Theories of Language Acquisition Behaviorism Innateness

Behaviorism Language acquisition depends on human role models, imitation, rewards and practice. The behaviorist theory of stimulus-response learning considers all learning to be the establishment of habits as a result of reinforcement and reward

Innateness is a linguistic theory of language acquisition which holds that at least some knowledge about language exists in humans at birth

Language acquisition  Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language.  Language acquisition also looks at how people produce and use words and sentences to communicate.

Stages of Language Acquisition

The development of speech production

From vocalization to babbling to speech Prior to uttering speech sounds, infants make a variety of sounds – crying, cooing, gurgling. All infants make the same variety of sounds, even children who are born deaf.

Infants do not learn how to utter such sounds thus appear to be unlearned. Around the seventh month, children begin to babble, to produce repeated syllables (‘syllabic reduplication’), Examples, ‘baba’, ‘momo’, ‘panpan’.

Consonant + Vowel + Consonant Most syllables are of the basic Consonant + Vowel type (‘baba’ and ‘momo’). However, some consist of closed syllables Consonant + Vowel + Consonant Example: panpan. Children in all studied languages produce such structure of repeated syllables.

Babbling to speech Babbling is non-intentional. This stage normally occurs at around the first year of age. It can occur much earlier or much later. When children begin to utter words, only some of the sounds that they have uttered in babbling appear in speech.

Acquisition order of consonants and vowels Consonants are acquired in a front-to-back order. ‘Front’ and ‘back’ here refer to the origin of the production of the sound.

Sounds like /m/, /p/, /b/, /t/, and /d/ are pronounced before /k/. Vowels are acquired in a back-to-front order. /a/ in /tall/ preceding /i/ (meet).

Early speech stages Naming Naming: one-word utterances Question: When do children start to say their first words? There is no definite age for that. Why? Because there are individual differences.

The simple uttering of speech sounds by the child, as in saying ‘mama’, may or may not indicate word knowledge. Children learn their first word when: They are able to utter a recognizable speech form; and In presence if an object or event in the environment.

The speech form may be imperfect, e.g. ‘da’ for ‘daddy’. First words have been reported as appearing in children from as young as 4 months to as old as 18 months or older. Generally speaking, children utter their first word around the age of 10 or 12 months.

Some of this difference is related to physical development. Certain brain development is also involved since the creation of speech sounds.

Normally, children first use nouns as proper nouns to refer to specific objects.

Holophrastic function: one-word utterances Children use single words to refer to objects; express complex thoughts that involve those objects.

Example: A young child who has lost its mother in a shop may cry out ‘mama’, which means ‘I want mama’.

The young child can express a variety of semantic functions and complex ideas by the use of single words. The child thus uses a single word to express the thought for which mature speakers will use a whole sentence. One-word speech is often referred to as ‘holophrastic’ because one word functions as a sentence.

Telegraphic speech Two- and three-word utterances Next class Telegraphic speech Two- and three-word utterances