Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 131 views

    Theories of First Language Acquisition

    Uploaded by

    Yanina Rojas
    The document discusses four main theories of first language acquisition: 1) Behaviourism which focuses on conditioning and reinforcement of linguistic responses. 2) Mediation theory which proposes that responses are mediated through covert mental processes. 3) Nativism which argues that humans are born with an innate language acquisition device that allows them to systematically acquire language rules. 4) Functionalism which views language acquisition as constructed through social interaction and cognition.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Theories of First Language Acquisition

    Uploaded by

    Yanina Rojas
    131 views2 pages
    The document discusses four main theories of first language acquisition: 1) Behaviourism which focuses on conditioning and reinforcement of linguistic responses. 2) Mediation theory which proposes that responses are mediated through covert mental processes. 3) Nativism which argues that humans are born with an innate language acquisition device that allows them to systematically acquire language rules. 4) Functionalism which views language acquisition as constructed through social interaction and cognition.

    Original Description:

    jjkklllkll

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses four main theories of first language acquisition: 1) Behaviourism which focuses on conditioning and reinforcement of linguistic responses. 2) Mediation theory which proposes that responses are mediated through covert mental processes. 3) Nativism which argues that humans are born with an innate language acquisition device that allows them to systematically acquire language rules. 4) Functionalism which views language acquisition as constructed through social interaction and cognition.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    131 views2 pages

    Theories of First Language Acquisition

    Uploaded by

    Yanina Rojas
    The document discusses four main theories of first language acquisition: 1) Behaviourism which focuses on conditioning and reinforcement of linguistic responses. 2) Mediation theory which proposes that responses are mediated through covert mental processes. 3) Nativism which argues that humans are born with an innate language acquisition device that allows them to systematically acquire language rules. 4) Functionalism which views language acquisition as constructed through social interaction and cognition.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    You are on page 1of 2

    Theories of first language acquisition

    Behaviourist

     Tabula rasa
     Stimuli: linguistic responses
     Conditioning
     Reinforcement

    Mediation theory

     Mediating response

    Nativist

     Innate predispositions (LAD/UG)


     Sistematic, rule governedacquisition
     Creative construction
     Pivot grammar
     Parallel distributed procesing

    Functional

     Constructivism
     Social interaction
     Cognition and language
     Functions of language
     Discourse

    The behavioural approach

    Focused on the immediately perceptible aspects of linguistic behaviour, the publicly


    observable responses and the relationships and associations between those responses and
    events in the world surrounding them. A behaviourist might consider effective language
    behaviour to be the production of correct responses to stimuli. If a particular response is
    reinforced it then becomes habitual or conditioned. Operant conditioning refers to
    conditioning in which the organism in this case a human being emits a response or operant (a
    sentence or utterance) without necessarily observable stimuli. That operat is mainteined
    (learned) by reinforcement (for example a positive verbal or nonverbal response from another
    person). According to skinner verbal behaviour is controlled by its consequences. When
    consequences are rewarding behaviour is manteined and is increased but when consecuences
    are punishing the behaviuor is weakened and eventually extinguished.

    Chellenges to behavioral approches

    In an attempt to boarden the base of behavioural theory some psychologists proposed


    modified thoretical positions. One of these positions was mediation theory. The linguistic
    stimuli elcits a mediating response that is self stimulating. Charles osgood called this self
    stimulation a ‘representational mediation process’ a process that is really covert and invisible
    acting within the learner. It is interesting that mediation theory attempted to account for
    abstraction by a notion that reeked of ‘mentalism’. Mediation theories still left many questions
    about language unanswered. The abstract nature of language and the relationship between
    meaning and utterance were unresolved. All sentences have deep structures these deep
    structures are intervowen in a person’s total cognitive and affective experience.

    The nativist approach

    Nativits believe that language acquisition in innately determined that we are born with a
    genetic capacity that predisposes us to a sistematic perception of language around us resulting
    in the construction of an internalized system of language. Chomsky claimed the existece of
    innate properties of language to explain the child mastery of a native language. This innate
    knowledge according chomskey was embodied in a methaphorical ‘little black box’ in the
    brain, a language acquisition device (LAD). McNeill described the LAD as consisting of four
    innate linguistic properties:

    1. The ability to distinguished speech sounds from other sounds in the enviroment
    2. The ability to organize linguistic data into various classes that can later be refined
    3. Knowledge that only a certain kind of linguistic system is posible and that other kinds
    are not
    4. The ability to engage in constant evaluation of the developing linguistic system so as to
    construct the simplest possible system out of the available linguistic input.

    More recently researchers in the nativist tradition have continued this line of inquiry through a
    genre of child language acquisition resaerch that focuses on what comes to be known as
    universal grammar. Assuming that all human beings are genetically equiped with abilities that
    enable them to acquire languagtie researchers expanded the LAD notion by positing a system
    of universal linguistic rules that went well beyond what was originally proposed for the LAD.
    Universal grammar research attempts to discover what it is that all children, regardless of their
    enviromental stimuli bring to the language acquisition process. Such studies have looked at
    question formation, negation, word order, discontinuity of embeded clauses and other
    gramatical phenomena. Research has shown that the child language

    You might also like