Language Learning Theories Overview

 **Cognitivist Theory** - **Definition:** Focuses on the mental processes involved in language learning, emphasizing the role of the brain in understanding, storing, and producing language. - **Proponents:** Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner  **Nativist Linguistics** - **Definition:** P...

 **Cognitivist Theory** - **Definition:** Focuses on the mental processes involved in language learning, emphasizing the role of the brain in understanding, storing, and producing language. - **Proponents:** Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner  **Nativist Linguistics** - **Definition:** Proposed by Noam Chomsky, this theory argues that humans are born with an innate ability to acquire language through a universal grammar. - **Proponent:** Noam Chomsky  **Behaviorist (Skinner)** - **Definition:** Language learning is seen as a behavior acquired through imitation, reinforcement, and conditioning. - **Proponent:** B.F. Skinner  **Affective Filter** - **Definition:** A hypothesis in second-language acquisition that emotional factors such as anxiety and motivation influence the success of language learning. - **Proponent:** Stephen Krashen  **Acculturation** - **Definition:** Refers to the process of adapting to a new culture, which includes acquiring the language and social practices of the new cultural environment. - **Proponent:** John Schumann  **Cartesian Linguistics** - **Definition:** A theory associated with Descartes, emphasizing the mind's role in language, viewing language as an expression of innate, logical thought processes. - **Proponent:** Noam Chomsky  **Tabula Rasa (Locke)** - **Definition:** The idea that the human mind is a \"blank slate\" at birth, with knowledge and language acquired through experience and sensory perception. - **Proponent:** John Locke  **Speech Acts: Maxims** - **Definition:** Based on Grice\'s Cooperative Principle, maxims guide effective communication, focusing on quality, quantity, relevance, and manner. - **Proponent:** H.P. Grice  **Speech Acts: Politeness Theory** - **Definition:** A theory by Brown and Levinson, explaining how people manage face (public self-image) in communication to avoid threats to others\' dignity. - **Proponents:** Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson  **Conversational Implicature** - **Definition:** Implies that speakers can mean more than what is explicitly stated, relying on shared knowledge and context to convey meaning indirectly. - **Proponent:** H.P. Grice  **Cooperative Principle** - **Definition:** Proposed by Grice, it suggests that effective communication relies on speakers cooperating by following conversational maxims. - **Proponent:** H.P. Grice  **Semiotics (de Saussure)** - **Definition:** The study of signs and symbols in language, where meaning is derived from the relationships between the signifier (form) and signified (concept). - **Proponent:** Ferdinand de Saussure  **Cognitive Grammar** - **Definition:** A usage-based model that sees linguistic knowledge as part of general cognition, emphasizing meaning and conceptualization in grammar. - **Proponent:** Ronald Langacker  **Translation Studies** - **Definition:** Examines the process of translating between languages, focusing on accuracy, equivalence, and cultural context. - **Proponents:** Eugene Nida, Lawrence Venuti  **Discourse Analysis** - **Definition:** Studies how language is used in texts and contexts, focusing on patterns of communication in different social and cultural settings. - **Proponents:** Michael Bakhtin, Erving Goffman  **Functional Grammar** - **Definition:** Views grammar as shaped by communicative needs, with a focus on how language is used to express meaning in context. - **Proponent:** M.A.K. Halliday  **Word Grammar Theory** - **Definition:** A dependency-based theory that posits words as the basic units of syntax, with grammatical structure emerging from word relationships. - **Proponent:** Richard Hudson  **Language Policy and Planning** - **Definition:** Refers to the efforts by authorities to influence or regulate the use of languages within a community, often for sociopolitical goals. - **Proponents:** Joshua Fishman, Bernard Spolsky  **Word Formation Theory** - **Definition:** Studies the ways in which new words are created in a language, such as through compounding, affixation, or blending. - **Proponents:** Eric S. Renner, Martin Haspelmath  **Typology** - **Definition:** Classifies languages according to their structural features, such as syntax, morphology, and phonology, identifying universal patterns. - **Proponent:** Bernard Comrie  **Inflection and Derivation** - **Definition:** Inflection refers to modifying a word for grammatical purposes (e.g., tense), while derivation creates new words by adding affixes. - **Proponents:** Noam Chomsky (for inflection); other linguists like David Beck and Paul Kiparsky contribute to derivation.  **Syntagmatic Relations** - **Definition:** The relationship between words or elements in a sequence, determining how they combine to create meaningful phrases or sentences. - **Proponent:** Ferdinand de Saussure  **Distinctive Feature Theory** - **Definition:** A phonological theory that defines sounds by a set of binary features (e.g., \[+voice\] or \[-nasal\]) that distinguish one sound from another. - **Proponent:** Roman Jakobson  **Natural Phonological Theory** - **Definition:** Proposes that speech errors and patterns in child language acquisition reflect natural processes inherent in human phonology. - **Proponent:** Patricia K. K. Johnson  **Optimality Theory** - **Definition:** A model of phonology that argues that surface forms of words are the result of competing constraints, with the optimal form balancing these constraints. - **Proponents:** Alan Prince, Paul Smolensky  **Formalism** - **Definition:** Emphasizes the structural aspects of a text, focusing on its form rather than the content or social context in which it was produced. - **Proponents:** Roman Jakobson, Claude Lévi-Strauss  **Reader-Response** - **Definition:** A literary theory that emphasizes the reader\'s role in interpreting a text, suggesting that meaning is co-created by the text and its audience. - **Proponents:** Wolfgang Iser, Stanley Fish  **Structuralism and Semiotics** - **Definition:** Focuses on the underlying structures that govern language, culture, and society, often examining systems of signs and symbols. - **Proponent:** Ferdinand de Saussure  **Narratology** - **Definition:** The study of narrative structure and how stories are told, focusing on elements like plot, perspective, and character development. - **Proponents:** Gerard Genette, Mikhail Bakhtin  **Stylistics and the Figures of Speech** - **Definition:** Examines how language style (word choice, syntax) and rhetorical devices (metaphor, simile) contribute to meaning and effect in texts. - **Proponents:** M.A.K. Halliday, Leech and Short  **Deconstruction** - **Definition:** A postmodern approach that seeks to uncover hidden meanings in texts, often challenging traditional interpretations and binary oppositions. - **Proponent:** Jacques Derrida  **Post-structuralism** - **Definition:** A critical theory that questions the stability of meaning and the idea of fixed structures, emphasizing the fluid and dynamic nature of language and texts. - **Proponents:** Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault  **Psychoanalysis** - **Definition:** Applies Freudian concepts of the unconscious, desire, and repression to literature, exploring how texts reflect the psychological states of their characters and creators. - **Proponents:** Sigmund Freud, Julia Kristeva  **Marxism** - **Definition:** Analyzes literature through the lens of class struggle and economic power, often focusing on how texts reflect and perpetuate social inequality. - **Proponents:** Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Terry Eagleton  **New Historicism** - **Definition:** Explores the historical and cultural contexts of literature, emphasizing how texts are influenced by and influence the power structures of their time. - **Proponent:** Stephen Greenblatt  **Hermeneutics** - **Definition:** The theory and methodology of interpretation, especially of texts, focusing on understanding meaning within cultural and historical contexts. - **Proponents:** Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur  **Feminist Criticism** - **Definition:** Analyzes literature and culture from the perspective of gender inequality, critiquing how texts reinforce or challenge patriarchal norms. - **Proponents:** Virginia Woolf, Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert  **Queer Theory** - **Definition:** Explores how literature and culture represent and construct sexuality and gender, often challenging traditional binaries of male/female and heterosexual/homosexual. - **Proponents:** Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick  **Post-colonial Criticism** - **Definition:** Examines literature produced in or about former colonies, focusing on issues of identity, power, and cultural conflict between colonizers and the colonized. - **Proponents:** Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak  **Ethnicity Studies** - **Definition:** Investigates how literature portrays ethnic identities, often focusing on issues of representation, discrimination, and cultural diversity. - **Proponents:** Stuart Hall, Cornel West  **Orientalism** - **Definition:** A concept by Edward Said that critiques how the West constructs an exotic, inferior image of the East to assert dominance and justify colonial rule. - **Proponent:** Edward Said