Explaining first language
acquisition
Florian Gausmann
Barbara Sohn-Travaglia
Mandy Wellhausen
Content
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The Behaviourist Perspective
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The Innatist Perspective
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The Interactional/Developmental Perspective
Behaviourism
Behaviourism

biggest influence in 1940’s and 1950’s
Behaviourism

biggest influence in 1940’s and 1950’s
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I.P. Pawlow
B.E. Skinner

Behaviourism
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‘positive reinforcement’
Behaviourism
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‘positive reinforcement’
–
praise
–
successful communication
Behaviourism

imitation
Behaviourism

imitation
–
word-for-word repetition of someone else’s
utterance
Behaviourism

practice
Behaviourism
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practice
–
repetitive manipulation of form
Behaviourism
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child’s language behaviour shaped by:
–
quality and quantity of language heard
–
consistency of reinforcement
The Innatist Perspective
It‘s all in your mind
The Innatist Perspective:
It‘s all in your mind
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It is seen as an explanation for the “logical
problem of language acquisition“
What‘s that?
The fact that children are come to know more
about the structure of their language than
they could reasonably be expected to learn
on the basis of the samples of language they
hear
The Innatist Perspective:
Noam Chomsky


Chomsky’s conclusion: Children’s minds are
not blank slates to be filled by imitating
language they hear in the environment
Hypothesis: Children are born with a specific
innate ability to discover for themselves the
underlying rules of a language system on the
basis of the samples of a natural language
they are exposed to
The Innatist Perspective:
Example
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Children hear false starts, incomplete
sentences, and slips of tongue
Nonetheless they learn to distinguish
between grammatical and ungrammatical
sentences
John told Bill to wash himself.
John told Bill to wash himself.
The Innatist Perspective
Universal Grammar

If children are equipped with Universal
Grammar, then what they have to learn is the
ways in which the language they are
acquiring makes use of these principles
The Innatist Perspective
The Critical Period Hypothesis


Animals and humans are genetically
programmed to acquire certain kinds of
knowledge and skill at specific times in life
Difficult to apply this hypothesis for language
acquisition because nearly all children are
exposed to language (oral or gestural) at an
early age
The Innatist Perspective
Is there a Critical Period for Language
Acquisition?
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Neurological evidence
Evidence from language acquisition of deaf
children
Evidence from feral children
Evidence from Down syndrome subjects
The Innatist Perspective
CP Summary


There is little prospect of obtaining unambiguous
evidence on the question of the possibility of
beginning to acquire a L1 after any age posited as
critical it would appear sensible to look at evidence
concerning the continuation of language acquisition
beyond the childhood years
“It is difficult to identify any point in the lifespan when
the process of language development is truly
complete.” Nippold (1998:1)
The Innatist Perspective
Question 1

What is (according to N. Chomsky) “the
logical problem of language acquisition“ and
which theory is seen as an explanation for it?
The Innatist Perspective
Answer 1


The innatist perspective is seen as an explanation
for the “logical problem of language acquisition“
The “logical problem of language acquisition” is 1.
The fact that children are come to know more about
the structure of their language than they could
reasonably be expected to learn on the basis of the
samples of language they hear and 2. The question
of how adult speakers come to know the complex
structure of their first language on the basis of
language that they actually hear
The Innatist Perspective
Question 2

Why did E. Newport and her colleagues
conclude that their study of deaf children
learning ASL supports the hypothesis of a
critical period?
The Innatist Perspective
Answer 2

On tests focusing on grammatical markers (to
indicate such things as time and number; these
markers are expressed through specific hand or
body movements), the Native group (who were
exposed to ASL from birth) used the forms more
consistently than the Early group (who began using
ASL between 4-6 years of age). This group, in turn,
used them more consistently than the Late group
(who began learning ASL after age twelve)
Interactionist/Developmental
Perspectives
Interactionist/Developmental
Perspectives
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Learning from inside and out
Language Acquisition seen as the ability to
learn from experience
Interactions
Focus on interplay between innate learning
ability & environment
Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives

Jean Piaget
–
–
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children‘s interactions with objects & people
development of cognitive understanding
Lev Vygotsky
–
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children‘s interactions with other children & adults
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Interactionist/Developmental
Perspectives

Cross cultural research
–
–
–
children‘s learning environments in different
cultural communities
child-directed speech
not universal
Interactionist/Developmental
Perspectives

The importance of interaction
–
–
–
Jim
deaf parents
no sign language
Interactionist/Developmental
Perspectives
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Connectionism
–
–
Language acquisition does not require “module of
the mind“
Connections between words and phrases + the
situation in which they occur
Interactionist/Developmental
Perspectives

What characterizes child-directed speech?
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–
–
–
–
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slower rate of delivery
higher pitch
more varied intonation
shorter, simpler sentence patterns
stress on key words
frequent repetition
paraphrase
Interactionist/Developmental
Perspectives

Explain the difference between Piaget‘s and
Vygotsky‘s point of view
Bibliography
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
Lightbown and Spada. How Languages are
Learned. 3rd Edition. Oxford University
Press. 2006: chap. 1 pp 10-24.
Singleton and Ryan.Language Acquisition:
The Age Factor.2nd Edition. Cromwell Press
Ltd.2004.