Theories and Principles of language Topic, Language Acquisition

1. THEORIES OF
FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

2. ACTIVITY

6. The behaviorist theory believes that
“infants learn oral language from other
human role models through a process
involving imitation, rewards, and
practice. Human role models in an
infant’s environment provide the stimuli
and rewards,” (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004).
When a child attempts oral language or
imitates the sounds or speech patterns
they are usually praised and given
affection for their efforts.

7. Thus, praise and affection becomes the
rewards. However, the behaviorist theory
is scrutinized for a variety of reasons. If
rewards play such a vital component in
language development, what about the
parent who is inattentive or not present
when the child attempts speech? If a
baby’s language learning is motivated
strictly by rewards would the speech
attempts stop merely for lack of rewards
(Cooter & Reutzel, 2004)?

8. This is very reminiscent of Pavlov's experiment
which indicates that stimulus and response work
together. According to this category, the babies obtain
native language habits via varied babblings which
resemble the appropriate words repeated by a person
or object near him. Since for his babblings and
mutterings he is rewarded, this very reward reinforces
further articulations of the same sort into grouping of
syllables and words in a similar situation. In this way,
he goes on emitting sounds,groups of sounds, and as
he grows up he combines the sentences via
generalizations and analogy.

9. ACTIVITY

11. The theory holds that children learn
their mother tongue through their
natural ability to organize the laws of
language, but are only able to fully
utilize this talent with the aid of other
humans. However, this does not mean
that the child requires any kind of
formal teaching.

12. By saying that Language is an innate faculty, Chomsky implies
that children are born with a set of rules about language in
their head which he calls the “Universal Grammar.”
According to him, the “Universal Grammar” is the foundation
upon which all human languages are built on. Chomsky
claims that it is nearly impossible for children to learn
mathematics or how to ride a bike the same way learnt their
language (stages of language acquisition).

13. Chomsky claims that it is nearly impossible for children to
learn mathematics or how to ride a bike the same way learnt
their language (stages of language acquisition). This is
possible BECAUSE:
• The language children are exposed to is very little
correctly formed. When people talk, they make slips of
tongues, they often interrupt themselves, change their
minds and so on. Yet, children still manage to have a firm
grasp of the language.
• The language they hear around them are not just simply
copied. They learn the rules of the language and use them to
produce sentences they’ve never heard from anyone or
anywhere.

14. A child unconsciously begins to recognize the kind of
language he is dealing with as he listens to his parents. He
will also set his grammar to a correct one, which is known as
“setting the parameters”.
The child intuitively knows some words behave like verbs and
others like nouns. This is not a piece of information that his
parents or people around him directly teach him, but
information that is given. It is almost as if the child is
offered several hypotheses at birth which the child then
matches with what is happening around him. Chomsky calls
this set of learning tools provided at birth “Language
Acquisition Device“.

15. For example,
No child will say “Biscuit mummy”, instead the
child will say “Mummy, biscuit”. The reason is
thus, when a child starts to put two words
together, the child has already mastered the basic
rules of syntax. And even when the child makes an
erroneous sentence, he applies them correctly.

20. The Nativist Theory is very controversial. An
argument against this view is that without a
propensity for language, children will not
be able to learn such complete speech
patterns in a natural human environment
where complete sentences are the
exception. Researchers have also recently
discovered that parents don’t react the
same way to children’s grammatically
incorrect and correct utterances. This
shapes the behavior of the child and
therefore challenges the notion that
language is innate.

21. ACTIVITY

23. Functional language is language that
you need in different day-to-day
situations. For example: greeting,
introducing yourself, asking for or
giving advice, explaining rules,
apologising, or agreeing and
disagreeing.

24. The three basic functions of language
In the functionalist approach to language, there
are a few specific functions that language can be
used to carry out. In this section, we'll look at the
three main ones:
• Informative
• Expressive
• Directive