LANGUAGEAND

COGNITIONBLESSIE JOE MYGEL BAJE

THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Language is acquired very quickly in a child’s life. This speed of acquisition has influenced

a number of schools of thought about the ways that children learn to communicate.

NATURE VS. NURTURE

The nature vs. nurture debate extends to the topic of language acquisition.

COGNITIVIST THEORY

•Views humans as having the innate capacity to develop logical thinking•The process of association has been used to describe the means by which the child learns to relate what is said to the particular objects or events in the environment.

•Cognitivist say that the conditions for learning a language are the same conditions that are necessary for any kind of learning.•The environment provides the material that the child can work on

COGNITIVIST THEORY

JEAN PIAGET

•Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist who studied the development of cognitive processes from infancy through adulthood•Piaget's theory on children learning language is mainly focused around “cognitive development,” meaning language is controlled by the development of thinking

•According to Piaget, children learn their initial rational constructs through the environment i.e. by interaction with other people.•Children develop language through a combination of schemas (concepts for how to act and respond to the world).•As these schemas gradually develop and become more complex in the mind, language and vocabulary progress in order for the child to handle the new schemas.

PIAGET’S STAGES OF CHILDREN’S LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT – COGNITIVE THEORY

1.Sensorimotor2.Pre-operational

3.Concrete operational4.Formal operational

THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (0-2)

•Learning through the senses•The baby experiments with what her mouth can do just as she experiments with what her hands can do. In the process she learns how to imitate some of the sounds she hears her parents making and in what context those sounds should be made.•Baby can differentiate from self and objects

THE PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (2-7)

•This stage is marked by language acquisition and children develop ability to think of symbols and forms words from ideas and vice versa.•Still thinks egocentrically•The child seems to talk constantly, but much of what he says does not need to be said out loud

THE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (7-11)•Children at this stage are able to group things in logical order according to their names, numbers or sizes•the child is capable of using logic and of solving problems in the form of stories as long as the story deals only with facts rather than abstract ideas•Language at this stage is used to refer to specific and concrete facts, not mental concepts

FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (11 YEARS +)

•Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems•Children who have reached this stage can use language to express and debate abstract theoretical concepts such as those found in mathematics, philosophy or logic

PIAGET BELIEVED THAT THESE FOUR STAGES OF

COGNITIVE AND LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT WERE

UNIVERSAL AND THAT NO CHILDREN EVER SKIPPED OVER ONE OF THE FOUR

STEPS.