theory of child
development is studied in
pre-service education
programs.
 Sometimes called "the father of
modern linguistics", he is also a
major figure in analytic
philosophy and one of the founders
of the field of cognitive science. 

 in 1957 emerged as a significant

figure in linguistics with his
landmark work Syntactic
Structures, which played a major
role in remodeling the study of
language.

 Associated with the New Left, he

was arrested multiple times for his
activism and placed on
President Richard Nixon's Enemies
List. 
 an American psychologist who
made significant contributions to
human cognitive psychology
and cognitive learning
theory in educational psychology. 
 one of the pioneers of cognitive
psychology in the United States,
which began through his own
early research
on sensation and perception as
being active, rather than passive
processes.
 At Oxford he worked with a large
group of graduate students and
post-doctoral fellows to
understand how young children
manage to crack the linguistic
code
 THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Theory Central Idea Individual with
theory
Behaviorist Children imitate adults. Their correct Skinner
utterances are reinforced when they get
what they want or are praised.
Innateness A child's brain contains special Chomsky
language-learning mechanisms at birth.
Cognitive Language is just one aspect of a child's Piaget
overall intellectual development.
Interaction This theory emphasises the interaction Bruner
between children and their care-givers.
 Behaviorist
The behaviourist psychologists developed their theories while carrying out a series
of experiments on animals. They observed that rats or birds, for example, could be
taught to perform various tasks by encouraging habit-forming. Researchers
rewarded desirable behaviour. This was known as positive reinforcement.
Undesirable behaviour was punished or simply not rewarded - negative
reinforcement.

Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers.
Successful attempts are rewarded because an adult who recognises a word spoken
by a child will praise the child and/or give it what it is asking for. Successful
utterances are therefore reinforced while unsuccessful ones are forgotten.
 Limitations of Behaviourism
 Language is based on a set of structures or rules, which could not be worked out
simply by imitating individual utterances. The mistakes made by children reveal
that they are not simply imitating but actively working out and applying rules.
 The vast majority of children go through the same stages of language acquisition.
There appears to be a definite sequence of steps. We refer to developmental
milestones.
 Children are often unable to repeat what an adult says, especially if the adult
utterance contains a structure the child has not yet started to use.
 Few children receive much explicit grammatical correction. Parents are more
interested in politeness and truthfulness.
 There is evidence for a critical period for language acquisition. Children who have
not acquired language by the age of about seven will never entirely catch up.
 Innateness

Chomsky concluded that children must have an inborn

faculty for language acquisition. According to this
theory, the process is biologically determined - the
human species has evolved a brain whose neural
circuits contain linguistic information at birth. The
child's natural predisposition to learn language is
triggered by hearing speech and the child's brain is able
to interpret what s/he hears according to the underlying
principles or structures it already contains. This natural
faculty has become known as the Language Acquisition
Device (LAD).
 Evidence to support the innateness theory

 1. Slobin has pointed out that human anatomy is peculiarly adapted to the
production of speech.

 2. The formation of creole varieties of English appears to be the result of

the LAD at work.

 3. Studies of the sign languages used by the deaf have shown that, far
from being crude gestures replacing spoken words, these are complex,
fully grammatical languages in their own right.
 Limitations of Chomsky's theory

Chomsky's work on language was theoretical. He

was interested in grammar and much of his work
consists of complex explanations of grammatical
rules. He did not study real children. The
theory relies on children being exposed to
language but takes no account of the interaction
between children and their carers. Nor does it
recognise the reasons why a child might want to
speak, the functions of language.
 Cognitive

The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget placed

acquisition of language within the context of a
child's mental or cognitive development. He
argued that a child has to understand a concept
before s/he can acquire the particular language
form which expresses that concept.
 Limitations of the Cognitive
Theory
 During the first year to 18 months, connections
of the type explained above are possible to trace
but, as a child continues to develop, so it
becomes harder to find clear links between
language and intellect. Some studies have
focused on children who have learned to speak
fluently despite abnormal mental development.
Syntax in particular does not appear to rely on
general intellectual growth.
 Interaction
 Language exists for the purpose of
communication and can only be learned in the
context of interaction with people who want to
communicate with you. Interactionists such as
Jerome Bruner suggest that the language
behaviour of adults when talking to children
(known by several names by most easily referred
to as child-directed speech or CDS) is specially
adapted to support the acquisition process.
 Limitations of Input theories
 These theories serve as a useful corrective to
Chomsky's early position and it seems likely that
a child will learn more quickly with frequent
interaction. However, it has already been noted
that children in all cultures pass through the same
stages in acquiring language. We have also seen
that there are cultures in which adults do not
adopt special ways of talking to children, so CDS
may be useful but seems not to be essential.
 Your turn

Create a graphic organizer of the theories that have

been discussed
 Short quiz
Directions: Identify which theory is being described in each statement.
1.  children learn words by associating sounds with objects, actions, and events.
2.  language learning is influenced by the desire of children to communicate with others.
3.  language is an innate faculty
4.  language development is both biological and social.
5. draws attention to the large increase in children's vocabulary at around this age, suggesting a
link between object permanence and the learning of labels for objects.
6. Language Acquisition must be viewed within the context of a child’s intellectual development 
7.  The child exploits its LAD to make sense of the utterances heard around it, deriving from this
‘primary linguistic data’ – the grammar of the language
8. Language has long been thought of a process of imitation, and reinforcement
9. Linguistic structures will emerge only if there is an already established cognitive foundation
10. The theory can be summed up as: LISTEN, IMITATE, RECEIVE A REWARD, REPEAT FOR
RECALL.
 Assignment
 Observe children of different age groups and list
down at least 3 instances or situations in which
the theories of language acquisition is observed.
Write your observation in a narrative report.