The Innateness Theory and Theories of Language Acquisition

Sara Albornoz Gallegos

The Innateness Theory

The active Construction of a Grammar Theory

“Language ability is innate in humans”

Eric Lenneberg (by studying animal behavior)

The Innateness Theory

The behavior emerges before it is necessary

Its appearance is not the result of a conscious decision

It emergence is not triggered by external events

Direct teaching and intensive practice have relatively little effect

Regular sequence of “milestones” as the behavior develops, usually correlated with age and other aspects

Critical period for the acquisition of the behavior

The Innateness Theory

Critical – age period Hypothesis supports:

Genie’s Case

Theories of Language Acquisition

The Imitation Theory

The Reinforcement Theory

The Active Construction of a Grammar Theory

Theories of Language Acquisition

“Children learn language by listening to the sounds around them and reproducing what they hear”

Child’s genetic make up has nothing to do with which language the child will acquire

The Imitation Theory

Theories of Language Acquisition

Limitations of the Imitation Theory

• It does not recognize the fact that mistakes children make are because they deal about the system underlying their speech

Go – Goed / Went

Hit – Hited / Hit

• Children’s attemps to repeat adult’s utterances are often inaccurate

Adult: He doesn’t want a drink

Child: He no want a drink

• The theory cannot account for how children and adults are able to produce and understand new sentences

Theories of Language Acquisition

The Reinforcement Theory

• Children learn to speak because they are praised or reinforced when they use the right forms and are corrected when they use wrong forms

Limitations of the Reinforcement Theory

Corrections generally have more to do with the accuracy or truth of a statement and not its grammatical form

Theories of Language Acquisition

Although adults correct a child’s grammar, their attempts usually fail

Child: Nobody don’t like me

Mother: No, say “nobody likes me”

Child: Nobody don’t like me(repeated 8 times)

Mother (now exasperated): Now listen carefully! Say “Nobody likes me”

Child: oh! Nobody don’t likes me

Theories of Language Acquisition

The Active construction of a Grammar Theory

• Children actually invent their rules of grammar themselves.

• Inventions based on the speech they hear

How to form the past tense of verbs : adding /ed/Needed – WalkedEated – Holded

• This theory predicts that children will fail to imitate adult forms accurately, even when they are reinforced by adults