Below are the 4 main theories on Language Acquisition: Nature: The Nativist approach The Nativist approach by Noam Chomsky, an American linguist believes that children are born with the innate capacity to process and learn language. Children are programmed or wired to make sense of words and utterances after being exposed to language in its surroundings. An innate feature, named LAD (Language Acquisition device) is responsible for the quick development of language acquisition in a child. Chomsky believes that all humans are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in our brains which enables children to distinguish language more proficiently, and also provides children with innate understanding of underlying grammatical rules of their native language. Examples to support Noam Chomsk... ... middle of paper ... ...bject] or combinations of three and four words.
Three language acquisition theories can be mainly identified: imitation theory, reinforcement theory, and the innateness theory. As a manner of explanation, the three theories will be briefly described subsequently. Firstly, the main idea in the reinforcement theory is that children learn to speak like adults because they are taught to do so by being praised and otherwise rewarded for doing things properly. In addition, they are helped because parents "correct" them when they make mistakes. In the second place, the imitation theory states that children learn grammar by memorizing the words and sentences of their language.
We could believe that the children have the natural abilities to deal with identifying some facets of parents’ speech at distinct periods of their childhood. These learning abilities necessitates the parents’ adequately steady to teach their children from the foundations of patterns in the different language. (153 words) (1) Yule, G (1996) The Study of Language, 2nd edn, Cambridge University Press, 176. Question 3 Stages in Language Acquisition “Rome was not built in a day”. Fromkin, et al (2003) says that children learn grammar through some processes (2).
Chomsky stressed the active contribution of the child to language acquisition and minimized the role of imitation and reinforcement as some linguists claimed that “children can create and understand new sentences that they have never learnt before (Ellis, 1985). This implied a creativity which children had internalized following an underlying system of rules (Usò and Martínez-Flor 2006:6). Chomsky believed that children are predisposed with a Language Acquisition Device that enables them to form rules. Chomsky’s generativist ideas gave rise to the innatist approach to language learning which was ‘derived from the fundamental assertion that language acquisition is innately determined, that we are born with a built-in device of some kind that predisposes us to language acquisition’ (Brown 2007:19), a LAD which later on developed on a set of innate universal rules common to all languages known as Universal grammar. According to his view of language acquisition, the child builds up the knowledge of the language by means of hypothesis testing (Ellis, 1985).
Chomsky supports that language mastery involves knowledge of linguistic rules and conventions, which he later named that as ‘cognizance’. He believes that cognizance is present in some particular regions in human’s brain where it inherently contributes to the acquisition and usage of language. Such language faculty is the initial root of all linguistic grammatical rules and principles; it is the mental archetype of all languages. To begin with, Chomsky chooses to focus on children’s acquisition of language because children have the least pre-existing knowledge of language compared to adults. Children in this case are the primal study in the innateness of language.
An input is necessary to stimulate the LAD in order for children to learn. Furthermore, children acquire grammatical rules without getting explicit instruction. The linguist Noam Chomsky believed that all people had an innate knowledge of the grammar of their native language. (Kasper, 1998). Therefore, Chomsky claimed that children’s acquisition of... ... middle of paper ... ... Development: Six Stages of Language Development.
Theories of Language Acquisition The theories of language acquisition are essentially centred around the nature nurture argument. The theory that children have an innate capacity for language was created by Noam Chomsky (1928- ) an American linguistic. This nativist approach states that learning language is part of the genetic makeup of human species and is nearly independent of any particular experience which may occur after birth. Once a childs brain has been exposed to speech for the very first time it will receive and make sense of these utterances, due to its particular programming. Chomsky believes that there is a language acquisition device somwehre in the brain which enables children to distinguish between linguistically acceptable and non-acceptable language.it also provides children with the basic rules of grammar that govern the use of language, which are exacted through trial and error.
Language is the key to true communication. How is a language learned to begin with? A first language, a person’s mother tongue, is acquired through a mixture of nurture, nature, biology and the environment. A baby picks up the sounds around him and then pieces together where one word ends and the next one begins. A child usually fully learns a language by age five (Mahoney).
Kiki van Essen Mr. Bumstead English 127; 3831 Final research rough article 03/10/2014 Syntactic structures and imitation in acquiring a language Almost all children learn how to speak a language before the age of five year. The way in which children learn a language is still a guess rather than a proven fact. Different scientist argue different points of view what they have learned from their research. Most scientists do agree that both nature and nurture contribute in learning a language. The most generally accepted method of language acquisition is syntax, a universal grammar structure that is present in the first few years of a child’s life what makes it possible to recognize and use the grammatical structure of a sentence correctly.
To learn how to speak .And pronunciation of speech. Most of the words or all of it are quoted from the vocabulary of parents, and simulation and imitation from them. “The stages of acquiring their first language from babbling to one Word utterances, two word phrases, full sentences, and eventually, complex grammar” (petkova, Kersaint, & Thompson, 2009). The language acquisition is most likely to kids learning it’s going through process to get high level of language skills. The will acquire a new language structures only when (s) he is cognitively and psychologically ready to do so (petkova, Kersaint, & Thompson, 2009) When the learner has a goal to desire they put up the effort and the time to improve them self, beside the rich classroom and educate teacher to put them in the right place hand by hand.