1. Chapter 12
Language development

2. Theories of language development
Learning theory (e.g. BF Skinner)
Nativism (e.g. Chomsky)
Cognitive development (e.g. Piaget)
Social Interactionism (e.g. Vygotsky)

3. Gallery of language theorists

4. The learning theory view
Language develops as a result of the learning history of the child
Processes :
Imitation of caregivers
Shaping of behavioural responses (utterances) by operant reinforcement
Problems:
How do you explain novel utterances?
How do you explain ungrammatical utterances?

5. The nativist view
Language develops as a function of biological maturation
Existence of critical periods and the rapid development of language in those periods points to biology…
Chomksy:
Children are born with a Language Acquisition Device
This predisposes them to discover the rules of grammar

6. The cognitive development view
Language develops integrally with other forms of cognition
Piaget:
General cognitive development paves the way for language
Once the sensorimotor stage nears its end, AND chld has abilities to represent objects and events symbolically

7. The social interactionism view
Language develops in interaction with the social environment
Vygotsky:
Stresses the importance of the interpersonal context in which language appears
Infant learns language through exchanges with caregivers in familiar context
The familiar context provides opportunity for practice

8. Stages of language development
Pre-verbal speech ( months)
Exercise vocal chords
Telegraphic stage ( months)
Kernel of grammar development
Fully grammatical speech ( 4 years)
Vocabulary esp. continues to develop
Reading and writing ( years)

9. Two ways to learn how to read
Phonics
Taught spelling-to- sound rules
Learn to use these rules to read
Visual
Don’t break words down into phoneme combinations
Instead teach correspondence between whole words and sounds

10. Phases in learning to read
Sight vocabulary stage
Recognise words from their appearance
Discrimination-net stage
Discriminates words from a set she knows, using ‘closest match’ evaluation
Phonological recoding stage
Learns how to map individual sounds onto letters
Orthographic stage
Has mastered how to read whole word, without recoding into sounds

11. Language and thought Linguistic determinism Mentalism
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Language ----> thought
Primary evidence = excess of environmentally descriptive words in some cultures
E.g. Eskimos have dozens of words for snow
Mentalism
Language development is dependent on earlier cognitive development
Thought structures precede language; language is an outcome of these