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1. Language Acquisition
SAIRISH KHOKHAR

2. What is language acquisition?
Acquisition is a process whereby children become speakers of their native language.
Introduction:
During the past forty years there have been two major theories of
language learning by children. But there are two major schools of
thought known as, 'Behaviorists' and 'Mentalists'. One school is of the
view that language learning is entirely the product of experience and
that our environment affects all of us. Others have suggested that
everybody has an innate language learning mechanism.

3. Behaviorist theory in Linguistics.
 Language is learned through behaviour in surroundings.
 Behaviour theorists define learning as a more or less permanent
change in behaviour.
 In behaviorism, the learner is viewed as passively adapting to their
environment.
 According to a pure behaviorist, human beings are shaped entirely by
their external environment. Alter a person's environment, and you will
alter his or her thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. Provide positive
reinforcement whenever students perform a desired behaviour, and
soon they will learn to perform the behaviour on their own.

4. Associative learning.
Making a new association between events in the
environment.
There are two kind of associative learning:
1. Classical conditioning
2. operant conditioning

5. There are two forms of associative learning:
Classical Conditioning
 First described by Ivan Pavlov, a
Russian physiologist
 Involves placing a neutral signal before a
reflex
 Focuses on involuntary, automatic
behaviors
Operant Conditioning
 First described by B. F. Skinner, an
American psychologist
 Involves operant Conditioning
 applying reinforcement or punishme
nt after a behavior
 Focuses on strengthening or weakening
voluntary behaviors

6. Classical conditioning.
 Classical conditioning is a reflexive or automatic type of
learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to
evoke a response that was originally evoked by another
stimulus.
 First described by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), Russian
physiologist, in 1903,
 and studied in infants by John B. Watson (1878-1958).
Originators and Key
Contributors:

7. The “Pavlov’s Dog” Experiment.
In the 1890s, Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov
was studying aspects of the digestive
process by observing salivation in dogs,
when he made the observation that dogs
began to salivate before the food
arrived…for example, at the sight of the
food tray or sound of the assistant’s
footsteps. This work became the foundation
for classical conditioning and the behavioral
approach to psychology.

8. The “Little Albert Experiment”.
John B. Watson gets credit for establishing the psychological
school of behaviorism. He further extended Pavlov’s work and
applied it to human beings. In the 1921, Watson studied
Albert, an 11 month old infant child. The goal of the study was
to condition Albert to become afraid of a white rat. He
achieved this by creating loud, painful noises whenever Albert
touched the rat. At first, Albert showed no sign of fear when he
was presented with rats, but once the rat was repeatedly
paired with the loud noise. Albert began to associate small
animals with the trauma of the noise. The implications of
Watson’s experiment suggested that classical conditioning
could cause some phobias in humans.

9. Extinction:
When a previously conditioned response decreases in
frequency and eventually disappears. The response can
sometimes reemerge after a period of time has passed with
no further conditioning. Where is my food?
People often wondered if Little Albert might still
occasionally experience fear of animals as an adult. He died
of disease at age 6.

10. Stimulus Generalization:
After a stimulus has been conditioned to produce
a particular response, stimuli that is similar to the
original stimulus may produce the same response.
The greater the similarity between two stimuli, the
greater the likelihood that stimulus generalization
will occur. Albert became afraid of small furry
animals. The big black dog used in the experiment
did not scare him.

11. Operant conditioning.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner 1904 – 1990
An American psychologist, inventor, social
philosopher, poet
 Bachelor: English Literature (Hamilton University)
 Master: Psychology (Harvard University)
 Doctorate: Psychology (Harvard University)
 professor of Psychology in Harvard university

12. Continue..
B.F Skinner and his followers are known as
behaviorist. According to them language learning is
process known as operant conditioning. operant
conditioning is a simple feedback system: If a
reward or reinforcement follows the response to a
stimulus, then the response becomes more
probable in the future.

13. Conditioned:
Conditioned Behavior is behavior which is the result of repeated training.
Operant:
Operant process means that language is an activity that a child acquires
voluntarily without any external force, it is result of learner's own free
will and it is not forced by any outside person or thing. The learner
demonstrates the new behavior first as a response to a system of reward
or punishment.
According to skinner the whole process is based upon four elements:
1. Stimulus 2. Response
3. Reinforcement 4. Repetition

14. "Skinner Box" Experiment.
They put a rat in a box containing a bar. If it presses a bar, it
is rewarded with a pellet of food. Nothing forces it to press
the bar. The first time it probably does so accidentally.
When the rat finds that the food arrives, it presses the bar
again. Eventually it finds that if it is hungry it can obtain
food by pressing the bar. Then task is made more difficult.
The rat only gets rewarded if it presses the bar while a light
is flashing. At first rat is puzzled. Eventually it learns the
trick. Then the task is made more difficult again. This time
the rat only receives food if it presses the bar a certain
number of times. After initial confusion it learns to do this
also. And so on.

15. Continue…
After this experiment, skinner expresses the very notion that every
stimulus which is followed by a response plays a vital role in
learning the first language.
Initially this response is given only in case of sort of punishment or
reward but eventually the child becomes volunteer in this. Skinner
also maintains that learning language one depends the imitation
and the child imitates his nears and dears around him. First of all
anything plays a role that stimulates the child to speak.

16. Skinner`s notion:
According to Skinner`s notion Skinner denies that
• language is a preprogrammed activity.
• It is just the gift of society and operant conditioning of his
around.
• If we take up the example of fictional character Tarzen, skinner
seems to be true in his notion because Tarzen was brought
among the animals and according to the story tellers he spoke
the language of animals. So he could not help being affected by
the company in which he lived.

17. Reinforcement and types of reinforcement.
A stimulus that strengthens or weakens the behavior that produced it.
Repetition of an act to stop an action or to continue it.
 Stimulus:
Any stimulating information or event; acts to arouse action.
Reinforcement plays a vital role.
There are two kinds of reinforcement:
1. Positive reinforcement 2. Negative reinforcement

18. Positive Reinforcement:
Praise and rewards are positive reinforcement. Experiments have
shown that positive reinforcement works much better in bringing
about good learning.
Example:
When the dog successful chases and picks up the ball, the dog
receives praise as a reward. Eventually, the dog forms an
association between his behavior of fetching the ball and receiving
the desired reward.

19. Negative Reinforcement:
Rebukes and punishments are negative reinforcement. The
behaviorists also claim that we learn language by imitation and
association.
Example:
Ad shows wrinkled face as reinforcement to buy skin cream.
If a child lick his thumb and parents want to stop him . They might
paste something on his thumb or chili so that he will stop licking his
thumb.
Skinner believed that positive reinforcement is more effective in
changing behavior then punishment.

20. Differences between classical and operant conditioning:
 In CC, the response is a reflex and involuntary. In OC, the
response is voluntary behaviour.
 In CC, the stimulus is new to the animal. In OC, the
behaviour is new to the animal.
 In CC, the reflex (response) follows the stimulus. In OC, the
behaviour (response) precedes the reward or punishment
(stimulus).
 In CC, association occurs whether the stimulus is
pleasurable or aversive. In OC pleasurable reward leads to
repetition while aversion leads to extinction.
 In CC, strength of conditioning is measured by speed or
amount of response. In OC, strength is measured by rate of
production of behaviour.

21. Limitations:
• In Critical period for language acquisition children are
often unable to repeat what an adult says especially if the
adult utterance contains a structure the child has not yet
started to use.
• Children who have not acquired language by the age of about
seven will never entirely catch up.
• Observational studies of parent-child conversations (Brown
and Hanlon, 1970) show that parents rarely reinforce correct
grammar in a child’s speech, but instead tend to focus on the
truthfulness or accuracy of statements.

22. Continue…
Behaviorists cannot explain how animals can learn without
reinforcement. Tolman & Honzik (1930) showed that rats
could learn maps of mazes without operant conditioning.
Behaviorism finds it difficult to explain how humans construct
new solutions to problems. For example, children can generate
the plural forms of nouns they have never encountered before
and could not have learned (Berko, 1958).

23. Criticism.
Chomsky suggests that the learner of any language
has an inbuilt learning capacity for language. he
believed that every child has a ‘language acquisition
device’. Learning process involving the shaping of
grammar into a correct form by the re-enforcement of
other stimulus. The Mentalist School Chomsky and
his mentalist followers claim that a child learns his
first language through cognitive learning.

24. How Behaviorism Impacts Learning:
This theory is relatively simple to understand because it relies
only on observable behaviour and describes several universal
laws of behaviour.
Its positive and negative reinforcement techniques can be very
effective--both in animals, and in treatments for human
disorders such as autism and antisocial behaviour. Behaviourism
often is used by teachers, who reward or punish student
behaviors.