INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this module is to introduce students to the specialised area of first
language which builds on this module. It covers theories first language acquisition and then
goes on to consider how second language acquisition in the Early Years may be similar to but
also different to first language acquisition. It aims to sensitize students to the difficulties faced
by children. The module aims to highlight the lesson for children in becoming more
knowledgeable in the theories.

Aliza C. Genargue

Author
In this module, you would be able to know more about nativism.

The Nativism theory is a biologically based theory, which argues that humans are pre-programmed with
the innate ability to develop language. Noam Chomsky is the main theorist associated with
the nativist perspective. He developed the idea of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD).

A set of theories which contend that human abilities and developmental processes are innate
and hard-wired at birth.

Innate Ability is the ability of an invidual which having existed since birth.

In this lesson, Language Acquisition is believed that we are born with a set of rules about
language in our heads which he refers to as the 'Universal Grammar'. The universal grammar is the basis
upon which all human languages build. Children are born, then, with the Universal Grammar wired into
their brains. This grammar offers a certain limited number of possibilities - for example, over the word
order of a typical sentence.

Children are exposed to very little correctly

formed language. When people speak, they
constantly interrupt themselves, change their
minds, make slips of the tongue and so on. Yet
children manage to learn their language all the
same.

Children do not simply copy the language that they hear around them. They deduce rules from it, which
they can then use to produce sentences that they have never heard before. They do not learn a
repertoire of phrases and sayings, as the behaviourists believe, but a grammar that generates an infinity
of new sentences.

1. 2. Children are born, then, with the Universal Grammar wired into their brains. This grammar offers a
certain limited number of possibilities - for example, over the word order of a typical sentence.

REMEMBER
Chomsky differentiates between competence and performance. Performance is what people actually
say, which is often ungrammatical, whereas competence is what they instinctively know about the
syntax of their language - and this is more or less equated with the Universal Grammar. Chomsky
concentrates upon this aspect of language - he thus ignores the things that people actually say. The
problem here is that he relies upon people's intuitions as to what is right or wrong.

At the end of the lesson you are expected

to know the difference between Input
theory and Motherese.

Input Theory
As we know that it is a spontaneous way in which mothers, fathers and caregivers speak with
infants and young children.

Motherese

Obviously, it is a process of interaction between mother

and child which begins early in infancy, to which the child makes as important contribution as the
mother, and which is crucial to cognitive and emotional development as well as to language acquisition.

1.Babies react to motherese while still in the womb.

2.Substitution of difficult sounds with easier ones.

3. Emphasizing new information by accentuation.

4. Substitution of first and second person-pronouns by proper names

 The role of input in the child's acquisition of language is undeniably crucial.

 Whatever one's position is on the innateness of language, the speech that young children hear is
primarily the speech heard in the home, and much of that speech is parental speech or the speech of
older siblings.

Linguists once claimed that:

 most adult speech is basically semigrammatical (full of performance variables),

 children are exposed to a chaotic sample of language that can not properly instruct them on grammar.

 only their innate capacities can account for their successful acquisition of language.

Discovery Learning was introduced by Jerome Bruner (1961) proposes that learners' construct their own
knowledge.

This popular theory encourages learners to build on past experiences and knowledge, use their intuition,
imagination and creativity, and search for new information to discover facts, and new truths.

Learning does not equal absorbing what was said or read, but actively seeking for answers and solutions.
 Imitation is necessary but not sufficient.Behaviourist theorists believe that language is acquired
through imitation. Around six months an infant can be observed imitating signal gestures and
mannerisms.

It is important to remember that it is not only vocal imitation that occurs during the process of
language acquisition. One of the biggest opposing arguments to Chomsky's Innateness theory is The
Imitation theory - B.F Skinner.

The imitation theory states that children only learn language through listening and copying the
language that they hear around them. As soon as children have mastered their mouth muscles and voice
boxes, this is when children begin copying what is being said, mainly by their primary caregivers. Not all
communication is through language( gestures, glances,pictures,touches). It accounts for part of
language acquisition, but it misses more on creativity of the child.
 Language is necessity for all
humankind. We use language for interviewing
for jobs, writing resumes, gossip about our
neighbour and discipline your children.
Everyday we use language countless times.

Child Development

 Environmental factorscannot be ignored.

 For years linguists, psychologists, and educators have been caught up in the
"nature-nurture" controversy:

 What are those behaviors that "nature" provides innately, in some sort of
predetermined biological timetable,

 and what are those behaviors that are, by environmental exposure – by

"nurture," by teaching – learned and internalized?

Language is a code
that we learn to use
in order to communicate ideas and express our wants and needs. It can be reading, writing, speaking
and gestures.

(RFT) has had a notable presence in the psychology literature since its development over a decade ago.

Relational Frame Theory is a behavior analytic theory that analyzes and explains the development of
language and cognition in terms of learned, generalized, contextually-controlled patterns of relational
responding, referred to as arbitrarily applicable relational responding or relational framing.

Main goals and features

1. Communication has both content and relational components

a. Makes a distinction between content and relational messages

b. Attempts to explain the often times ambiguous relationship component of messages

2. Attempts to explain the way in which communication supports multiple interpretations and multiple
meanings.
 The theory focuses on how information process by the brain and how learning occurs through
that internal processing of information it is based on the idea that people mentally process the
information they rather than simply responding to stimuli from their environment. Language acquisition
for piaget is a mental and emotional process. According to Piaget, language in children developed
gradually as they move on to the next stage. He believed that all children universally progress through
four different and distinct ages of cognitive development.

Piaget viewed in contrast of Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar stating that a general mechanism in
human brain accounts for language acquisition; which he believed is far too complex to be acquired
simply through experience and general cognitive processes.

Cognitive behavioral theory

describes the role of cognition knowing to determining and predicting the behavioral pattern
of an individual.

Interactionist theory asserts that language

acquisition has both biological and social components. Vgotsky believed that first, the child observes the
interaction between other people and then the behavior develops inside the the child. Vygotsky also
theorized that a child learns best when interacting with those people around him.

Bruner argues that an adult and an infant have conversations despite the child being unable to speak.

It is important to keep in mind that theories of language acquisition are just ideas of researchers to
explain their observations. How accurate these theories are to the real world is debatable. Language
acquisition is a complicated process influenced by the genetics of an individual as well as the
environment they live in.

Gave us the original S-R framework of behavioral psychology.Learning is the result of associations
forming between stimuli and response.The model of S-R theory was a trial and error learning.

Law of Readiness- -states that the more readiness the learner has to respond to the stimulus, the
stronger the bond between them.It creates strong bond between learner and stimulus a good response.

Law of exercise--it tells that the more S-R bond is practiced the stronger it will become.

Law of effect-The connection between stimulus to response is bond if the consequence is positive.The
connection between stimulus to response is weakened if the consequence is negative
 Piagets theory describes the mental structures
or "schemas" of children as they develop from
infants to adults.
He concluded that through their interactions with their environment, children actively construct their
own understanding of the world.
Piaget's theory purports that children's language reflects the development of their logical thinking and
reasoning skills in "periods" or stages, with each period having a specific name and age reference.

Animism - refers to young childrens tendency to consider everything, including inanimate objects, to be
alive.

Egocentrism – attribute phenomena with the same feelings and intentions as their own.

Directed or intelligent thought is that which has an aim, adapts that aim to reality and can communicate
it in language. This thinking is based on experienced and logic.