THEORIES ABOUT LANGUAGE

Lev Vygotsky

Underlying Philosophy : Interactionism

Similar to the behaviorist theory, the interactionist theory believes that nurture is crucial in the process
of language development. Though, the interactionist perspective differs from thebehaviorist perspective
in that this perspective believes that language is acquired through social interaction in the environment,
not reinforcement. With a focus on pragmatic knowledge, infants, toddlers, and children enhance their
language acquisition through communication in various social environments. In accordance with
Vygotsky's theory, social interaction is most important in acquiring skills. This is so because, as language
acquisition is influenced by the one's surroundings, Vygotsky theorized that social interaction is
important in helping children acquire language according to societal and cultural norms of their
community. The interactionist perspective also focuses on the process of language development, which
builds on the ideas of all theoretical perspectives of language development. Furthermore, in accordance
with the language acquisition support system, infants, toddlers, and children develop language
knowledge through environmental motivators and effort to understand and acquire all aspects of
language, including interaction patterns, the communication loop, and communication skills, such as
listening and responding.

Noam Chomsky

Underlying Philosophy: Nativism (Nativist Theory)

In accordance with Noam Chomsky's theory on language development, the nativist perspective believes
that nature is most crucial in the process of language development. According to Chomsky, throughout
the universe, infants have an inborn mechanism for acquiring syntax knowledge in any culture and
society, also known as universal grammar. In addition, the language acquisition device is an inborn
mechanism that allows infants to learn and manipulate deep grammatical structures. Through
hypothesis testing, children use

natural mechanisms to teach themselves various aspects of language use.

The basis to Chomsky's linguistic theory is rooted in biolinguistics, holding that the principles underlying
the structure of language are biologically determined in the human mind and hence genetically
transmitted. He therefore argues that all humans share the same underlying linguistic structure,
irrespective of sociocultural differences.] In adopting this position, Chomsky rejects the radical
behaviorist psychology of B. F. Skinner which views the mind as a tabula rasa ("blank slate") and thus
treats language as learned behavior. Accordingly, he argues that language is a unique evolutionary
development of the human species and is unlike modes of communication used by any other animal
species. Chomsky's nativist, internalist view of language is consistent with the philosophical school of
"rationalism", and is contrasted with the anti-nativist, externalist view of language, which is consistent
with the philosophical school of "empiricism".

Jean Piaget

Underlying Philosophy: Cognitivism

Similar to the nativist theory, in accordance with Jean Piaget's theory on cognitive

development, the cognitive developmental perspective believes that nature is most crucial in the
process of language development. Though, in contrast to the nativist theory, the cognitive
developmental theory does not state a specific inborn mechanism as part of the developmental process.
Rather, language development occurs according to stages of cognitive development. occur before
language appears. According to Piaget, language appears when one has ability to represent symbols in
the mind. This leads to the creation of words, which leads to language acquisition

B. F. Skinner

Underlying Philosophy: Behaviorism

In contrast to the nativist and cognitive developmental perspectives, the behaviorist perspective
believes that nurture is most crucial in the process of language development. According to B. F. Skinner's
behaviorist theory, language is taught through various reinforcements in the environment. Infants learn
to associate certain stimuli with certain behaviors and responses. With continued reinforcement,
infants learn appropriate certain stimuli with certain behaviors and responses. With continued
reinforcement, infants learn appropriate responses and behaviors, which lead towards langauge
development. For example, through operant conditioning, infants learn what sounds elicit certain
responses. Infants repeat sounds that elicit positive responses. Continued positive responses from
parents reinforce infants' behaviors to certain situations. Besides behaviors, operant conditioning
supports imitative speech in that young children imitate speech sounds they hear and continue to do so
with positive responses from adults. With continued positive reinforcement in the environment, infants,
toddlers, and young children have positive outcomes in their language development. As this perspective
relies heavily on reinforcement, this perspective cannot explain the reasoning behind children's made-
up words.

THEORIES ABOUT LANGUAGE

Lev Vygotsky

Underlying Philosophy : Interactionism

Similar to the behaviorist theory, the interactionist theory believes that nurture is crucial in the process
of language development. Though, the interactionist perspective differs from thebehaviorist perspective
in that this perspective believes that language is acquired through social interaction in the environment,
not reinforcement. With a focus on pragmatic knowledge, infants, toddlers, and children enhance their
language acquisition through communication in various social environments. In accordance with
Vygotsky's theory, social interaction is most important in acquiring skills. This is so because, as language
acquisition is influenced by the one's surroundings, Vygotsky theorized that social interaction is
important in helping children acquire language according to societal and cultural norms of their
community. The interactionist perspective also focuses on the process of language development, which
builds on the ideas of all theoretical perspectives of language development. Furthermore, in accordance
with the language acquisition support system, infants, toddlers, and children develop language
knowledge through environmental motivators and effort to understand and acquire all aspects of
language, including interaction patterns, the communication loop, and communication skills, such as
listening and responding.

Noam Chomsky

Underlying Philosophy: Nativism (Nativist Theory)

In accordance with Noam Chomsky's theory on language development, the nativist perspective believes
that nature is most crucial in the process of language development. According to Chomsky, throughout
the universe, infants have an inborn mechanism for acquiring syntax knowledge in any culture and
society, also known as universal grammar. In addition, the language acquisition device is an inborn
mechanism that allows infants to learn and manipulate deep grammatical structures. Through
hypothesis testing, children use

natural mechanisms to teach themselves various aspects of language use.

The basis to Chomsky's linguistic theory is rooted in biolinguistics, holding that the principles underlying
the structure of language are biologically determined in the human mind and hence genetically
transmitted. He therefore argues that all humans share the same underlying linguistic structure,
irrespective of sociocultural differences.] In adopting this position, Chomsky rejects the radical
behaviorist psychology of B. F. Skinner which views the mind as a tabula rasa ("blank slate") and thus
treats language as learned behavior. Accordingly, he argues that language is a unique evolutionary
development of the human species and is unlike modes of communication used by any other animal
species. Chomsky's nativist, internalist view of language is consistent with the philosophical school of
"rationalism", and is contrasted with the anti-nativist, externalist view of language, which is consistent
with the philosophical school of "empiricism".
Jean Piaget

Underlying Philosophy: Cognitivism

Similar to the nativist theory, in accordance with Jean Piaget's theory on cognitive

development, the cognitive developmental perspective believes that nature is most crucial in the
process of language development. Though, in contrast to the nativist theory, the cognitive
developmental theory does not state a specific inborn mechanism as part of the developmental process.
Rather, language development occurs according to stages of cognitive development. occur before
language appears. According to Piaget, language appears when one has ability to represent symbols in
the mind. This leads to the creation of words, which leads to language acquisition

B. F. Skinner

Underlying Philosophy: Behaviorism

In contrast to the nativist and cognitive developmental perspectives, the behaviorist perspective
believes that nurture is most crucial in the process of language development. According to B. F. Skinner's
behaviorist theory, language is taught through various reinforcements in the environment. Infants learn
to associate certain stimuli with certain behaviors and responses. With continued reinforcement,
infants learn appropriate certain stimuli with certain behaviors and responses. With continued
reinforcement, infants learn appropriate responses and behaviors, which lead towards langauge
development. For example, through operant conditioning, infants learn what sounds elicit certain
responses. Infants repeat sounds that elicit positive responses. Continued positive responses from
parents reinforce infants' behaviors to certain situations. Besides behaviors, operant conditioning
supports imitative speech in that young children imitate speech sounds they hear and continue to do so
with positive responses from adults. With continued positive reinforcement in the environment, infants,
toddlers, and young children have positive outcomes in their language development. As this perspective
relies heavily on reinforcement, this perspective cannot explain the reasoning behind children's made-
up words.
Theories of Language Learning
Behaviorist Theories (include The Contrastive Analysis
Hypothesis)
Basic Tenets
o Based on Skinner
o The idea that animal and human learning are similar based on Darwin’s theory.
o All behavior is a response to stimuli.
o No innate pre-programming for language learning at birth (Hadley 2001, pg. 57)
o Learning can also occur through imitation.
o Corrective feedback to correct bad habits
o Language is learned just as another behavior

Critique
o Chomsky criticized this theory.
o Does not explain the creativity of children in generating language. i.e how can
kids overcome grammatical errors without their parents’ correction?

Universal Grammar Theory

Basic Tenets
o A mentalist viewpoint related to nativism and cognitive theory.
o The idea that of Chomsky that all children are born with Language Acquisition
Device (Hadley 2001 pg 58).
o Language learning depends on biological mechanisms.
o Children are innately programmed to learn language.
o Each language has its own “parameter settings”.
o The principles that children discover represent their “core grammar” which relates
to general principles that correspond to all languages.
o All human brain contains language universals that direct language acquisition (
Horwitz 2008)
o It can be tested

Critique
o Is based on first language learning so it may not apply to second language
acquisition.
o The way adults and children learn is different.
o Does not consider social factors or individual differences that affect language
learning. .
o Motivation and attitudes towards the target language does not come into play in
this theory.
o It is very Complex
o Only looks at product data

Krashen’s Monitor Theory

Basic Tenets
o Adults have two ways of developing competence in the second language:
acquisition (subconscious learning) and learning (conscious learning).
o The natural order hypothesis: acquisition of grammatical structures follow a
predicable order when is natural (Hadley 2001).
o The monitor Hypothesis: Acquisition is responsible for all second language
utterances and fluency. On the contrary, learning is the “editor” and “monitor” for the
output (Hadley 2001).
o The input hypothesis: speaking fluency emerges over time. Acquisition on
language will happen when we are exposed to the language that is beyond our level.
o Effective filter hypothesis: low effective filter contributes to good learning.
o Error correction should be minimized and only use when the goal is learning.
o Students should not be required to produce speech until they’ re ready.

Critique
o There is a debate between the distinction of learning and acquisition. Krashen’s
claim cannot be tested.
o Munsell and Cart (1981) criticized the implication of this theory that language
learning is distinct from other types of learning (Hadley 2001).
o There are not clear definitions for some of the terms implemented by Krashen
such as “comprehensible input” and acquisition vs. learning.
o Krashen does not explain how effective filters develops and does not take
individual differences into account.

Cognitive Theory
(Ausubel, McLaughlin, Bialystok, Ellis, Anderson, and
others)
Basic tenets
o Based on internal and mental processes.
o Focuses on transferring, simplification, generalization, and restructuring that
involve second language acquisition.
o Language learning is the result from internal mental activity.
o Emphasizes that knowledge and new learning is organized in a mental structure.
o Learner acts, constructs, and plans its own learning
o Analyzes own learning
o Positive and negative feedback is important for restructuring.
o Proficiency develops trough practice and then it becomes automatic.
o Once new information it’s acquired, existed knowledge is reorganized.
o Ausubel emphasizes that learning language needs to be meaningful in order to be
effective and permanent (Hadley 2001, pg 69).

Critique
o Needs more clarification when referring to complex cognitive skill.
o Does not explain when and how some features of the first language are transfer to
the second language and why some don’t transfer.

Conversation Theories
Basic Tenets
o The idea of learning a second language by participating in conversations
o Importance use of scaffolding
o Gives feedback and suggest ways of improvement
o Does not require production of full sentences but encourages speaking
o Errors should be corrected

Critique
o Does not focus on teaching grammar

Schumann’s Acculturation Theory

Basic Tenets
o Based on a Social Theory
o Focuses on the multiple perspective of the learner
o Learning a language to function in the target language culture.
o Examines how social forces affect language learning.
o Attitudes and stereotypes towards the target language affect learning.
o Lower social and psychological distance will lead to successful learning
o Errors can be corrected for better acculturation
o There are external factors that affect language acquisition
Critique
o Does not focus on teaching specific grammar

THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Over the last fifty years, several theories have been put forward to explain the process by which children
learn to understand and speak a language. They can be summarised as follows:

Individual with
Theory Central Idea theory

Behaviourist Children imitate adults. Their correct utterances are reinforced Skinner
when they get what they want or are praised.

Innateness A child's brain contains special language-learning mechanisms Chomsky

at birth.

Cognitive Language is just one aspect of a child's overall intellectual Piaget

development.

Interaction This theory emphasises the interaction between children and Bruner
their care-givers.

We shall consider each of these in turn. Before we do, it is important to recognise that they should not be
seen simply as conflicting theories, replacing each other in a sequence. Although Behaviourism is now
seen as offering only a very limited explanation, each theory has added to our overall understanding,
placing emphasis on different aspects of the process.

Behaviourism
The behaviourist psychologists developed their theories while carrying out a series of experiments on
animals. They observed that rats or birds, for example, could be taught to perform various tasks by
encouraging habit-forming. Researchers rewarded desirable behaviour. This was known as positive
reinforcement. Undesirable behaviour was punished or simply not rewarded - negative reinforcement.

The behaviourist B. F. Skinner then proposed this theory as an explanation for language acquisition in
humans. In Verbal Behaviour (1957), he stated:

"The basic processes and relations which give verbal behaviour its special characteristics are now
fairly well understood. Much of the experimental work responsible for this advance has been
carried out on other species, but the results have proved to be surprisingly free of species
 restrictions. Recent work has shown that the methods can be extended to human behaviour
without serious modifications."

(cited in Lowe and Graham, 1998, p68)

Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers. Successful attempts are
rewarded because an adult who recognises a word spoken by a child will praise the child and/or give it
what it is asking for. Successful utterances are therefore reinforced while unsuccessful ones are forgotten.

Limitations of Behaviourism
While there must be some truth in Skinner's explanation, there are many objections to it.

 Language is based on a set of structures or rules, which could not be worked out simply by
imitating individual utterances. The mistakes made by children reveal that they are not simply
imitating but actively working out and applying rules. For example, a child who says "drinked"
instead of "drank" is not copying an adult but rather over-applying a rule. The child has
discovered that past tense verbs are formed by adding a /d/ or /t/ sound to the base form. The
"mistakes" occur because there are irregular verbs which do not behave in this way. Such forms
are often referred to as intelligent mistakes or virtuous errors.

 The vast majority of children go through the same stages of language acquisition. There appears
to be a definite sequence of steps. We refer to developmental milestones. Apart from certain
extreme cases (see the case of Genie), the sequence seems to be largely unaffected by the
treatment the child receives or the type of society in which s/he grows up.

 Children are often unable to repeat what an adult says, especially if the adult utterance
contains a structure the child has not yet started to use. The classic demonstration comes from the
American psycholinguist David McNeill. The structure in question here involves negating verbs:
Child: Nobody don't like me

Mother: No, say, "Nobody likes me."

Child: Nobody don't like me.

(Eight repetitions of this dialogue)

Mother: No, now listen carefully: say, "Nobody likes me."

Child: Oh! Nobody don't likes me.

(McNeil in The Genesis of Language, 1966)

  Few children receive much explicit grammatical correction. Parents are more interested in
politeness and truthfulness. According to Brown, Cazden and Bellugi (1969): "It seems to be
truth value rather than well-formed syntax that chiefly governs explicit verbal reinforcement by
parents - which renders mildly paradoxical the fact that the usual product of such a training
schedule is an adult whose speech is highly grammatical but not notably truthful." (cited in Lowe
and Graham, 1998)

 There is evidence for a critical period for language acquisition. Children who have not acquired
language by the age of about seven will never entirely catch up. The most famous example is that
of Genie, discovered in 1970 at the age of 13. She had been severely neglected, brought up in
isolation and deprived of normal human contact. Of course, she was disturbed and
underdeveloped in many ways. During subsequent attempts at rehabilitation, her carers tried to
teach her to speak. Despite some success, mainly in learning vocabulary, she never became a
fluent speaker, failing to acquire the grammatical competence of the average five-year-old.

Innateness
Noam Chomsky published a criticism of the behaviourist theory in 1957. In addition to some of
the arguments listed above, he focused particularly on the impoverished language input
children receive. Adults do not typically speak in grammatically complete sentences. In
addition, what the child hears is only a small sample of language.

Chomsky concluded that children must have an inborn faculty for language acquisition.
According to this theory, the process is biologically determined - the human species has
evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain linguistic information at birth. The child's natural
predisposition to learn language is triggered by hearing speech and the child's brain is able to
interpret what s/he hears according to the underlying principles or structures it already contains.
This natural faculty has become known as the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Chomsky
did not suggest that an English child is born knowing anything specific about English, of course.
He stated that all human languages share common principles. (For example, they all have words
for things and actions - nouns and verbs.) It is the child's task to establish how the specific
language s/he hears expresses these underlying principles.

For example, the LAD already contains the concept of verb tense. By listening to such forms as
"worked", "played" and "patted", the child will form the hypothesis that the past tense of verbs is
formed by adding the sound /d/, /t/ or /id/ to the base form. This, in turn, will lead to the
"virtuous errors" mentioned above. It hardly needs saying that the process is unconscious.
Chomsky does not envisage the small child lying in its cot working out grammatical rules
consciously!

Chomsky's ground-breaking theory remains at the centre of the debate about language
acquisition. However, it has been modified, both by Chomsky himself and by others.
Chomsky's original position was that the LAD contained specific knowledge about language.
Dan Isaac Slobin has proposed that it may be more like a mechanism for working out the rules
of language:
"It seems to me that the child is born not with a set of linguistic categories but with some
sort of process mechanism - a set of procedures and inference rules, if you will - that he
uses to process linguistic data. These mechanisms are such that, applying them to the
 input data, the child ends up with something which is a member of the class of human
languages. The linguistic universals, then, are the result of an innate cognitive
competence rather than the content of such a competence."
(cited in Russell, 2001)

Evidence to support the innateness theory

Work in several areas of language study has provided support for the idea of an innate language
faculty. Three types of evidence are offered here:
1. Slobin has pointed out that human anatomy is peculiarly adapted to the production of
speech. Unlike our nearest relatives, the great apes, we have evolved a vocal tract
which allows the precise articulation of a wide repertoire of vocal sounds. Neuro-science
has also identified specific areas of the brain with distinctly linguistic functions, notably
Broca's area and Wernicke's area. Stroke victims provide valuable data: depending on
the site of brain damage, they may suffer a range of language dysfunction, from problems
with finding words to an inability to interpret syntax. Experiments aimed at teaching
chimpanzees to communicate using plastic symbols or manual gestures have proved
controversial. It seems likely that our ape cousins, while able to learn individual "words",
have little or no grammatical competence. Pinker (1994) offers a good account of this
research.

2. The formation of creole varieties of English appears to be the result of the LAD at work.
The linguist Derek Bickerton has studied the formation of Dutch-based creoles in
Surinam. Escaped slaves, living together but originally from different language groups,
were forced to communicate in their very limited Dutch. The result was the restricted
form of language known as a pidgin. The adult speakers were past the critical age at
which they could learn a new language fluently - they had learned Dutch as a foreign
language and under unfavourable conditions. Remarkably, the children of these slaves
turned the pidgin into a full language, known by linguists as a creole. They were
presumably unaware of the process but the outcome was a language variety which
follows its own consistent rules and has a full expressive range. Creoles based on
English are also found, in the Caribbean and elsewhere.

3. Studies of the sign languages used by the deaf have shown that, far from being crude
gestures replacing spoken words, these are complex, fully grammatical languages in their
own right. A sign language may exist in several dialects. Children learning to sign as a
first language pass through similar stages to hearing children learning spoken language.
Deprived of speech, the urge to communicate is realised through a manual system which
fulfils the same function. There is even a signing creole, again developed by children, in
Nicaragua. For an account of this, see Pinker, 1994 (pp 36-7).
(Note: some of this section is derived from the BBC television documentary The Mind
Machine.)

Limitations of Chomsky's theory

Chomsky's work on language was theoretical. He was interested in grammar and much of his
work consists of complex explanations of grammatical rules. He did not study real children.
The theory relies on children being exposed to language but takes no account of the interaction
between children and their carers. Nor does it recognise the reasons why a child might want to
speak, the functions of language.

In 1977, Bard and Sachs published a study of a child known as Jim, the hearing son of deaf
parents. Jim's parents wanted their son to learn speech rather than the sign language they used
between themselves. He watched a lot of television and listened to the radio, therefore receiving
frequent language input. However, his progress was limited until a speech therapist was enlisted
to work with him. Simply being exposed to language was not enough. Without the associated
interaction, it meant little to him.
Subsequent theories have placed greater emphasis on the ways in which real children develop
language to fulfil their needs and interact with their environment, including other people.

The Cognitive Theory

The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget placed acquisition of language within the context of a child's mental
or cognitive development. He argued that a child has to understand a concept before s/he can acquire the
particular language form which expresses that concept.

A good example of this is seriation. There will be a point in a child's intellectual development when s/he
can compare objects with respect to size. This means that if you gave the child a number of sticks, s/he
could arrange them in order of size. Piaget suggested that a child who had not yet reached this stage
would not be able to learn and use comparative adjectives like "bigger" or "smaller".

Object permanence is another phenomenon often cited in relation to the cognitive theory. During the first
year of life, children seem unaware of the existence of objects they cannot see. An object which moves
out of sight ceases to exist. By the time they reach the age of 18 months, children have realised that
objects have an existence independently of their perception. The cognitive theory draws attention to the
large increase in children's vocabulary at around this age, suggesting a link between object permanence
and the learning of labels for objects.

Limitations of the Cognitive Theory

During the first year to 18 months, connections of the type explained above are possible to trace but, as a
child continues to develop, so it becomes harder to find clear links between language and intellect. Some
studies have focused on children who have learned to speak fluently despite abnormal mental
development. Syntax in particular does not appear to rely on general intellectual growth.

Input or Interactionist Theories

In contrast to the work of Chomsky, more recent theorists have stressed the importance of the language
input children receive from their care-givers. Language exists for the purpose of communication and can
only be learned in the context of interaction with people who want to communicate with you.
Interactionists such as Jerome Bruner suggest that the language behaviour of adults when talking to
children (known by several names by most easily referred to as child-directed speech or CDS) is specially
adapted to support the acquisition process. This support is often described to as scaffolding for the child's
language learning. Bruner also coined the term Language Acquisition Support System or LASS in
response to Chomsky's LAD. Colwyn Trevarthen studied the interaction between parents and babies who
were too young to speak. He concluded that the turn-taking structure of conversation is developed
through games and non-verbal communication long before actual words are uttered.

Limitations of Input theories

These theories serve as a useful corrective to Chomsky's early position and it seems likely that a child will
learn more quickly with frequent interaction. However, it has already been noted that children in all
cultures pass through the same stages in acquiring language. We have also seen that there are cultures in
which adults do not adopt special ways of talking to children, so CDS may be useful but seems not to be
essential.

As stated earlier, the various theories should not be seen simply as alternatives. Rather, each of them
offers a partial explanation of the process.

i love english language

4.1 child language acquisition theory – chomsky, crystal,
Aitchison & piaget
Chomsky
Noam Chomsky believes that children are born with an inherited ability to learn any human
language. He claims that certain linguistic structures which children use so accurately must
be already imprinted on the child’s mind. Chomsky believes that every child has a ‘language
acquisition device’ or LAD which encodes the major principles of a language and its
grammatical structures into the child’s brain. Children have then only to learn new
vocabulary and apply the syntactic structures from the LAD to form sentences. Chomsky
points out that a child could not possibly learn a language through imitation alone because
the language spoken around them is highly irregular – adult’s speech is often broken up and
even sometimes ungrammatical.Chomsky’s theory applies to all languages as they all
contain nouns, verbs, consonants and vowels and children appear to be ‘hard-wired’ to
acquire the grammar. Every language is extremely complex, often with subtle distinctions
which even native speakers are unaware of. However, all children, regardless of their
intellectual ability, become fluent in their native language within five or six years.
Evidence to support Chomsky’s theory
 Children learning to speak never make grammatical errors such as getting their
subjects, verbs and objects in the wrong order.
 If an adult deliberately said a grammatically incorrect sentence, the child would notice.
 Children often say things that are ungrammatical such as ‘mama ball’, which they
cannot have learnt passively.
 Mistakes such as ‘I drawed’ instead of ‘I drew’ show they are not learning through
imitation alone.
 Chomsky used the sentence ‘colourless green ideas sleep furiously’, which is
grammatical although it doesn’t make sense, to prove his theory: he said it shows that
sentences can be grammatical without having any meaning, that we can tell the
difference between a grammatical and an ungrammatical sentence without ever having
heard the sentence before, and that we can produce and understand brand new
sentences that no one has ever said before.
Evidence against Chomsky’s theory
 Critics of Chomsky’s theory say that although it is clear that children don’t learn
language through imitation alone, this does not prove that they must have an LAD –
language learning could merely be through general learning and understanding
abilities and interactions with other people.
Dialogue –
Parent and Child (3 years old)
Parent: What did you do today?
Child: Me drawed a cat. (applies –ed suffix rule but gets wrong)
Parent: You drew a cat?
Child: Yeah. (understands correction)
Parent: Who did you play with at breaktime?
Child: Me played with Sarah and Helen. (wrong pronoun – not learnt passively)
Parent: That sound fun. Now what do you want for tea?
Child: Dunno. What you having?
Parent: Daddy and I are having fish.
Child: You having fishes? (incorrect use of plural noun but shows child applying rules)
Parent: Yes. I’ll do you some fish fingers and if you’re a good girl and eat them all you can
have a sweetie. (applying plural noun rule)
Child: Me want two sweeties.
Parent: Alright then. Now go and watch Postman Pat while I start the tea.
Child: When Daddy coming home? (gets SVO order correct all the time)
Parent: He’ll be here soon.
David Crystal

David Crystal’s Theory On Child Language Acquisition

Professor Crystal is best known for his two encyclopaedias The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of
Language and The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language. So what does this have
to do with child language acquisition?

David Crystal has the theory that children learn language in five stages, which aren’t clearly
defined and some tie in with each other.

These stages are:

Stage One:

This is where children say things for three purposes:

1. To get something they want

2. To get someone’s attention
3. To draw attention to something
Then they begin to make basic statements such as “daddy car”

During this stage children begin naming things with single words and then move on to relating
objects with other things, places and people, for example, “there mummy”. They also relate
objects with events, for example, “bird gone”.

At this early stage they don’t have much vocabulary so they use intonation to ask a question.
Children use words like: “there, want and allgone” to express a full sentence. This could be said
that part of this stage is holophrastic.

Stage Two:

This is when children usually ask questions, “where” questions come first. Their questions often
begin with interrogative pronouns (what, where) followed by a noun or verb such as “where
gone?”

Children become concerned with naming and classifying things by frequently asking “Wassat?”
They may also begin to talk about the characteristics of things for example: big/small. Children
are taught to learn things in opposite pairs such as up/down and hot/cold.

Stage Three:

By now children would be asking lots of different questions but often signalling that they are
questions with intonation alone, for example: “Sally play in garden mummy?” This is made into
a question by varying the tone of voice.
Children soon begin to express more complex wants by using more grammatically correct
language, for example: “I want mummy to take it work” meaning “I want mummy to take
it to work”

Verbs such as “listen” and “know” are also used. Children refer to events in the past and less
often in the future. They usually talk about continuing action for examples: “she still in bed” and
ask about the state of actions (whether something is finished or not)

The basic sentence structure has expanded such as: [subject]+[verb]+[object]+[adverb or any
other element used] Sentences like: “You dry hands” and “A man dig down there” begin to
appear and auxiliary verbs are used in sentences such as “I am going” and phrases like “on the
table” [preposition]+[article]+[noun]

Stage Four:

This is when children use increasingly complex sentence structures and begin to:

 Explain things
 Ask for explanations using the word: “why?”
 Making a wide range of requests: “shall I do it?”
Now they are able to use complex sentence structures they have flexible language tools for
expressing a wide range of meanings. Probably the most remarkable development is their
comprehension of language and use of abstract verbs for example “know” to express mental
operations. They begin to communicate meaning indirectly by replacing imperatives such as
“give me” with questions; “can I have?”

As well as saying what they mean they now have pragmatic understanding and suit their
utterances to context or situation. Children also use negation (denial/contradiction) for
example: “he doesn’t want one!” They don’t rely on intonation and signals anymore as they
explain more fully.

They are now able to use auxiliary verbs and may duplicate modal verbs “please, can I, may I”
This could be showing that “may” is required for courtesy whilst “can” indicates being able to do
something.

And Finally…

Stage Five:
By this stage children regularly use language to do all the things that they need it for. They give
information, asking and answering questions, requesting directly and indirectly, suggesting,
offering, stating and expressing.

Children are now able to talk about things hypothetically and conditionally for example “If I
were you, I would…”

They are now able to explain conditions required for something to happen; “You’ve got turn the
tap on first in order to wash your hands”

As well as making general references to past and future, children now talk about particular
times such as: “after tea” and “before bedtime”

By this stage children are very comfortable with all questions beginning with words like:
“What?” and “When?” where the subject and verb are reversed such as “what does that mean?”

Scripts

Stage 1:

Child: Allgone!

Mother: Yes, the milk is all gone.

Child: Mummy, here.

Mother: Mummy’s here.

Child: Want more!

Mother: That’s enough milk now.

Child: No, more.

Mother: Look at dolly, she’s sleeping.

Child: Dolly, there?

Mother: Yes, dolly is in the bed.

Child: Dolly bye-bye.

Stage 2:

Child: Where’s Daddy?

Mother: Outside, look?

Child: Outside hot.

Mother: Yes it’s sunny.

Child: Wassat?

Mother: It’s a book.

Child: Big book.

Mother: Good girl.

Stage 3:

Child: Daddy is sleeping?

Mother: Uhuh Daddy’s sleeping on the couch isn’t he?

Child: Him wake up!

Mother: No because he is sleeping. That wouldn’t be very nice would it?

Child: I want Daddy.

Stage 4:

Mother: What would you like for lunch? Sandwiches? Pasta?

Child: Please, may, can I have ham?

Mother: On sandwiches?
Child: *nods*

Mother: What’s the magic word?

Child: Please!

Mother: Do you want a cup of orange juice?

Child: *shakes head* Not that one. Can I have apple juice?

Stage 5:

Mother: Did you have a good day at school today?

Child: Yeah, I played aeroplanes with Jake. I want to be an aeroplane driver when
I’m older.

Mother: A pilot?

Child: Yeah and fly to the moon.

Mother: No that’s an astronaut. Do you want to be a pilot or and astronaut?

Child: I would like to be an astra-, astra-

Mother: -naut.

Scripts

Stage 1:

Child: Allgone! Holophrase to express a full sentence. They are operators

when manipulating language this way.

Mother: Yes, the milk is all gone.

Child: Mummy, here. Only a statement as they don’t have much vocab or
language forms that they can control.

Mother: Mummy’s here.

Child: Want more!

Mother: That’s enough milk now.

Child: No, more. Direct imperative.

Mother: Look at dolly, she’s sleeping.

Child: Dolly, there? Intonation to ask question.

Mother: Yes, dolly is in the bed.

Child: Dolly bye-bye.

Stage 2:

Contraction = passively

Child: Where’s Daddy? Begin to ask questions usually beginning with ‘where’ –
interrogative pronoun.

Mother: Outside, look?

Child: Outside hot. Able to describe characteristics.

Mother: Yes it’s sunny.

Child: Wassat? Holophrase.

Mother: It’s a book.

Child: Big book. Able to describe concrete nouns with descriptive adjectives.
Mother: Good girl.

Stage 3:

Child: Daddy is sleeping? Intonation = passively. ’sleeping’-able to use and

understand continuous action.

Mother: Uhuh Daddy’s sleeping on the couch isn’t he? Parentese.

Child: Him wake up! More complex command but words mixed up.

Mother: No because he is sleeping. That wouldn’t be very nice would it?

Child: I want Daddy. Complex want structured correctly = Subject + Verb +

Object.

Stage 4:

Mother uses more complex sentences as child can understand them.

Mother: What would you like for lunch? Sandwiches? Pasta? Prompting.

Child: Please, may, can I have ham? Duplicate modal verbs. Indirect as replaces
imperative with question as learning manners/rules of general conversation.

Mother: On sandwiches?

Child: *nods*

Mother: What’s the magic word? Pragmatic.

Child: Please!

Mother: Do you want a cup of orange juice?

Child: *shakes head* Not that one. Can I have apple juice?

Able to use gestures/signals. Negation.

Stage 5:

Mother: Did you have a good day at school today? Able to give information about
his/her day. Knows time phrase for future.

Child: Yeah, I played aeroplanes with Jake. I want to be an aeroplane driver when
I’m older.

Mother: A pilot?

Child: Yeah and fly to the moon. Expressing exactly and has knowledge i.e.
actually knows about the moon.

Mother: No that’s an astronaut. Do you want to be a pilot or and astronaut?

Child: I would like to be an astra-, astra- Able to use conditional tense. Trying to
pronounce as it is a difficult word.

Mother: -naut.

Development of Grammar

The learning of grammar is an unnoticeable process and it happens very quickly.

Over three or four years, children master the grammar of the language. When
they attend their first school, they give the impression of having assimilated at
least 3/4 of all grammar there is to learn.

Stages of Grammatical Growth:

 The earliest stage is hardly like grammar at all, as it consists of utterances of

only one word long, for example ‘dada’ or ‘hi’. Approximately 60% of these
 words have a naming function and 20% express and action. Most children
of around 12-18 months go through this stage, known as the holophrastic
stage as they put the equivalent of a whole sentence into a single word.

 This next stage is more like real grammar from 18 months to 2 years. It is
known as the two-word stage as the children put 2 words together to make
one sentence structure. For example, ‘cat jump’ which is subject + verb, or
‘shut door’ which is verb + object. By the end of this stage we are left with
the impression that children have learned several basic lessons about
English word order.

 This next stage is filling simple sentence patterns by adding extra elements of
clause structure and making the elements more complex. 3 elements for
example ‘Daddy got car’ and then 4 elements ‘you go bed now’, show this
progress. Or the children start to ask questions like ‘where Daddy put car?’.
This takes up much of the third year and is known as the telegraphic stage
as simple words like determiners e.g. the, are left out but the sentence is still
understood.

 At 3 years, sentences become much longer as the children string clauses

together to express more complex thoughts and to tell simple stories.
Children at this stage commonly use ‘and’ or other linking words such as
‘because’, ‘so’, ‘then’ etc.

 At 4 years, the children are ‘sorting out’ their grammar. For example most
children at the age of 3 ½ might say ‘him gived the cheese to the mouses’.
However at 4 ½ years they would say ‘he gave the cheese to the mice’. This
explains that they have learnt the forms of the irregular noun ‘mice’ and the
verb ‘gave’, and the pronoun ‘he’.
  After 4 ½ years, there are still features of grammar to be used such as
sentence-connecting features. This process will continue until early teens
when the learning of grammar becomes more indistinguishable.

Active with Passive

Crystal carried out an experiment testing whether children at certain ages used
active or passive sentences. His study shows that at around 3 years old, none of
the children produced a passive sentence. However as he tested older children
they were beginning to use more passive sentences. At 7 years, the ability to use
passives dramatically increased.

Foundation Year

Crystal believes that language acquisition is not just about producing sounds, but
also about being able to perceive sounds and understand the meaning of
utterances that people make.

 He says that babies respond to different types of sounds by being able to

distinguish between different voices. Before the babies are 1 day old they
can tell which is their mother’s voice to someone else’s voice. As well as
contrasts in intonation and rhythm.

 The babies also show signs of comprehension between 2 and 4 months. They
do this by responding to different adult tones of voice such as angry or
soothing.

Between 6 and 9 months, the child learns to recognise different utterances in

situations for example ‘clap hands’ or ‘say bye-bye’.

Towards the end of the first years, the children show a sign of verbal learning
whether it is names of people or objects. Therefore knowing the meaning of at
least 20 words by the end of the first year before even uttering a word.
 Overall Crystal’s theory was that children learn in amorphous stages by trial and
error to successfully learn the language. They learn in stages of grammar,
different types of questioning e.g. intonation and recognising the rhythms of
voices.

Jean Aitchison

Jean Aitchison is a Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication in the Faculty of English
Language and Literature at the University of Oxford.

Idea that “language has a biologically organized schedule”.

Children everywhere follow a similar pattern. In their first few weeks, babies mostly cry. As Ronald Knox
once said: ‘A loud noise at one end, and no sense of responsibility at the other.’ Crying exercises the
lungs and vocal cords. But crying may once have had a further evolutionary purpose. Yelling babies may
have reminded parents that their offspring exist: deaf ringdoves forget about their existing brood, and
go off and start another.

In 1987, she identified three stages that occur during a child’s acquisition of vocabulary: labeling, packaging
and network building.
1. Labeling – The first stage and involves making the link between the sounds of particular words and
the objects to which they refer e.g. understanding that “mummy” refers to the child’s mother. In other words,
associating a name with something.
2. Packaging – This entails understanding a word’s range of meaning. This is when Over extension and Under
extension become a hurdle in the development of the language.
3. Network Building – This involves grasping the connections between words; understanding that some words
are opposite in meaning.Aitchison argued that there are no EXACT dates to which a child reaches a certain
stage of learning language – some children learn faster than others. She believed that the speed of learning is
influenced by both innate abilities and environment. Language is partly learned by imitation, so parents and
brothers/sisters play a role in the acceleration of learning the language. Baby talk whilst learning to speak
could hinder the child in learning to speak later on. Speech timetable created from birth to ten years old.
Dialogues:1.) According to Aitcheson’s Timetable of Speech, children grasp the use of single words at
month 12.
M: Mmm! isn’t that nice?
C: More.
M: Okay! Here comes the aero plane!
C: Yeh. 2.)
By the age of 2, the understanding of word endings begins to appear. However, it’s a bit complicated at
times for the child to always get it right, as some past tense verbs require no ending and it is placed by
the child anyway. This is an example of them learning actively.
D: Are you going to tell Mummy what you did today?
C: I roded on a horsie!!
3.) During the age of 2 is when Aitchison believes negatives are formed and the ability to ask questions is
developed:
M: Catch! *throws ball*
C: *misses* Why didn’t I caught it?
M: It’s alright, smile don’t sulk!
C: I not crying.
4.) At 5 years the child is able to speak using complex constructions and rarely faults:
C: Can I go to Joes for tea? We are going to play football in the park like last week.
M: If you stay clean
C: Whatever!
This is the process of language acquisition. Naturally, children will vary individually when they reach
each stage but there is little variation in the sentence of language learning. By the end, a child’s language
is in place and (s)he has a basic lexicon of several thousand words. From now on, what is learned is
retained and increasingly dependant upon experiences and environment – on opportunities to use
language and hear it used, for a wide range of purposes and audiences in a wide range of contexts.
Humans mop up words like sponges.
—Jean Aitchison, British linguist, The Language Web, 1997
Piaget

Sensori-motor Stage (0 – 2 years)

Baby can differenciate from self and objects
Parent: Where’s the ball?
Child: *points to ball* Ball!
P: Yess! And now where’s Tommy?
C: *points to self*
P: Yesss!
Pre-operational Stage (2 – 7 years)
Can classify objects as a single feature
P: Tommy, can you make a pile of all the yellow bricks?
C: Yes mummy look!
P: Well done!
Still thinks egocentrically
C1: Dolly is sad
C2: No! Dolly is happy!
C1: No!
C2: Yes!
C1: No!
Concrete operational Stage (7 – 11 years)
Can think logically about objects and events and achieve conservation of number
C: Tomorrow I start ballet, and then I will go every week
Teacher: Oooh! Thats lovely! How old are youy now?
C: 7!
T: Now – please can you put these in order for me?
C: Yep! *gets it right*
Formal operational Stage (11 years +)
Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems
C: When I grow up I want to be a doctor
P: And how will you achieve that?
C: I’m going to work really, really hard at school and then get lots and lots of money and then get
married, and have children, and live happily ever after!
Behaviourist Theory[edit]

B.F Skinner 1950

In 1957 a piece of literature appeared that would come to affect how we view language, human
behaviour and language learning. B.F Skinner's Verbal Behaviour (1957) applied a functional
analysis approach to analyze language behaviour in terms of their natural occurrence in response to
environmental circumstances and the effects they have on human interactions.[3] Skinner's behaviour
learning approach relies on the components of classical, which involves unconditioned and
conditioned stimuli, and operant conditioning but particularly the elements of operational
conditioning. Operational conditioning refers to a method of learning that occurs through rewards
and punishments for behaviour. Behaviour operates on the environment to bring about favorable
consequences or avoid adverse ones. These same ideas of operant conditioning can also be
applied to language acquisition because Skinner believed that language could be treated like any
other kind of cognitive behaviour. According to the behaviourist theory, language learning is a
process of habit formation that involves a period of trial and error where the child tries and fails to
use correct language until it succeeds. Infants also have human role models in their environment
that provide the stimuli and rewards required for operant conditioning. For example, if a child starts
babblings, which resembles appropriate words, then his or her babbling will be rewarded by a parent
or loved one by positive reinforcement such as a smile or clap. Since the babblings were rewarded,
this reward reinforces further articulations of the same sort into groupings of syllables and words in a
similar situation (Demirezen, 1988).[4] Children also utter words because they cause adults to give
them the things they want and they will only be given what they want once the adult has trained or
shaped the child through reinforcement and rewards speech close to that of adult speech. Before
long children will take on the imitation or modeling component of Skinner's theory of language
acquisition in which children learn to speak by copying the utterances heard around them and by
having their responses strengthened by the repetitions, corrections and other reactions that adults
provide. However, before a child can begin to speak, they first start by listening to the sounds in their
environment for the first years of their life. Gradually, the child learns to associate certain sounds
with certain situations such as the sound of endearment a mother produces when feeding her child.
These sounds then become pleasurable for the child on their own without being accompanied by
food and eventually the child will attempt to imitate these sounds to invite the attention of his mother
or another adult. If these sounds resemble that of adult language the mother will respond with
reward and the operant conditioning process begins.
Innateness Theory[edit]
Noam Chomsky's innateness or nativist theory proposes that children have an inborn or innate
faculty for language acquisition that is biologically determined. According to Goodluck (1991),
nativists view language as a fundamental part of the human genome, as a trait that makes humans
human, and its acquisition is a natural part of maturation.[5] It seems that the human species has
evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain linguistic information at birth and this natural
predisposition to learn language is triggered by hearing speech. The child's brain is then able to
interpret what she or he hears according to the underlying principles or structures it already contains
(Linden, 2007).[6] Chomsky has determined that being biologically prepared to acquire language
regardless of setting is due to the child's language acquisition device (LAD), which is used as a
mechanism for working out the rules of language. Chomsky believed that all human languages share
common principles, such as all languages have verbs and nouns, and it was the child's task to
establish how the specific language she or he hears expresses these underlying principles. For
example, the LAD already contains the concept of verb tense and so by listening to word forms such
as "worked" or "played". The child will then form a hypothesis that the past tense of verbs are formed
by adding the sound /d/,/t/ or /id/ to the base form. Yang (2006) also believes that children also
initially possess, then subsequently develop, an innate understanding or hypothesis about grammar
regardless of where they are raised.[7] According to Chomsky, infants acquire grammar because it is
a universal property of language, an inborn development, and has coined these fundamental
grammatical ideas that all humans have as universal grammar (UG). Children under the age of three
usually don't speak in full sentences and instead say things like "want cookie" but yet you would still
not hear them say things like "want my" or "I cookie" because statements like this would break the
syntactic structure of the phrase, a component of universal grammar. Another argument of the
nativist or innate theory is that there is a critical period for language acquisition, which is a time
frame during which environmental exposure is needed to stimulate an innate trait. Linguist Eric
Lenneberg in 1964 postulated that the critical period of language acquisition ends around the age of
12 years. He believed that if no language was learned before then, it could never be learned in a
normal and functional sense. It was termed the critical period hypothesis and since then there has
been a few case examples of individuals being subject to such circumstances such as the girl known
as Genie who was imposed to an abusive environment, which didn't allow her to develop language
skills.

Cognitive Theory[edit]
Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist that was famous for his four stages of cognitive development
for children, which included the development of language. However, children do not think like adults
and so before they can begin to develop language they must first actively construct their own
understanding of the world through their interactions with their environment. A child has to
understand a concept before he or she can acquire the particular language which expresses that
concept. For example, a child first becomes aware of a concept such as relative size and only
afterward do they acquire the words and patterns to convey that concept. Essentially it is impossible
for a young child to voice concepts that are unknown to them and therefore once a child learns about
their environment then they can map language onto their prior experience. An infant's experience of
a cat is that it meows, is furry and eats from a bowl in the kitchen; hence they develop the concept of
cat first and then learns to map the word "kitty" onto that concept. Language is only one of the many
human mental or cognitive activities and many cognitivists believe that language emerges within the
context of other general cognitive abilities like memory, attention and problem solving because it is a
part of their broader intellectual development. However, according to Goodluck (1991), once
language does emerge it is usually within certain stages and children go through these stages in a
fixed order that is universal in all children.[8] There is a consistent order of mastery of the most
common function morphemes in a language and simple ideas are expressed earlier than more
complex ones even if they are more grammatically complicated. Piaget's cognitive theory states that,
children's language reflects the development of their logical thinking and reasoning skills in stages,
with each period having a specific name and age reference.[9] There are four stages of Piaget's
cognitive development theory, each involving a different aspect of language acquisition:

1. Sensory-Motor Period- (birth to 2 years) Children are born with "action schemas" to
"assimilate" information about the world such as sucking or grasping. During the sensory-
motor period, children's language is "egocentric" and they talk either for themselves or for
the pleasure of associating anyone who happens to be there with the activity of the moment
2. Pre-Operational Period- (2 years to 7) Children's language makes rapid progress and the
development of their "mental schema" lets them quickly "accommodate" new words and
situations. Children's language becomes "symbolic" allowing them to talk beyond the "here
and now" and to talk about things such as the past, future and feelings.
3. Egocentrism- Involves "animism" which refers to young children's tendency to consider
everything, including inanimate objects, as being alive. Language is considered egocentric
because they see things purely from their own perspective.
4. Operational Period- (7 to 11 years) and (11 years to adulthood) Piaget divides this period
into two parts: the period of concrete operations and the period of formal operations.
Language at this stage reveals the movement of their thinking from immature to mature and
from illogical to logical. They are also able to "de-center" or view things from a perspective
other than their own. It is at this point that children's language becomes "socialized" and
includes things such as questions, answers, commands and criticisms.
Social Interactionist Theory[edit]

Vygotsky's social interaction theory incorporates nurture arguments in that children can be
influenced by their environment as well as the language input children receive from their care-givers.
Although the theories of Skinner, Chomsky and Piaget are all very different and very important in
their own contexts, they don't necessarily take into account the fact that children don't encounter
language in isolation. The child is a little linguist analyzing language from randomly encountered
adult utterances. The interaction theory proposes that language exists for the purpose of
communication and can only be learned in the context of interaction with adults and older children. It
stresses the importance of the environment and culture in which the language is being learned
during early childhood development because this social interaction is what first provides the child
with the means of making sense of their own behaviour and how they think about the surrounding
world. According to Williamson (2008), children can eventually use their own internal speech to
direct their own behaviour in much the same way that their parents' speech once directed their
behaviour.[10] Speech to infants is marked by a slower rate, exaggerated intonation, high frequency,
repetition, simple syntax and concrete vocabulary. This tailored articulation used by care-givers to
young children to maximize phonemic contrasts and pronunciation of correct forms is known
as child-directed speech (CDS). Vygotsky also developed the concepts of private speech which is
when children must speak to themselves in a self guiding and directing way- initially out loud and
later internally and the zone of proximal development which refers to the tasks a child is unable to
complete alone but is able to complete with the assistance of an adult. The attention and time that a
mother spends talking about topics that the child is already focused on highly correlates with early
vocabulary size. In the early stages of a child`s life this is usually done through motherese or ``baby
talk`` which may allow children to ``bootstrap`` their progress in language acquisition (Williamson,
2008).[10] The mother and father also provide ritualized scenarios, such as having a bath or getting
dressed, in which the phases of interaction are rapidly recognized and predicted by the infant. The
utterances of the mother and father during the activities are ritualized and predictable so that the
child is gradually moved to an active position where they take over the movements of the care-taker
and eventually the ritualized language as well. Basically the care-giver is providing comprehensible
contexts in which the child can acquire language (Mason, 2002).[11] Another influential researcher of
the interaction theory is Jerome Bruner who elaborated and revised the details of the theory over a
number of years and also introduced the term Language Acquisition Support System (LASS), which
refers to the child`s immediate adult entourage but in the fuller sense points to the child`s culture as
a whole in which they are born. Adults adapt their behaviour towards children to construct a
protected world in which the child is gradually inclined to take part in a growing number of scenarios
and scripts and in this way the child is lead gradually further and further into language. However, one
must remember that although our social context provides support for language acquisition, it does
not directly provide the knowledge that is necessary to acquire language and this perhaps where a
child`s innate abilities come into play.

Modern Theories and Models of Language Acquisition[edit]

Usage-Based Theory[edit]
The usage-based theory of language suggests that children initially build up their language through
very concrete constructions based around individual words or frames on the basis of the speech
they hear and use. Basically this means, according to Tomasello (2003) the developer of the theory,
that children learn language from their language experiences and a language structure emerges
from language use.[12] The usage-based theory takes constructions, which are direct form meaning
pairings, to be the basic units of grammar and believe that children learn constructions by first
mastering specific instances before going on to generalize and use the constructions productively
with other lexical items. Constructions gradually become more general and more abstract during the
third and fourth years of life and grammar emerges as the speakers of a language create linguistic
constructions out of recurring sequences of symbols (Tomasello, 2003). [12] Tomasello (2003) also
emphasizes the effects of frequency of use on cognitive representations, as patterns that are
repeated for communicative reasons seem to become automated and conventionalized. Research
by Saxton (2010) indicates that, the more often a linguistic form occurs in the input, the more often it
is experienced by the child and the stronger the child's representation of it becomes. It will then be
activated more easily when using it themselves on subsequent occasions.[13] Therefore the child's
mental representation is reinforced or increasingly entrenched and the more deeply entrenched a
structure is, the more likely it becomes that this will form the basis of the child's speech output.
Usage-based linguistics holds that language use shapes entrenchment through frequency
repetitions of usage, but there are separable effects of token frequency and type
frequency(Doughty & Long, 2003).[14] According to Doughty and Long (2003), token frequency is
how often in the input particular words or specific phrases appear and type frequency counts how
many different lexical items a certain pattern or construction is applicable to. Linguistic forms with
high token frequency will be learned early and lead to more strongly entrenched linguistic
representations and seems to protect the child from error. Token frequency also has a strong
influence on child learning and you often see a close relationship between adult input and child
output (Saxton, 2010).[13] Type frequency determines productivity because high type frequency
ensures that a construction is used frequently, thus strengthening its representational schema and
making it more accessible for further use with new items. Also the more items the category must
cover, the more general are its criteria features, and the more likely it is to extend to new items
(Doughty & Long, 2003).[14] Another term coined in the usage-based theory is pre-emption which is
an anti-frequency mechanism that suggests that children who experiences a verb in a rare
construction this will cause the child to avoid using that verb in a more common structure.

Optimality Theory[edit]
Optimality Theory (OT) was originally proposed by Prince and Smolensky (1993) and has
subsequently been further developed by other researchers. OT suggests that the observed forms of
language arise from the interaction between conflicting constraints and like other models of
linguistics, contain an input and an output and a relation between the two.[15] A constraint is a
structural requirement that may be either satisfied or violated by an output form and a surface form.
A constraint is considered optimal if it incurs the least serious violations of a set of constraints, taking
into account their hierarchical ranking. In optimality theory, the essence of both language learning in
general (learnability) and language acquisition (actual development children go through) entails the
rankings of constraints from an initial state of the grammar to the language specific ranking of the
target grammar (McCarthy, 2004)[16]. OT is a development of generative grammar, a theory sharing
the quest for universal principles such as universal grammar but differs from the theory proposed by
Chomsky because optimality theory believes that these universal constraints are violable
(Kager,1999)[17]. Languages are able to differ in their ranking of constraints by giving priorities to
some constraints over others. Language acquisition can be described as the process of adjusting
the ranking of these constraints that are considered universal:

Schematic view on the core of optimality theory

 GEN- takes an input and generates the list of possible outputs or candidates
 EVAL- chooses the optimal candidate based on the constraints, and this candidate is the output
 CON- provides the criteria, the form of strictly ordered violable constraints, used to decide
between constraints
According to Archangeli & Langendoen (1997) these constraints include constraints governing
aspects of phonology, such as syllabification constraints, constraints governing morphology and
constraints that determine the correct syntactic properties of a language. There is also one family of
constraints whose properties cut across all subdisciplinary domains, called the faithfulness
constraints, which say that input and output are identical. Faithfulness is the general requirement
for linguistic forms to be realized as close as possible to their lexical "basic forms" and violations of
faithfulness lead to differences between input and output (Archangeli & Langendon, 1997)[18].
Another term coined by the optimality theory is markedness, which refers to the continuum that
language-universal and language-specific properties rest on, with completely unmarked properties
being those found in virtually all languages and extremely marked properties being found quite
rarely. However markedness embodies universality in a "soft" sense, with violations of universality
existing between languages.
Native Language Magnet Model[edit]
Young children learn their mother tongue rapidly and effortlessly, following similar developmental
paths regardless of culture. How infants accomplish this task has become the focus of debate
especially for Patricia Kuhl who has developed the Native Language Magnet Model to help explain
how infants at birth can hear all the phonetic distinctions used in the world's languages. According to
Kuhl and colleagues (2005), to acquire a language, infants have to discover which phonetic
distinctions will be utilized in the language of their culture and do so by discriminating among virtually
all the phonetic units of the world's languages.[19] During the first year of life, prior to the acquisition
of word meaning, infants begin to perceive speech by forming perceptual maps of the speech they
hear in their environment. Kuhl's (2005) research focused on the mechanism underlying the
development transition from an infants' universal phonetic capacity to native phonetic discrimination.
They used ERP brain measure of infants' native and non-native speech perception in infancy to
predict language in 2nd and 3rd years of life. Although we still remain capable of discriminating non
native phonetic contrasts as we age, it is at a reduced level when compared with native contrasts.
The idea that more than selection is involved in development phonetic perception has been clearly
demonstrated by experimental findings showing that native language phonetic perception shows a
significant improvement between 6 and 12 months of age. Previous studies had shown native
language improvement after 12 months of age and before adulthood but newer studies such as
Kuhl's and colleagues has gone beyond selection in explaining developmental change in infants'
perception of speech. The Native Language Magnet Model (NLM) proposed by Kuhl (1994, 2000)
focuses on infants' native phonetic categories and how they could be structured through ambient
language experience.[19] The NLM specified three phases in development:

 Phase 1- infants are capable of differentiating all the sounds of human speech and abilities are
derived from their general auditory processing mechanisms rather than from a speech-specific
mechanism
 Phase 2- infants' sensitivity to the distributional properties of linguistic input produces phonetic
representations. Experience accumulates and the representations most often activated begin to
function as perceptual magnets for other members of the category
 Phase 3- The perception termed perceptual magnet effect produces facilitation in native and a
reduction in foreign language phonetic abilities
Recently Kuhl's research has initiated the revision of the NLM and expanded the model to include
native language neural commitment, which explains effects of language experience on the brain.
Native language neural commitment describes the brain's early coding of language and how it
affects our subsequent abilities to learn the phonetic scheme of a new language. This is due to the
fact that initial language exposure causes physical changes in neural tissue that reflects the
statistical perceptual properties of language input (Kuhl 2005).[19] The neural networks then become
committed to the patterns of native language speech. Another finding by Kuhl (2008) that has
expanded the Native Language Magnet Model has been the research indicating that both native and
non-native performances at 7 months of age predicted future language abilities but in opposite
directions. Better native phonetic perception at 7 months of age predicted accelerated language
development at between 14 and 30 months whereas better non-native performance at 7 months
predicted slower language development at 14 and 30 months. Results supported the view that the
ability to discriminate non-native phonetic contrasts reflects the degree to which the brain remains in
the initial state, open and uncommitted to native language speech patterns.[19]

Structuralism
Empiricist language theory
Structuralism emerged as a reaction against nineteenth century
views of language which were informed largely by empiricism and
positivism, and which held it as self evident that language involved
correspondence between word and thing, that there is an external
reality of objects to which words make reference.1 Nineteenth
century language theory was also concerned with classification,
acknowledging the role of words as indicators of groups of things. It
was the role of science, and linguistics as a science, to establish
classification schemas, including grouping and classifying languages.
Linguistics was also concerned with the lineage of language, how
one language derives from another, in the same way that
nineteenth century botanists classified plant specimens and
observed how one species appeared to evolve from the other.
Linguistics also sought after the "original language."

As a nineteenth century linguist, Saussure (1857-1913) took these

aspects of language for granted in his early teaching, but later
recognised a "crisis" in language studies, particularly over the
elusive nature of the referent in language -- the individual units to
which words are supposed to refer.2 It is not always possible to
identify discrete, pre-existing objects to which words refer,
particularly in the study of language itself. Linguistic categories,
such as used in grammar, appear as constructs, convenient fictions
for some theory or other. But it was the limitations of history that
most revealed the elusive nature of the object and therefore the
limits of a correspondence view of language: "When a science offers
no immediately recognisable concrete units, that means they are
not essential. In history, for example, is the unit the individual, the
epoch, or the nation?"3 History still seems to function without
deciding the matter. How important is correspondence then?
According to Jameson, the crisis for history recognised by Saussure
anticipated the crisis of realism in science, that came with Einstein
and then quantum theory. In the case of the conflict between the
wave and particle theories of light, Jameson notes that "scientific
investigation has reached the limits of perception; its objects are no
longer things or organisms which are isolated by their own physical
structures from each other, and which can be dissected and
classified in various ways."4
Arbitrariness of the sign

The new view of language that Saussure put forward, known as

structuralism, is outlined in the posthumous book, Course in
General Linguistics, produced from lecture notes by his students in
1916. Saussure's structuralism renounces the principle that words
link to things, that language is a matter of names and naming,
which according toJameson is "the most archaic language theory of
all."5 According to Saussure, the linkage between word and thing is
clearly arbitrary, though decided by the consensus of a language
community. So the word "tree" bears no special relationship to that
entity growing in the garden other than what convention allows, as
is evident from the fact that there are different words available for
the same thing in different languages. The relationship between
signifier and signified is therefore arbitrary and the thing signified
(the tree) is not so much an object as a concept. According to
Saussure: "A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a
name, but between a concept and a sound pattern."6Saussure
provides a systematic way of studying language that does not
require that language appeal to any reality beyond itself.

According to Jameson, this disdain for realism is still contested by

what he calls the Anglo-American tradition, exemplified by Ogden
and Richard's refutation of structuralism,7 for whom, according to
Jameson, "the most basic task of linguistic investigation consists in
a one-to-one, sentence-by-sentence search for referents, and in the
purification from language of non-referential terms and purely
verbal constructs."8 Ogden and Richards support the tenets of
analytical philosophy (Basic English, common language philosophy,
and semantics as an organised discipline) against structuralism.
They reconstruct the linguistic/semiological project in terms of
correctness, causality, and adequacy. For this tradition language is
a barrier to accurately conveying intentions, and the problematic of
linguistics includes developing means to overcome poor
communication.

Realism

Structuralism does not deny reality, but implies a resonance

between language as a whole and the whole that is nature.
According to Jameson structuralism maintains that it is the whole
language system that "lies parallel to reality itself"9 rather than the
individual word or sentence that represents or "reflects" the
individual object or event in the real world. It is the entire system of
signs "which is analogous to whatever organised structures exist in
the world of reality."10 Our understanding through language
"proceeds from one whole, or Gestalt to the other, rather than on a
one-to-one basis."11 For Jameson and the Saussurean understanding
of language, reality "is either a formless chaos of which one cannot
even speak in the first place, or else it is already, in itself, a series
of various interlocking systems -- non-verbal as well as verbal -- of
signs."12 Piaget (who has taken structuralism into the study of
psychology) also maintains that in science the apparent harmony
between mathematics and physical reality cannot simply be "written
off" as "the correspondence of a language with the objects it
designates."13 He explains the phenomenon as a "harmony"
between the system of "the human being as body and mind" and
"the innumerable operators in nature -- physical objects at their
several levels."14

Synchronicity

Saussure also departed from orthodox linguistics by proposing that

the synchronic dimension to language is more revealing than its
diachronic dimension. The diachronic, or historical, study of
language focuses on the way languages change in time, and how
languages are derived from each other. To study the synchronicity
of language is to look at the structures within any particular
language, the relationships within the language, at a moment in
time in its evolution, and compare it with the structures of other
languages. There are structural similarities between languages,
which seem to transcend the particularities of individual sound
patterns and local grammatical differences. We learn more by
examining a slice through language, or rather the multiplicity of the
world's languages, at any moment in time, than by looking at the
derivations of languages.

Binary opposition and difference

As we focus on the synchronicity of language it is the structures
that become important, rather than individual elements. According
to Piaget, structuralism, "adopts from the start a relational
perspective, according to which it is neither the elements nor a
whole that comes about in a manner one knows not how, but the
relations among elements that count."15 The idea of "the
relationship" is very important in Saussure's linguistics. What are
the constituents of these relationships? A linguistic sign, or system
of signs is made up of a signifier (word) and signified (concept). An
instance of such a relationship makes up a linguistic sign, and the
multiplicity of such relationships makes up a system of signs.
According to Jameson, in abandoning an atomistic, empirical
perception of isolated objects, Saussure had to posit another
relationship of greater potency to account for the way language
operates. He rejected the relationship between word and thing. The
relationship that Saussure settled on was the simple relationship
between sound patterns. What is the key relationship between the
enormous collection of sound patterns that make up the lexicon of a
language? Taken two at a time sound patterns operate by virtue
of difference. Saussure begins with the phoneme, the basic
constituent of sound patterns, which is even more basic than the
syllable. Language works because we are able to distinguish one
phoneme from another: "The sound of a word is not in itself
important, but the phonetic contrasts which allow us to distinguish
that word from any other. That is what carries the meaning."16 So
the word "kin" is different to "tin," and many other words that are
otherwise similar, because of the subtle distinctiveness in this case
of the phoneme.17 What constitutes difference, or at least a
meaningful difference, again depends on the conventions of the
particular language community. Being able to speak and understand
Mandarin relies on a certain set of phonemic differences that are
scarcely recognised as differences by English speakers.18According
to the idea of phonemic difference, only differences that have
developed as important in the language are registered. Others
might constitute peculiarities of accent or dialect, or go unnoticed.

Systems of relations
Structuralism therefore trades in the primacy of binary opposition,
appropriating the Hegelian concept of the indeterminate relationship
between opposites (the dialectic) that comes before
logic.19 According to Saussure: "In the language itself, there are
only differences. Even more important than that is the fact that,
although in general a difference presupposes positive terms
between which the difference holds, in a language there are only
differences, and no positive terms."20 Utterances in language mean
something by virtue of the totality of relationships with other signs
around them.

As terms do not relate positively to things, and the terms

themselves, the words, are arbitrary, one particular word would do
as well as any other, if the conventions of the language community
so adjust themselves. Jameson draws an analogy with money,
where a unit of currency has the same function whether it consists
of gold or silver coins, paper, or wooden tokens, "where the positive
nature of the substance used is not as important as its function in
the system."21 This aspect of structuralism reinforces the distinction
between form and content, the empirical and propositional
emphasis on pattern and information content, in a particular way.
Words and their arrangement are the carriers of information, which
depends on the relationships between tokens, rather than the
choice of tokens themselves.

Langue and parole

The notion of language as a system of relationships, predicated on

difference, suggested to Saussure that there are two aspects to
language. There is the superficial or surface structure of language
as it appears in any particular culture, the parole of language,
language as it is spoken (or written) subject to local variation. But
there is a structure underlying the different languages we encounter
that is the langue.22 Jameson regards this distinction as the key to
the originality of Saussure's work. Parole is the active, langue is the
passive dimension of speech. Issues of local accent,
mispronunciation, and personal style are matters for the "science
of parole",23 but Saussure is more concerned with the langue, that
which exceeds the local, the structures beneath the peculiarities of
specific uses of individual languages. According to Jameson,
Chomsky attempted to rehabilitate the issue of sentence formation,
the structure of sentences, or syntax, as an issue of langue and not
merely of parole.24

Culture as language

One of the contributions of structuralism has been to open a space

for considering language other than as spoken and written
communication. Structuralism admits art, fashion, architecture,
sport, and culture generally as forms of language.25 Lévi-
Strauss developed structuralism as a mode of research within
anthropology to look at kinship patterns, taboos, culinary practices,
ritual, marriage laws, and so on.26 The approach requires that one
look less at the origins and lineage of cultures and probe beneath
the surface of cultural appearances. For structuralist anthropology
the equivalent of phonemic binary differences are phenomena such
as clean/unclean, cooked/raw, male/female, in/out, young/old,
heaven/earth, life/death, and so on. As with writing and speech
there are cultural patterns that transcend the peculiarities of local
conditions, the parole, and that constitute the langue that crosses
local cultural boundaries. Lévi-Strauss provides the example of the
kinship structure of uncle and nephew relationship in traditional pre-
modern communities. Precisely who fills those roles is less
important than the underlying structure, and the roles are filled by
different people in different communities. The roles may be
variously filled by father, priest, brother, teacher, and so on.27 The
structures in myth provide a further illustration of the importance
of langue. Members of a traditional village community may look at
themselves in terms of their descent from animals, one group
regarding themselves as descendants of bears, while members of
another community see themselves as descended from wolves.
According to the structuralist model, to dwell on the particularities
of the choices of token, namely bears and wolves, does not get us
very far. But to pursue the langue of this cultural system suggests a
structure involving relationships between self versus others.
Community A is as different from Community B as are two totally
different animal species. Bears, wolves or eagles may equally suffice
to establish this understanding of difference, which is caught up in
the myriad ways community A deals with those outside the
community. When anthropological study is opened up in this way
then we see that similar structural distinctions are made in modern
societies, employing different tokens, with their own regional
applicability, and in some cases equally dependent on distinctions
between animal species, as in sporting allegiances.28 From this
identification of the langue of myth follows a theory of
transformation. According to Lévi-Strauss, "mythic thought always
progresses from the awareness of oppositions towards their
resolution,"29 and there are rules of transformation that bring about
a shift from one variant of a myth to another.30

Structuralism and architecture

Structuralism presents space as cultural artefact, and structuralism

has provided an important contribution to understanding
architecture, from traditional to modern, as imbued with codes. For
example, in the case of a Medieval church, one discerns a layout
and symbol system pertaining to the cycles of the sun the moon,
and the zodiac. The statuary depicts the apostles, Christ the
Chronocrator, and the Light. The organisation of the building,
including the disposition of entrances and windows, allows a certain
orientation between liturgy and procession that is specific to
Christian theology.31 From a structuralist perspective one could
analyse these peculiarities of Medieval (and other) churches in
terms of an intricate matrix of oppositions: east/west, light/dark,
past/future, time/space, life/death, heaven/earth,
transience/eternity, centre/periphery, and so on. In so doing we
would find similar structural relationships in the layout of the
Forbidden City of Beijing, a Hindu temple or the layout of a Pawnee
earth lodge.32 If we look past the particularities of the tokens
involved we see similar relationships of orientation, centrality,
geometry, references to the stellar and temporal, and so on. From a
structuralist perspective this common structure constitutes
the langue of traditional or sacred architecture, of which the precise
nature and name of the deities or notables involved, and the
particular shape of the building elements and the ornamentation
pertain to the parole. The structuralist interpretation may
investigate the transformations from one system to another that
arise due to local conditions, history and so on, and the way these
relationships are implicated in myth, ritual and life practices. The
structuralist program has proved to be of great rhetorical benefit in
architecture by commentators and architects such as Norberg-
Schültz, Jenks, Eisenman,33 Tsumi and others.

Critique of structuralism

Structuralism has come under criticism from various quarters. In

spite of its rhetoric of difference, as with empiricism, structuralism
implies a levelling of cultural phenomena, and neglect of differences
that do not fit the theories. In identifying the langue of the customs,
beliefs, life practices and architectures of disparate communities,
the differences that do not fit the deep structure may be glossed
over. A structuralist account can engender a respect for difference,
or trivialise difference by rendering everything the same by virtue of
an apparently similar structure of relationships. Furthermore, as
suggested by Snodgrass, structuralism ignores the role of symbol,
at least as understood in the sense used by Plato, by which
architecture and art are "formed, or in-formed, by imitation of and
participation in archetypal paradigms."34 In the case of architecture,
structuralism has engendered a way of looking at buildings that
implies that merit rests on how well a building can be read. To
regard a building as text can present architecture as a heavily coded
inter-referential language game in which only the cognoscenti
participate. Structuralism does not provide a satisfactory language
for talking about practice, use, and function, let alone symbol and
concepts of participation. This is a problem for structuralism
generally. According to Jameson, structuralism has idealistic
tendencies: "which are already at work within the material itself, of
encouraging the insulation of the superstructure from reality. ... its
concept of the sign forbids any research into the reality beyond it,
at the same time that it keeps alive the notion of such a reality by
considering the signified as a concept of something."35According to
Jameson, structuralism "is essentially a replay of the Kantian
dilemma of the unknowability of the thing-in-itself."36 In wrestling
with the nature of cognition and human communities, the sociologist
Giddens argues that structuralism has led to a rarefied play with
notions of difference, and an inability to engage the matter of
context or human action. He thinks Wittgenstein and Winch provide
a better account of the workings of language, and society. At least
logical empiricism and positivism preserved an engagement with the
world, or at least they preserved an engagement with agency that
structuralism lost.37 The post-positivism of Wittgenstein was able to
translate this into a concern with praxis.

Many structuralist writers have taken on board these and other

criticism and have radicalised deconstruction through the theories of
"poststructuralism" and "deconstruction," to be addressed in other
lectures.

Roland Barthes on Myth

Roland Barthes (1915-1980) demonstrates how structuralist theory
can be woven into cultural criticism. Myth is a feature of everyday
life and language and is not restricted to grand narratives.
According to Barthes, myth is simply a "type of
speech,"38 demonstrated in our dealings with ordinary things such
as magazine covers, sports, and domestic appliances. Barthes
provides many examples of contemporary myths, including the
power of washing powders to liberate grime, and chemical liquid
cleaners to "kill dirt," the ornamental value of drinking wine, and
reconstructing the adult world in miniature through children's toys.
We may add the myths of progress through computers, or
architectural myths that seek to promote "the good life" through the
imagery of simplicity, clean lines, light, and polished materials.

Myth operates beyond the normal signifier/signified relation

According to Barthes, not all instances of language or all cultural

artefacts rely on myth. There are instances of language that pertain
to the immediacy of use. So a comment about the weather from a
farmer is a straight forward instance of the operation of the
signifier/signified relationship pertaining to involvement in some
task, whereas the same comment within other contexts is a mythic
expression about one's mood, a foreboding, a general malaise, and
so on. Myth is signification operating beyond the normal
signifier/signified level of language. Barthes gives the example of a
magazine cover showing a Pacific Islander in French military
uniform saluting a flag. In signifier/signified terms this picture may
well indicate a person paying respect to flag and country, but the
whole instance of the signifier and signified also carries a mythic
signification, suggesting an empire in which all is well, and absence
of discontent or discrimination.

Myths present themselves as facts

Barthes discusses modern myths in Mythologies, where myth bears

a pejorative cast. Modern myths are not profound, and deal in
immediate impressions: "Myth hides nothing and flaunts
nothing."39 Myth however distorts, though it is "neither a lie nor a
confession: it is an inflexion."40 A myth is not improved or
diminished by analysis, nor by whether or not people see through it,
but the peculiar feature of mythic language is that it appears as
"naturalised language." In fact, according to Barthes, what allows
people "to consume myth innocently" is that we do not recognise
the myth as a semiological system. Myth conceals itself as
indicating a causal process, and "the myth-consumer takes the
signification for a system of facts."41 So washing powders do drive
out dirt, wine drinkers are more sophisticated than beer drinkers,
children like to play at being adults, all is well with the empire,
electronic communications are liberating, computers are efficient,
and good architecture promotes a well ordered, elegant and relaxed
lifestyle. Myths are taken as what is real.

Myth as a bourgeois phenomenon

This brings the consideration of the real into a political framework.

Modern day myth is a middle class, capitalist, which is to say
bourgeois, phenomenon. One of the features of bourgeois life is that
it is invisible to us as bourgeois: "The bourgeoisie is defined as the
social class which does not want to be named."42 The link between
myth and the bourgeois is that myth makes the contingent world
appear natural and eternal: "myth has the task of giving an
historical intention a natural justification, and making contingency
appear eternal,"43 and this process is exactly that of bourgeois
ideology.44
Myths conceal the important issues

There are several features of the contemporary myth-laden

bourgeois world according to Barthes. Society fabricates certain
myths -- "acknowledged evils," such as the avant-garde, eccentrics,
street gangs, and scandals in politics and the church -- to inoculated
itself against the possibility of wholesale social transformation. The
costs to bourgeois society of such tolerated evils balance the
benefits of avoiding radical social transformation: "One inoculates
the public with a contingent evil to prevent or cure an essential
one."45 In the computer world we can see this in the identification of
the issue of censorship on the Internet, the introduction of the
"clipper chip," CIA conspiracies, computer hackers, and Bill Gates.
In architecture we allow ourselves to recognise the "villainy" of poor
taste, clutter, featurism, the unauthentic use of materials, bad
planning, crass commercialism, and mundane building. From
Barthes' point of view, each of these myths is a diversion from a
structural bourgeois malaise. Baudrillard also identifies this
diversionary function of myth in his account of artificial realities, as
in the case of Disneyland theme parks. The apparent unreality of
Disneyland is there to mask the actual "unreality" of Los Angeles.
The same arguments would apply to computer simulations, games
and virtual reality. By virtue of their contrast with the rest of
experience, they are a ruse to reinforce our belief in the reality of
the rest of our experience, which is in fact prone equally, if not
more so, to the workings of simulation, artificiality, deception, and
domination.

Myth also insures the neglect of history, presenting what society

holds dear as eternal and independent of historical contingency.
Myth also provides a means of dealing with objects that do not
conform to the norms of bourgeois society. Myth allows instances of
"otherness" to be treated either as the same, or as "exotic" in some
way. Myth ultimately appeals to the tautology, such that when the
resources of reason seem exhausted then myth allows us to assert
simply that things are as they are because that is how the world is,
the most obvious examples being myths purveyed through proverbs
and maxims: "knowledge is power," "think before you act," "science
describes reality," "form follows function," and "architecture is forms
in light." According to Barthes, certain myths also work by reducing
any quality to quantity. They "economize" intelligence, explaining
reality "more cheaply."46 This is a common phenomenon in empirical
and computer studies, where number, symbol and formula provide
the chief means of prediction. From Barthes' point of view, where
these practical systems are extended to the realm of explanation
then they become myth.

The oppressed do not resort to myth

According to Barthes, in contrast to the workings of myth, there are

ways of dealing with objects and language that are immediate, as in
the use of mathematics in the laboratory and the academic paper,
or when a farmer comments on the weather, a navigator describes
a position, or an architect describes a door in a specification.
Barthes says that such instances of language pertain to use. The
other instances of language that are immediate belong to the
oppressed. The oppressed person does not have access to mythic
metalanguage: "destitution is the very yardstick of his
language."47 As a bourgeois phenomenon the duplicity that is myth
"presupposes property, truths and forms to spare,"48 but the
oppressed have recourse to only one language, that of actions.
Similarly, radical social reform involves the language of action and
not myth: "revolution announces itself openly as revolution and
thereby abolishes myth."49

Barthes adopts the neo-Marxist strategy which is to identify and

expose the ways that discourses covertly reproduce their
conservative agendas. As for Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse and
others of the Frankfurt School, the critical theory of Barthes trades
in the language of social class, hegemony, domination, oppression,
and ultimately revolution. Barthes adds modern-day mythologies,
understood through the structuralist conjecture of signifier and
signified, as a tool for the reproduction of capitalism, and therefore
a tool of oppression.

This summary only captures some of Barthes' thinking on culture

and language, which has undergone various transformations since
the 1950s.