In the early stage of human life, an infant who is in their mother’s womb has already experienced communicating their language through actions by responding to their mother’s voice by kicking. Hence communicating their language will then expand from just limited actions to words as they develop throughout the years. And the four structural Language components; phonology, semantics, grammar and pragmatics will be involved during the stages of their language development and these components are significantly supported by the roles of nature and nurture.
Fellowes & Oakley (2014, p. 21) ‘The phonological component of language comprises the various sounds that are used in speaking. These include phonemes (individual sound units that are used to
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26) ‘the dimension of language that involves its practical use by people in various social and cultural contexts’. In other words, it is the practical use of language. This is when Children learn that conversation customarily begins with the greeting and a response, and also understands that talking also includes precise meanings and concerns which they communicate to match the listener’s interests, knowledge and language ability (Fellowes, & Oakley, 2014, …show more content…
Firstly, nurture plays an important role in a child’s life and is hence vital to their development. Oakley (2004, p.3) ‘Nurture refers to the environment the child develops in and this includes the experiences that each child has throughout their development.’ Hence, nurture supports the four structural language components, according to the behaviour perspective. The behaviour perspective is when the Fellowes and Oakley (2014, p. 47) ‘learning is largely shaped by the environment and personal experience.’ This involves operant conditioning and classical conditioning. So operant conditions Fellowes and Oakley (2014, p. 48) ‘involves children imitating, or experimenting with the sounds and patterns they hear.’ (pg 48)On the other hand, classical operations is the idea that children learn to associate objects or actions with words..’These two conditions would support the development of all the structural language components, because of the child’s environment, including interactions with people and imitate their behaviours. Fellowes & Oakley, 2014, p.48) So for example, the development of phonology, the child would first begin to listen to their surroundings and then respond in their later stages (from 4-6 months after birth), experimenting phonemes (individual sound units that are used to form words), intonation (the rise and fall of the pitch of the voice) and stress (the emphasis given to certain syllables in
On the nature side of the debate, every baby cried when they were trying to communicate to their caregiver. Crying is universal because it is the only way that babies can alert their caregiver that something is wrong. Furthermore, each baby cooed, babbled, and cried without prompting. Ponijao babbles when her mother pats her on the back because she likes the sound it makes. Bayar’s brother keeps putting a strip of fabric in his face, making him cry out of annoyance. Mari babbles and has a “conversation” with another baby on one of her visits to the park. Hattie also starts saying syllables on her own. However, nurture plays a huge role in language development as well. Each baby was read to, spoken to, sung to, or a mixture of the former. Without prompting from his mother, Bayar would not be able to copy the sounds that she makes to try to get him to speak. Hattie can say “no” and “uh oh”, which are English phrases. Her parents would have taught her how to say those words. In fact, her mother reads to her, and she imitates the sounds her mother makes while reading. This proves that without both heredity and environment, language would never develop in an infant. They need to have an inborn ability to quickly and easily learn vocabulary and grammar during the critical periods, but they also need to hear and interact with language in their
The two competing theories regarding the learning of language are those of B.F. Skinner and Noam Chomsky. Skinner theorized that language is learned through association and operant conditioning. He argued that infants learn the meanings of words through reinforcement when they use language correctly, similarly to the way that they learn behavior (CrashCourse, 2014a). For example, when an infant begins to babble, they may make noises sounding like “mama” or “dada.” The parents’ responses may be a smile or attention that encourages or reinforces the baby to do the same thing again. Eventually, the child may attempt to get the attention of his mother by saying, “Mama.” The mother may then respond and pay attention to the child. This desired social
When most people think of the process of language development in “normal” children, the concepts that come to mind are of babies imitating, picking up sounds and words from the speakers around them. Trying to imagine that a child who cannot hear one single sound a person makes can learn to speak a language is absolutely fascinating. These children range from amazin...
Nature versus nurture is an argument in psychology over whether a person’s innate qualities and behaviors are caused from their environment or if they’re born with it. Vygotsky places more emphasis on the social factors that contribute to cognitive development, in other words he is in favor of the nurture argument. He believes that everyone learns from their culture, environment, and social interactions. He talks about a few of his theories like the zone of proximal development, and a more knowledgeable other. He also expresses his thoughts on developmental tools and the importance of language to cognitive development. All of these factors together support his idea that children’s behavior is learned.
This essay is about a child’s development and learning, focusing primarily on language development. It will describe the main stages of developmental "milestones" and the key concepts involved for children to develop their language skills, discussing language acquisition and social learning theory. The essay will also look into the key theorists involved in language development, primarily Vygotsky and Chomsky, and how these theories have had an impact on the way society views language and their implementation within schools. The essay will describe the factors affecting language development, both biological and environmental. While also discussing key arguments among theorists, one being the nature vs nurture debate, and how these play a part in the teaching in schools.
When infants are acquiring their first language, adults speak to them differently than they would speak to other adults. This kind of speech is formally named “Infant-Directed speech”, but is also referred to as “baby talk” and “motherese”. Infant-Directed (ID) speech has several properties that distinguish it from Adult-Directed (AD) speech. There is a debate over whether or not ID speech helps infants acquire language or is a hindrance in their language acquisition process Several experiments have been performed to test the effect of ID speech on infants’ language learning. These experiments all used different properties of ID speech. Overall, the experiments have proved that ID speech helps infants acquire language better than AD speech for different reasons. Further studies can be performed on ID speech to learn more about its effects on second language acquisition and on different ages.
This way the child would gradually learn to speak and use language. The child would respond to the smiles and approval of the parents. Skinner explained this as operant conditioning; the reinforcement of a random response by a reward. By trial and error the child would learn to communicate. The child would repeat verbal behaviour that was rewarded and drop sounds or speech that did not work in terms of getting a pleasurable response.
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.
"The principles and rules of grammar are the means by which the forms of language are made to correspond with the universal froms of thought....The structures of every sentence is a lesson in logic."
Child development language is a process by which children come to communicate and understand language during early childhood. This usually occurs from birth up to the age of five. The rate of development is usually fast during this period. However, the pace and age of language development vary greatly among children. Thus, the language development of a child is usually compared with norms rather than with other individual children. It is scientifically proven that development of girls language is usually at a faster rate than that of boys. (Berk, 2010) In other terms language development is also a crucial factor that reflects the growth and maturation of the brain. However, this development usually retards after the age of five making it very difficult for most children to continue learning language. There are two major types of language development in children. These include referential and expressive language development styles. In referential language development, children often first speak single words and then join the words together, first into –word sentences and then into th...
... (p. 116). In her article, “Babies Prove Sound Learners,” Sohn (2008), states, “Such studies show that, up to about 6 months of age, babies can recognize all the sounds that make up all the languages in the world” (para.24). B.K. Skinner suggest that the materialization of language is the result of imitation and reinforcement. According to Craig and Dunn (2010), “Language development is linked to cognitive development that, in turn, depends on the development of the brain, on physical and perceptual abilities, and on experiences. Biological and social factors also jointly influence the early development of emotion and personality” (p. 117). In her article, A natural history of early language experience. Hart (2000), states, “Talking is important for children, because complexity of what children say influences the complexity of other people’s response” (para. 1).
It is a process that requires many steps before taking place because it is not genetically inherited despite that there is an innate predisposition factor that support the occurrence of language for children regardless of country of origin, race, class, economic status or gender. Dr. Klass, in her writing, emphasizes in the importance of babbling, which are well formed syllables, and the similarity that coexist among all children, which is the key of first language acquisition. Cooing and babbling which are the first step in language acquisition, produce sequences of vowel like sounds as [i], [u], [k], [g], [m]. Cooing is describes as the first use of speech like sound by a baby, which happens in the first few months after birth. At this stage, the child produces some high vowels sounds like[i] and [u]. As the child progresses, he or she is able to use velar consonants like [k] and [g] by the age of four months old. Then, babbling starts between the age of six and eight months, usually when the baby is sitting up and start making a combination of different vowels and consonant sounds like ba-ba-ba and ga-ga-ga, and which in time will change when the baby is about ten months old with a more complex enunciation with the patterns of the consonant and vowel combination as well as the variation such a: ba-ba-da-da, ma-ma-ma, da-da-ba. According to Dr. Klass, babies that are seven months old and don’t voice with many consonants, as mentioned above, and only repeat aaaa and ooo sound are less likely to develop first language acquisition that can eventually lead to word formation for language to develop. In other words, sound of language is a learning process. For instance one needs to know to a ‘p’ sound the two lips has to be close to each other and one needs to puff the out of your mouth. This is a process that must be learned agreeing with the
Language acquisition is perhaps one of the most debated issues of human development. Various theories and approaches have emerged over the years to study and analyse this developmental process. One factor contributing to the differing theories is the debate between nature v’s nurture. A question commonly asked is: Do humans a...
Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.
When a child is first born, they are catapulted into a world of language. They are exposed to varying vocabulary, grammar and intonation and depending on where they live in the world, they will acquire the language of their care givers. The world around them is an external factor that carves First Language Acquisition into a child so young. Language is thought to be “the central factor in the social life of infants”. (Eve V. Clark, 2009)