language acquisition report
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THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Presented byEvangeline M. Leduna
26 Nov 2011
John N. Bohannon III> Butler University
John D. Bonvillian> University of Virginia
What is Language Acquisition?
the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary.
Distinguishing Features of Theoretical Approaches
• Structuralism vs. Functionalism> Structuralism – attempts to discover invariant processes or mechanisms underlying observable data.> Functionalism – seeks to establish predictive relationships between environmental or situational variables and language
Structuralism
“I want milk.”
Subject
Main Verb
Object
Functionalism
“I want milk.”Examine the situation in which the utterance
occuredThe occurence of the utterance is jointly
determined by the context (presence of mother) and the consequences of the behavior (receiving a glass of milk)
Distinguishing Features of Theoretical Approaches
• Competence vs. Performance> Competence – the individual’s knowledge of language, or the underlying rules that may de deduced from language behavior.> Performance – actual language use
Both refer to the individual’s abstract linguistic knowledge and to the use of this knowledge
Distinguishing Features of Theoretical Approaches
• Nativism vs. Empiricism> Nativism – a belief that some critical aspects of the language system must be innate.> Empiricism – environmental agents are most responsible for language acquisition
Language acquisition is determined both by children’s innate capacities and their linguistic experiences
Three Main Groups of Theoretical Approaches to Language Acquisition
1. Behavioral2. Linguistic3. Interactionist
> Cognitive Interactionist*Information Processing Approach –
the Competition Model> Social Interactionist
Behavioral Approaches
• Search for observable environmental conditions (stimuli) that occur and predict specific verbal behaviors
• Emphasize performance over competence• Focus on the functions of language• Focus on learning – empirical• The child is typically viewed as passive• Application of classical and operant conditioning
and imitation
Language dev’t is determined by the course of training not by maturation
Children learn language because they hear it frequently and they are rewarded for using it
Language acquisition is a form of behavioral change over time
Behavioral Approaches
Linguistic Approaches
• Language is innate in humans.• Children are “pre-wired” for language• Children need minimum environmental input• Language Acquisition Device• Focus on syntax• Biased towards the structural and nativist ends of the
continuum.• Environment merely triggers the maturation of a
physiologically based language system (LAD)• Favors competence over performance
Because the LAD is assumed to function in all children, it must allow the acquisition of any language.
Children learn language because it is part of human biology
Linguistic Approaches
Interactionist Approaches
• Assume that many factors affect the course of dev’t and these factors are mutually dependent upon, interact with, and modify one another.
• Environment input is critical• Child is active • Child expresses intent; caregivers expand,
extend and scaffold his/her use of language• Learned in authentic contexts
• Emphasizes internal structure as the ultimate determinants of behavior
• Assumes that language per se, is not a separate faculty but is only one of several abilities that result from cognitive maturation
• Language is structured or constrained by reason
• The sequence of cognitive dev’t determines the sequence of language dev’t
Interactionist ApproachesPiaget’s Cognitive Approach
Thinking drives language dev’tChildren build schema/knowledge and
language based on the meanings they experience
General learning processes (biases) allow people to identify patterns and relationships and categorize information
Interactionist ApproachesPiaget’s Cognitive Approach
Interactionist Approaches Information Processing Approach
The Competition Model
• The human information processing system is a mechanism that encodes stimuli from the environment, interprets those stimuli, stores in memory stimulus representations and results of operations on them, and allows information retrieval.
• Children are information processors in transition from novice to skilled status
• Address language performance rather than competence
• Empirical – children learn speech from the exemplars provided to them
Interactionist Approaches Information Processing Approach
The Competition Model
• Combines many aspects of both the traditional behaviorist and linguistic positions
• Emphasis on child’s responsiveness to adult social cues in the key to language dev’t
• Children focus on caregivers (gaze, facial expressions and gestural cues) to identify words/utterance meanings
• When human beings use symbols to communicate, patterns emerge and become consolidated into “grammatical constructions”
Interactionist ApproachesSocial Interaction Approach
• Language structure emerges from language use
• Maturation is critical and children cannot acquire language until a certain level of cognitive dev’t has been attained
• The innate linguistic predispositions must interact with the environment factors in order for language to develop
Interactionist ApproachesSocial Interaction Approach
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