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Overview
The behaviourist perspective
The innatist perspectiveThe critical Period Hypothesis (CPH)
Interactionist/developmental perspective
The behaviourist perspective → Say what I say
1940s and 1950s Behaviourism: imitating and practising
→ importance to the environment
The behaviourist perspective → Say what I say
imitation and practice as the primary processes in language development
Imitation PractiseChildren imitate selectively
The behaviourist perspective → Say what I say
Patterns in language
Unfamiliar formulas
Question formation
Order of events
The innatist perspective
Noam Chomsky:Languages are innateChildren are biologically programmed for
language
→They do not have to be taught
Difference to behaviorist perspective
Children know more about structure of language than they could be expected to learn
Their minds are not blank slates to be filled
BUT: innate ability to discover underlying rules of language system
Universal Grammar ( UG)
Human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language
Assumption that all languages have a common structural basis
No wrong hypothesis of how a language system might work
Only have to learn how language makes use of the UG
Example
John saw himself. *Himself saw John. Looking after himself bores John.
Could not be learned simply by imitating and practicing sentences
There must be an innate mechanism!
The critical period hypothesis
Particular time (critical period) to learn certain knowledge or skills
Genetically programmed Prove in history:
VictorGenie
CPH: Victor
1799: 12 year old boy found in the woods of France → feral child
Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (doctor) worked with him for 5 years
Progress in most areas but not in language
CPH: Genie
13 year old girl from California Isolated, neglected and abused by her
parents Was tied to a chair for 11 years and
deprived from language 1977: started to be educated and cared for Social, cognitive progress but not in
language
The critical period hypothesis
Still not enough prove for CPH Research with deaf children who are born to
hearing parents → late access to language 5 – 10% of deaf children are born to deaf
parents 1990: Elissa Newport’s research with deaf
children
CPH: Elissa Newport’s research
ASL (sign language) makes use of grammatical markers
Comparison of three groupsNative signers (children who learned ASL
from birth)Early learners (learned ASL between 4 and
6 years of age)Late learners (learned ASL after the age of
12)
CPH: Newport’s results
No difference in some aspects of their use of ASL BUT
Native signers were more consistent with grammatical markers than early learners
Early learners were more consistent with grammatical markers than late learners
Prove for CPH whether language is oral or gestural
Interactionist/ developmental perspectives Overview
learning from inside and out → innate learning ability and interaction
with environment:powerful learning mechanism in the brain learning from experience
connection between cognitive development and language acquisition
Jean Piaget
development of children’s cognitive understanding:
object permanence stability of quantities logical inferencing
language = symbol system developing in childhood and expressing children’s knowledge
Lev Vygotsky
language develops mainly from social interaction
“zone of proximal development” → high level of knowledge and performance
language = thought → internalized speech; speech → results from social interaction
The importance of interaction
direct access to language
repetitions and paraphrases of adults
feeling of being understood through adults’ response
Connectionism
language learning = learning in general
language acquisition = association of words and phrases with objects and situations
Question
What do you think about these different theories? Do they all work together or is there only one that is right?