Umbrella Theorists

Question 1

Give a brief overview of Skinner’s theory

Answer 1

Children learn to speak by imitating their parents and being rewarded or punished according to the accuracy of their utterances.

Question 2

What research supports Skinner’s theory?

Answer 2

Children eventually learn to say ‘went’ instead of ‘goed’. This seems to be learned through listening, imitation and correction.

Question 3

What data in Skinner’s theory should you look out for? (3)

Answer 3

1. adults explicitly modelling or teaching language and children responding
2. children imitating/repeating adults’ speech
3. children learning or repairing mistakes after correction from adults

Question 4

Give a brief overview of Chomsky’s theory

Answer 4

Babies are born with an innate knowledge of the structure of language (all languages share the same basic structure) and this speeds up their learning of their native language when they hear it. When they hear examples of language they fit these into their (unconscious) mental model of how language works (called the Language Acquisition Device or LAD by McNeill).

Question 5

What research supports Chomsky’s theory? (3)

Answer 5

1. Berko-Gleason (1958) found that children were able to provide the plural of ‘wug’, the name of an imaginary creature, even though they had never heard the word before
2. Children learn language at about the same age, acquiring particular elements in roughly the same order
3. Similar grammatical categories (noun, verb, etc) exist in all languages

Question 6

What data should you look out for regarding Chomsky’s theory? (4)

Answer 6

1. children doing more than simply imitating adult speech, e.g. semantic overextension & overgeneralisation suggest children are actively constructing language according to an unconscious model of how language works (LAD)
2. children resisting or simply not responding to correction from adults
3. children making up new names for things
4. children forming utterances they’ve never heard anyone else say (can’t just be imitating but must be actively constructing sentences using their implicit knowledge of the ‘rules’ (LAD))

Question 7

Give a brief overview of Piaget’s theory

Answer 7

Language development goes hand in hand with the development of thinking and knowledge (cognitive development). Until the child has acquired concepts of size, object permanence [an object still exists when it can’t be seen], etc, s/he can’t grasp and use words such as ‘more than’, ‘less than’ and ‘gone’.

Question 8

What research supports Piaget’s theory?

Answer 8

When seven year olds were taught phrases like ‘more than and ‘less than’ this language tuition did not help them to grasp these concepts. The words are usually acquired after the concepts have been grasped

Question 9

What data should you look out for regarding Piaget? (2)

Answer 9

1. children talking to themselves while playing or working at a task, in a way that suggests they are trying to help themselves make sense of something (‘egocentric speech’)
2. children failing to use or understand language because they haven’t yet grasped the concept expressed by the language

Question 10

Give a brief overview of Bruner and Social interactionist theory (2)

Answer 10

1. Language is social. ‘Children learn to use language initially…to get what they want, to play games, to stay connected with those on whom they are dependent’ (1983).
2. Children’s language development is enriched and accelerated according to the quantity and quality of their social interactions with adults. It is only through interactions with adults that children learn the social pragmatics of language use.

Question 11

Research that supports Bruner and social interactionist theory? (3)

Answer 11

1. Clarke-Stewart (1973) found that children whose mothers talk more have larger vocabularies
2. Several researchers have found that parents often respond to the ‘truth values’ of what their baby is saying rather than to its grammatical correctness
3. children who grow up in the absence of social interaction fail to develop language in the normal way

Question 12

What data should you look out for regarding Bruner and social interactionist theory? (5)

Answer 12

1. children clearly enjoying/benefiting from interaction
2. parents reinforcing their children’s attempts to speak by responding in an encouraging and positive way
3. adult caregivers using features of Child-directed Speech
4. conversation skills and pragmatic awareness (e.g. politeness) being modelled/taught/learnt through interaction between a child and adult caregiver
5. adult caregivers providing the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS) when talking to (or doing any activity, e.g. reading) with a child
   - Gaining the child’s attention
   - Query – asking a question
   - Label – telling the baby what the object is
   - Feedback

Question 13

Give a brief overview of Critical Period theory (Lenneberg)

Answer 13

The Human brain is designed to acquire language at a certain time (i.e. during the first five years) and once this period has passed normal language development is no longer possible.

Question 14

What research supports Critical Period (Lenneberg)

Answer 14

Story of Genie who was locked up until the age of 13 and never learned to speak fully competently