Three Main Theories of Child Language Acquisition

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There are three main theories of child language acquisition; Cognitive Theory, Imitation and Positive Reinforcement, and Innateness of Certain Linguistic Features (Linguistics 201). All three theories offer a substantial amount of proof and experiments, but none of them have been proven entirely correct. The search for how children acquire their native language in such a short period of time has been studied for many centuries. In a changing world, it is difficult to pinpoint any definite specifics of language because of the diversity and modification throughout thousands of millions of years.

One of the first recorded studies was in 7th century B.C. by an Egyptian Pharaoh named Psammetichus who believed that language was inborn, or hardwired into the brain. His experiment was documented by the Greek historian, Herodotus. Psammetichus had two children isolated, when the first word spoken by the children was in Phrygian, an old forgotten language that originated from the province of Phrygia (now modern day northwest Turkey), he concluded that Phrygian was the first language and that it must have been hardwired in the children’s heads. Another ruler, King James IV of Scotland performed a similar experiment in the 15th century. Those children spoke Hebrew. 200 years before King James, the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen tried a similar experiment, but the children had died before they were able to speak (Fromkin). These first experiments were phylogenetic or only concerned with discovering the first language, and were minorly interested in the ontogenetic studies or the study of language development in infants (Linguistics 201). A century after King James IV, a Mogul emperor of India by the name of Akbar conducted ...

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...guage Origin Accounts: Was the Gesture in the Beginning? Sage Journals, n.d. Web. 8 Sep. 2013. .

"Case 4 Genie, The Wild Child Research or Exploitation?" Case 4 Genie, The Wild Child Research or Exploitation? Georgetown University, n.d. Web. 15 Sep. 2013. .

Fromkin, Rodman. 1978. An Introduction to Language. 20-22. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston

"Linguistics 201: First Language Acquisition." Linguistics 201: First Language Acquisition. Western Washington University, n.d. Web. 8 Sep. 2013. .

"Victor of Aveyron." Victor of Aveyron. Princeton University, n.d. Web. 15 Sep. 2013. .

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