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