Child Language Aqcuisition

Nativism: Language acquisition is innate; we have a device making learning very quick compared to other abilities.

Main theorist: Noam Chomsky.

He was born December 7, 1928 and is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics"

He believes that we have an inbuilt Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and that Language isn’t taught, instead we naturally develop it. Children learn language quickly because they are predisposed to learn it. All children pass through the same early stages of language acquisition.  We have linguistic universals.

Advantages:

- Children all learn at around about the same rate no matter what language they speak

- Children don’t necessarily speak incorrectly, just may get certain words in the wrong order

Weaknesses:

- No evidence of a LAD

- Social interactions play an important part

Cognitivism is the belief that we have an inbuilt ability to learn language.

Main theorist : Jean Piaget.

He was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. He was born on 9 August 1896 and died 16 September 1980.

He states that a child needs to have developed certain mental abilities before they can acquire aspects of language. At first a child can't process the concept that something can exist when they can't see it. They get over this around the 18-month mark- this is called awareness of object permanence. The child is then capable of understanding abstract temporal ideas like past, present and future. 

Advantages:

- Shows that children think differently to adults
- Backs up model by mentioning different types of thinking e.g., egocentric thinking

Disadvantages:

- Doesn't consider a child's upbringing
- Doesn't consider that children learn at different rates

Behaviourists believe that children learn language through interactions and CDS.

Main theorist: Jerome Bruner. He was born October 1, 1915 and died June 5, 2016. He was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology.

He further develops the behaviourist approach but focuses on the importance of interaction with the child. He called his system LASS ( Language acquisition support system). He believes child directed speech (CDS) is vital in developing language. CDS includes exaggerated intonation, tag questions, simplified or repeated grammar. It also found that children who had more turn-taking conversations were better at language comprehension tasks.

Advantages:
- Children can't grasp aspects of language until they're ready.
- The stages of development support this.
Disadvantages:
- Children who have been deprived of social contact can't achieve complete communicative competence.
- Children with cognitive difficulties can still use language.

The social interaction approach believes children learn language from picking it up in chunks from the rich environment.

Main theorist: Lev Vygotsky.
Lev Vygotsky born November 17, 1896 and died June 11, 1934 was a Soviet psychologist, known for his work on psychological development in children.

Social interaction and experiencing social and cultural contexts are very important for language development . Private speech – when a child talks out loud to themselves – evidenced that the child is thinking for themselves. The ZPD (zone of proximal development) is when a child needs a caregiver’s help in order to interact. The caregiver either responds for the child or tries to encourage a response.
Scaffolding is when children require it less and less once they become more able to deal with different social and cultural situations on their own.

Advantages:
- Routine/rituals seem to teach children about spoken discourse
- Role-play and pretend play suggest interaction can affect vocabulary

Disadvantages:
- Children from cultures that don't promote interaction still have children who become articulate and fluent in language.