1. Chapter 10 Language acquisition Language acquisition----refers to the child’s acquisition of his mother tongue, i.e. how the child comes to understand and speak the language of his community.

2. 6/26/2016 Theories of child language acquisition A behaviorist view of language acquisition (Skinners) An innatist view of language acquisition (Chomsky) An interactionist view of language acquisition Cognitive factors in child language development

3. 6/26/2016 A behaviorist view of language acquisition Theory: Traditional behaviorists view language as behavior and believe that language learning is simply a matter of imitation and habit formation. Imitation  Recognition  Reinforcement Imitation  Recognition  Reinforcement Process: a.) a child imitates the sounds and patterns of the people around him, b) people recognize the child’s attempts and reinforce the attempts by responding differently. C) the child repeats the right sounds or patterns to get the reward. The child learns the language gradually in the same way as habit-forming. So imitation and practice are very important to language development in this theory. The chief exponent of the behaviorist view is B.F.Skinners. this view was prevalent before the 1960s, after that it was under criticism for its deficiencies discovered. The child learns the language gradually in the same way as habit-forming. So imitation and practice are very important to language development in this theory. The chief exponent of the behaviorist view is B.F.Skinners. this view was prevalent before the 1960s, after that it was under criticism for its deficiencies discovered.

4. 1.children do not imitate adults’s speech in the same way as parrots do. They imitate words selectively according to their own understandings of the sounds or patterns. 2.children pick out patterns and generalize them to new contexts. 3.children can create new forms or new utterances with complexed structures. Eg.g. reinforcement caanot be used to explain how children acquire complex language system, it also cannot explain how, in certain language, the disappearance of certain words and expressions after a certain period of learning. – To sum up, the behaviorist theory of child language acquisition offers a reasonable account of how children acquire some of the regular and routine aspects of the language, but how do children acquire more complex grammatical structures of the language requires a different explanation. Argument against:

5. 6/26/2016 An innatist view of language acquisition Main idea: human beings are biologically programmed for language and that the language develops in the child just as other biological functions such as walking the innate ability to learn language is called language acquisition device( LAD). LAD is a set of general rules which can be used to all the languages in the world. Later Chomsky called LAD as Universal Grammar (UG). Language environment is important to the functioning of LAD.. children need to get samples of a natural language to activate the LAD, which enables them to discover his language’s structure by matching the innate knowledge of grammar rules to that particular language. Language acquisition process is the period of transition from UG into grammar of particular language.

6. 6/26/2016 Argument against: wolf child: if the child was born with LAD, when the wolf child was put back into language environment, he can use the LAD to acquire language, he could learn to speak, but in fact, he couldn’t. foreign language learning: if we are born with LAD, we can use it over and over again. We can use it to acquire foreign language. But in fact, we have to take painstaking efforts to learn foreign language.

7. 6/26/2016 An interactionist view of language acquisition The interactionist view holds that language develops as a result of the complex interplay between the human characteristics of the child and the environment in which the child develops. the interactionist claims that the modified language which is suitable for the child’s capability is crucial in his language acquisition. (motherese) the modified speech such as motherese or caretaker talk shares the following characteristics: slow rate of speech, high pitch, rich intonation, shorter and simpler sentence structures, frequent repetition, paraphrasing and limited vocabulary. The topic of such talk is closely related to the “ here and now” environment. These kind of modified speech can provide comprehensible language samples to children. Children are capable of processing the language and learn the language structures, thus they can acquire the language.

8. 6/26/2016 Argument against: wolf child: when he was brought back into social interaction, still he couldn’t acquire the language, only utter a few words. Foreign language learners living in language spoken country have got social interaction with native speakers, still they can’t acquire native speakers’s language

9. 6/26/2016 Cognitive factors in child language development 1) Language development is dependent on both the concepts children form about the world and what they feel stimulated to communicate at the early and later stages of their language development. (the acquisition of perfect tense and the concept of present relevance) 2) The cognitive factors determine how the child makes sense of the linguistic system himself instead of what meanings the child perceives and expresses. (the acquisition of negative form)

10. Language environment & the critical period hypothesis Two important factors: the linguistic environment children are exposed to and the age they start to learn the language. In behaviorist approach, language environment plays a major role in providing both language models to be imitated and necessary feedbacks. The innatist view emphasizes more on children’s internal processing of the language items to be learnt. The environment functions as a stimulus that triggers and activates the pre-equipped UG to process the materials provided by the linguistic environment around the children. The interactionist view calls for the quality of the language samples available in the linguistic environment, only when the language is modified and adjusted to the level of children’s comprehension, do they process and internalize the language items.

11. 6/26/2016 Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) ---- Eric Lenneberg argues that the LAD, like other biological functions, works successfully only when it is stimulated at the right time ---- a specific and limited time period for language acquisition. The strong version of CPH suggests that children must acquire their first language by puberty or they will never be able to learn from subsequent exposure. The weak version holds that language learning will be more difficult and incomplete after puberty. (Support in Victor’s and Genie’s cases)

12. Stages in child language development Phonological development Vocabulary development 1) Under-extension 2) Over-extension 3) Prototype theory Grammatical development 1) Telegraphic speech (2) 2) Sentences of three main elements (2.5) Pragmatic development

13. 6/26/2016 Atypical or abnormal language development occurs due to trauma or injury. Atypical language development includes: Hearing impairment Mental retardation autismstutteringAphasia Dyslexia and dysgraphia Atypical development

14. Thank you !