child lang. theorists

Question 1

Skinner – Behaviourism theory (Imitation)

Answer 1

• Importance placed on the role of the caregiver
• Operant conditioning (positive / negative reinforcement)
• Explains features like accent and dialect
• Does not account for things that are not imitated, such as virtuous errors, pragmatic awareness of social convention

Question 2

Chomsky – Innateness

Answer 2

• children are born w/ inborn ability to extract rules from the language around them (helps them to learn language quickly)
• has a LAD (language acquisition device) – takes in grammatical rules of lang. around them
• has universal grammar
• LAD explains: impressive speed in which children speak; fact that children from all cultures pass through similar stages of lang. development; existence of grammar features that are common to all languages
• underestimates significance of Skinner’s argument (imitation, interaction and reinforcement are important)

Question 3

Bard and Sachs (1977) – Input —– building on Bruner

Answer 3

• are the most recent CLA theories
• stresses the role of interaction in the development of lang.
• depends on input made by parents and carers

Question 4

Piaget (1977) – Cognitive

Answer 4

• focuses on mental abilities and skills
• children need to develop certain mental abilities before they can acquire particular aspects of lang.
• child is firstly egocentric at around 18 months they realise things have object permanence – so child can grasp ideas of past, present and future
• when child can arrange objects in decreasing size, child will use comparatives in their lang.
• children are active learners who use environment and social interactions to shape their lang.

Question 5

4 stages of Piaget’s (1977) cognitive theory

Answer 5

• Sensorimotor ( up to 2yrs) : child experiences physical world through senses and begins classifying things – lexical choices will be more concrete than abstract. Object permanence appears
• Pre-operational ( 2-7yrs) : lang. and motor skills develop and become more competent – lang. is egocentric
• Concrete operational ( 7-11yrs) : children begin thinking logically about concrete events
• Formal operational: ( 11+ yrs ) : abstract reasoning skills develop

Question 6

what does egocentric mean

Answer 6

• when child is unable to grasp concept that something can exist outside of their immediate surrounding

Question 7

problems w/ Piaget (1977) cognitive theory

Answer 7

• doesn’t explain how some people w/ learning difficulties are linguistically fluent
• so cognitive and lang. development isn’t as closely connected as this approach suggests, as it has 4 development stages

Question 8

difference between interpsychological and intrapsychological

Answer 8

interpsychological: child’s interaction with people
intrapsychological: child’s interaction within themselves (their mind)

Question 9

Vygotsky (1978) – Social development theory

Answer 9

• social interaction plays a fundamental role in development of cognition
• child’s cultural development starts w/ interaction on social level
• child’s first utterances w/ peers or adults are for the purpose of communication, but, once mastered it becomes internalised and ‘inner speech.’
• in non-structured socio-dramatic the child takes ownership, but in structured socio-dramatic play occurs in an educational environment (means of developing a child’s lang. acquisition)

Question 10

Aitchinson (1987) child’s acquisition of vocabulary

Answer 10

• labelling — first stage and it involves making the link between the sounds of particular words and the objects to which they refer
• packaging — understanding a words range of meaning
• network building — grasping the connections between words, understanding some words are opposites e.g big, small and deep, shallow

Question 11

Halliday’s taxonomy description (1975)

Answer 11

• links to pragmatics, believes early language of a child has 7 functions
• instrumental: used to fulfil a need of get something e.g drink, food, comfort
• regulatory: to influence the behaviour of others, make requests, give orders (bossy)
• interactional: develop social relationships and ease process of interaction — relate to others and they use small talk
• personal: to express personal preferences, feelings and views and identity of the speaker
• heuristic: explore environment— frequently accompanies child’s play e.g. labelling and asking questions
• imaginative: to explore something creatively
• representational: to exchange info. (giving or receiving)

Question 12

How does child directed speech support grammatical acquisition

Answer 12

• it uses simpler constructions
• frequent imperatives
• lots of repetition
• frequent questions
• personal names instead of pronouns

Question 13

How does Piaget’s (cognitive) and Tomassello’s (Usage-based) theory relate to grammatical acquisition

Answer 13

Piaget: child’s cognitive ability needs to be present for their lang. to reflect this – so won’t be able to use comparatives until they understood size and scale
Tomasello: argues against lang. being a special instinct; instead ability is primarily social and relies on using the same cognitive processes as other forms of learning

Question 14

Roger Brown (1973) – 5 grammar stages

Answer 14

• 15-30 months: no bound morphemes, word order is correct
• 28-36 months: bound morphemes start appearing, present progressive tense ( -ing suffix), regular -s appear
• 36-42 months: regular past tense w/ -ed suffix
• 42-53 months: compound sentences that are joined

Question 15

Ursula Bellugi (1971) – pronoun acquisition

Answer 15

• child will use a name rather than pronoun e.g. Rachel go now vs I go now
• child will recognise that there’s a difference between subject and object pronouns, but won’t be able to apply it correctly e.g. me play toy
• child will correctly apply subject/ object pronouns e.g. you love me

Question 16

what is Chomsky’s universal grammar (UG) theory

Answer 16

• the idea that certain aspects of our knowledge and understanding are innate
• we are all born w/ the same potential for language

Question 17

Problems with Chomsky’s Universal Grammar (UG) theory

Answer 17

• what aspects of our lang. are universal
• there’s so much linguistic diversity (nearly 7000 languages)
• some features are unique to certain languages e.g. idiomatic expressions, ungrammatical utterances
• doesn’t account for full grammatical acquisition

Question 18

Cronin (2002) — syntagmatic/ paradigmatic responses

Answer 18

• at 5 children undergo a syntagmatic/ paradigmatic shift in word acquisition
• young children tend to give syntagmatic responses e.g. bark (in association w/ a dog)
• older children who have developed sense relations give paradigmatic responses e.g. cat (in association w/ a dog)

Question 19

studies that support overextension

Answer 19

• Rescorla (1980) : between 1 year 6months and 2yrs 6 months overextension accounts for as many as 40% of child word uses
• Leopold (1939) : 1-year-olds used papa to refer to father, grandfather and mother at 1yr 2months all men were called papa

Question 20

Bruner social interactionalism

Answer 20

• rejected LAD and focused research on the importance of a child’s interaction w/ caregivers
• suggested the LASS (language acquisition support system) – which includes questioning, encouragement and support through scaffolding enable development

Question 21

Vygotsky ‘scaffolding’

Answer 21

• suggested importance of ‘doing’ for a child and the role of a MKO (more knowledge other)
• the MKO moves a child to their zone of proximal development – the space between what a learner can do w/o assistance and what they can do with assistance

Question 22

Cronin (2002)

Answer 22

• at age 5 children undergo a syntagmatic/ paradigmatic shift in word associations
• yound kids will uses

Question 23

list 7 functions of Halliday’s functional theories (taxonomy)

Answer 23

• instrumental
• regulatory
• interactional
• personal
• heuristic
• imaginative
• representational

Question 24

Pinker theory (1994)

Answer 24

• argues that all language are built on the same universal grammar and that language mechanism is built into the brain
• basic structures of lang, are apart of our biological inheritance
• mainly supports nature study

Question 25

Tomasello 'usage based approach'

Answer 25

- explains child must work out the intentions of the mature speaker to achieve social ends -- is called intention reading - believes is pattern finding : child's realisation of patterns in language to create linguistic schemas and constructions e.g the noun-verb-noun pattern Jacks kicks the ball