Language Learning in Early Childhood

Explaining first language acquisition

Overview

The behaviourist perspective

The innatist perspectiveThe critical Period Hypothesis (CPH)

Interactionist/developmental perspective

The behaviourist 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

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

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 perspective

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?

Thank you for your attention!