Language Acquisition: Behaviourist & Interactionist Theories

Behaviourist Theory (B.F. Skinner)

• Children learn through imitation and reinforcement.
• Children copy words they hear from adults.
• Positive reinforcement occurs when a child uses correct language, resulting in praise and encouragement.
• Negative reinforcement happens when a child uses language incorrectly, leading to correction and discouragement.
• A criticism is that when a child says "irunned" instead of "ran," it shows they are applying grammar, not imitating (Language Acquisition Device - LAD).

Social Interactionist (Vygotsky)

• Language is shaped by social interactions, where children learn through communicating with more knowledgeable others.
• The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the gap between what a child can do alone versus what they can achieve with help.
• More Knowledgeable Others (MKO) help language skills develop through interactions, providing corrections and explanations.
• Children who are spoken to frequently learn language quicker.

Bruner

• Scaffolding is essential for language development.
• Language Support System (LASS), social support, is essential.
• Parents give structured support, helping children understand before they can do so independently, by modeling conversation structure.
• Parents teach children how to engage in dialogue to develop politeness
• Scaffolding helped her acquire speech when Genie was rescued, but the lack of language led to a low interaction setting.

Leslie Rescola

• Overextension occurs when a child uses a word more broadly than its actual meaning.
• Categorical: Name of one category, member extended to all members
• Analogical: Extending word based on similarities
• Mismatch: Loose association between objects based on experience
• Some children may underextend

Nativist Theory (Chomsky)

• Children are born with an innate capacity to learn language (hard-wired into the brain).
• The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is preprogrammed, enabling children to learn and produce language naturally without explicit teaching.
• Universal Grammar: All humans share it, and consists of a set of innate rules explaining why children universally learn all langs.
• Basic principles are already programmed and need exercise to develop, just like bones.
• When children say "I goed to the park," they are applying grammar rules rather than imitating.

Jean Berko: WUG Test

• Determines if children can apply grammatical rules to words they have never heard.
• Children are shown a picture of a "wug" and then shown two and told, "Now there are two..."
• Most children said "wugs," applying the plural "-s."
• Children also applied past tense "-ed," showing they have internalized understanding of grammar.

Cognitive Development Theory (Piaget)

• Language comes with understanding their cognitive development
• A child cannot use language until they understand concepts like size differences.

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

• Stages are:
• Sensory Motor (0-2 years): babies experiment with sounds and words only appear when objects are understood as permanent.
• Pre-operational (2-7 years): rapid vocab growth, struggle with abstract ideas and are ego-centric.
• Concrete Operational (7-11 years): language becomes more logical and can make comparisons faster
• Formal Operational (11+ years): children can think abstractly and use complex structures.
• Stages may not be fixed, and children can learn concepts before words.
• Some children manage to use language beyond their actual understanding.

Schemas (Piaget)

• Mental frameworks that store knowledge and help children interpret the world, helping them categorize new information.
• Assimilation: Fitting new info into existing schema.
• Accommodation: Modifying schema because existing information doesn't fit
• Applying schema for past tense, such as "runned"

Katherin Nelson

• Identified four categories for first words:
• Naming
• Actions
• Describing
• Social
• 40% of first words are nouns related to objects surrounding children.

Bellugi

• Studied how children acquire negation and question formats (syntax + morphology).

Early Question Formation

• Child uses intonation to signal a question without understanding structures.

Use of "Wh"

• Around age 2, children begin to use "wh" questions, typically incomplete but showing desire to engage.

Auxiliary Verbs

• Children use "is" and "can" to form more grammatically correct questions.

Lenneberg: Critical Period Hypothesis

• Suggests there is a biological window during which a child must be exposed to language to develop full linguistic ability.
• This period is roughly before puberty, and the ability to learn will be permanently impaired
• In the case of Genie Wiley (1970s), she was neglected and isolated until age 13 when rescued, and she never fully developed language.
• Younger children learn second languages easier
• The sensitive period suggests language is easier to learn, but still possible later in life.
• Genie's failure to learn could be a cause of trauma.