1. Explaining first language acquisition
Florian Gausmann
Barbara Sohn-Travaglia
Mandy Wellhausen

2. Content The Behaviourist Perspective The Innatist Perspective
The Interactional/Developmental Perspective

3. Behaviourism

4. Behaviourism
biggest influence in 1940’s and 1950’s

5. Behaviourism biggest influence in 1940’s and 1950’s I.P. Pawlow
B.E. Skinner

6. Behaviourism
‘positive reinforcement’

7. Behaviourism
‘positive reinforcement’
praise
successful communication

8. Behaviourism
imitation

9. Behaviourism imitation
word-for-word repetition of someone else’s utterance

10. Behaviourism
practice

11. Behaviourism
practice
repetitive manipulation of form

12. Behaviourism child’s language behaviour shaped by:
quality and quantity of language heard
consistency of reinforcement

13. The Innatist Perspective It‘s all in your mind

14. The Innatist Perspective: It‘s all in your mind
It is seen as an explanation for the “logical problem of language acquisition“
What‘s that?
The fact that children are come to know more about the structure of their language than they could reasonably be expected to learn on the basis of the samples of language they hear

15. The Innatist Perspective: Noam Chomsky
Chomsky’s conclusion: Children’s minds are not blank slates to be filled by imitating language they hear in the environment
Hypothesis: Children are born with a specific innate ability to discover for themselves the underlying rules of a language system on the basis of the samples of a natural language they are exposed to

16. The Innatist Perspective: Example
Children hear false starts, incomplete sentences, and slips of tongue
Nonetheless they learn to distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences
John told Bill to wash himself.

17. The Innatist Perspective Universal Grammar
If children are equipped with Universal Grammar, then what they have to learn is the ways in which the language they are acquiring makes use of these principles

18. The Innatist Perspective The Critical Period Hypothesis
Animals and humans are genetically programmed to acquire certain kinds of knowledge and skill at specific times in life
Difficult to apply this hypothesis for language acquisition because nearly all children are exposed to language (oral or gestural) at an early age

19. The Innatist Perspective Is there a Critical Period for Language Acquisition?
Neurological evidence
Evidence from language acquisition of deaf children
Evidence from feral children
Evidence from Down syndrome subjects

20. The Innatist Perspective CP Summary
There is little prospect of obtaining unambiguous evidence on the question of the possibility of beginning to acquire a L1 after any age posited as critical it would appear sensible to look at evidence concerning the continuation of language acquisition beyond the childhood years
“It is difficult to identify any point in the lifespan when the process of language development is truly complete.” Nippold (1998:1)

21. The Innatist Perspective Question 1
What is (according to N. Chomsky) “the logical problem of language acquisition“ and which theory is seen as an explanation for it?

22. The Innatist Perspective Answer 1
The innatist perspective is seen as an explanation for the “logical problem of language acquisition“
The “logical problem of language acquisition” is 1. The fact that children are come to know more about the structure of their language than they could reasonably be expected to learn on the basis of the samples of language they hear and 2. The question of how adult speakers come to know the complex structure of their first language on the basis of language that they actually hear

23. The Innatist Perspective Question 2
Why did E. Newport and her colleagues conclude that their study of deaf children learning ASL supports the hypothesis of a critical period?

24. The Innatist Perspective Answer 2
On tests focusing on grammatical markers (to indicate such things as time and number; these markers are expressed through specific hand or body movements), the Native group (who were exposed to ASL from birth) used the forms more consistently than the Early group (who began using ASL between 4-6 years of age). This group, in turn, used them more consistently than the Late group (who began learning ASL after age twelve)

25. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives

26. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives
Learning from inside and out
Language Acquisition seen as the ability to learn from experience
Interactions
Focus on interplay between innate learning ability & environment

27. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives
Jean Piaget
children‘s interactions with objects & people
development of cognitive understanding
Lev Vygotsky
children‘s interactions with other children & adults
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

28. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives
Cross cultural research
children‘s learning environments in different cultural communities
child-directed speech
not universal

29. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives
The importance of interaction
Jim
deaf parents
no sign language

30. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives
Connectionism
Language acquisition does not require “module of the mind“
Connections between words and phrases + the situation in which they occur

31. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives
What characterizes child-directed speech?
slower rate of delivery
higher pitch
more varied intonation
shorter, simpler sentence patterns
stress on key words
frequent repetition
paraphrase

32. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives
Explain the difference between Piaget‘s and Vygotsky‘s point of view

33. Bibliography
Lightbown and Spada. How Languages are Learned. 3rd Edition. Oxford University Press. 2006: chap. 1 pp
Singleton and Ryan.Language Acquisition: The Age Factor.2nd Edition. Cromwell Press Ltd.2004.