University:
High School
Course:
High School Psychology
Academic year:

2022
Views:

127

Pages:

6
Author:

albulaastediasjn4

Theories of Language Development • Imitation • Operant Learning • Inborn Universal Grammar (Critical Period) 148 Imitation • Don’t they just listen to what is said around them and then repeat it? • But, sentences produced by children are very different from adult sentences – – – – Cat stand up table A my pencil What the boy hit? Other one pants • And children who can’t speak for physiological reasons learn the language spoken to them. • When they overcome their speech impairment they immediately use the language for speaking. 149 Operant Learning (Skinner) • Language acquisition is governed by operant learning principles. • Association of the sight of things with sounds of words • Imitation of the words/syntax modeled by others • Reinforcement by the caregiver • This assumes that children are being constantly reinforced for using good grammar and corrected when they use bad grammar. (Seldom occurs) • Cute mistakes? 150 Inborn Universal Grammar • • • • • • • • • Linguist Noam Chomsky Language is almost entirely inborn Language will naturally occur We are hard wired to learn language Children acquire untaught words and grammar at a rate too high to be explained through learning Productivity? “I hate you daddy” Many of the mistakes children make are from overgeneralizing grammar rules they picked up on Universal Grammar But children do learn their environment’s 151 language Universal Grammar • All human languages have the same grammatical building blocks, such as nouns and verbs, subjects and objects, negations and questions. • We all start speaking mostly in nouns • We all follow language development stages 152 Critical period • Language Machines - A one year old’s brain is statistically analyzing which syllables most often go together to discern word breaks • Can we keep it up? • No, childhood seems to represent a critical period for mastering certain aspects of language • Once the critical period is over mastering the grammar of another language is very difficult • When a young brain does not learn language its language-learning capacity never develops. 153