Language Acquisition of Children
Added on 2020-05-28
11 Pages2861 Words50 Views
Calculus and Analysis
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Running head: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF CHILDRENLanguage Acquisition of ChildrenName of the studentName of the UniversityAuthor note
1LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF CHILDRENIntroductionLanguage acquisition refers to the process with the help of which humans gain theability to perceive and make use of such words that can help in the process of understandingand communicating. It includes the learning of different capacities that is inclusive of syntax,phonetics along with that of extensive vocabulary. A child can learn the first languagewithout the necessity of any kind of formal lesson. The process of language development isquite complex but children acquires this ability quite well (Saxton, 2017). It has been foundthat the speech of children become relatively grammatical by the age of three. This essaythrows light on the evolving of different theories in relation to language acquisition. Itelaborates on the speech motor control system of young infants and the development of wordsegmentation in young infants. It highlights the distinct characteristics of each theory andtheir significance in the process of acquiring of language by children.Behaviourist Theory Verbal Behaviour by B.F. Skinner made use of the functional analysis approach inorder to analyze the process of language behaviour (Omomia & Omomia, 2014). Thisanalysis focussed on the natural occurrence of language behaviour in response to that ofenvironmental circumstances along with the effect that it has on human interactions. TheLearning approach of Skinner involves that of unconditioned stimuli, conditioned stimuli andthat of operant conditioning (Harasim, 2017). It mainly focuses on the arena of operantconditioning. It is a method of learning that happens with the help of rewards and that ofpunishments (Monaghan & Rowland, 2017). Behaviour will operate on that of theenvironment and it will help in bringing about favourable consequences. It will also help inthe process of avoiding the ones that are adverse.
2LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF CHILDREN In terms of the behaviourist theory, it is indicative of the process of forming habitswhich involves the element of trial and error (Cobbinah & Bayaga, 2017). In the process oftrial and error, the child strives and fails in using the correct language till the time he mastersthe ability. Infants possess human role model within the environment that helps in providingthe stimuli along with reward that is necessary for the process of operant conditioning(Monaghan & Rowland, 2017). According to this theory, the babbling of the child should beencouraged by the parent by taking recourse to positive reinforcement like that of smiling orclapping (Slobin, 2017).Acquisition of language by Noam ChomskyThe innateness theory proposed by Noam Chomsky states that children are born withthe innate faculty of language acquisition which is determined biologically. Human specieshave got a brain the neural circuits containing the linguistic information since birth. Naturaldisposition of learning language is triggered after hearing the speech. Brain of the child isable to interpret what he/she hears on account of the underlying structure that it alreadycontains. The language acquisition device (LAD) of the child helps him in sorting out aboutthe rules of language. According to Chomsky, the language of humans share some common principles likelanguages have verbs and nouns. It is the task of the child to understand how the specificlanguage that the child hears contains the hidden principles (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 2014).The LAD contains concept like that of verb and when he will listen to words like that of“worked” and “played” he will form a hypothesis (Chomsky, 2014).Chomsky has been responsible for coining the fundamental grammatical ideas likethat of “universal grammar”. Children who are under three years old do not make use of fullsentences but instead they break up the sentence into small parts (MacWhinney, 2014).
3LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF CHILDRENAnother important argument in relation to the nativist theory is that there exists a crucialperiod in relation to acquisition of language. It refers to a time frame when exposure to theenvironmental conditions is necessary for the stimulation of an innate trait.Cognitive Theory and Language AcquisitionJean Piaget was a famous Swiss psychologist who was famous for developing thetheory of developing of language of children (Whitehurst & Zimmerman, 2014). Accordingto the cognitive theory, the child should be able to understand the concept before he gets holdof the language that can express a concept (Carey & Gelman, 2014). A young child cannotvoice the concepts that is not known to him and hence learning about the environment iscrucial for the child. After learning the language, the child can map the language into that ofprior experience (Stephens & Koenig, 2015). The emergence of language occurs in different stages and children undergo the stagesin an order that is fixed. This quality is found to be universal in all children. The commonfunctional morphemes are mastered in the beginning and the ideas that are simple areexpressed earlier than that of the ones more complex. The cognitive theory of Piaget statesthat the language of children is a reflection of the development of their logical thinking alongwith reasoning skills (Whitehurst & Zimmerman, 2014). The developing of the faculty oflogical thinking in children imbues them with the ability to understand the meanings of allkinds of words. There exists four different stages of the cognitive development theory of John Piaget-sensory motor period, pre-operational period, egocentrism and that of operational period(Stephens & Koenig, 2015). Each stage involves a different aspect in relation to languageacquisition. In the sensory motor period, the language of children is “egocentric” and theyspeak either for their own benefit or they want the pleasure of associating someone with the
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