Theories of Language Acquisition
The four theories of language acquisition are: Skinner’s theory, Chomsky’s
theory and the Social Interactionist theory.
Skinner’s theory
Skinner, who was a Behaviorist, argued that language acquisition is like any
kind of cognitive behavior – it is learnt by reinforcement and shaping. He also
calls this operant conditioning – where the child goes through trial-and-error,
in other words, where the child tries and fails to use correct language until it
succeeds; with reinforcement and shaping provided by the parents gestures
(smiles, attention and approval) which are pleasant to the child. Parents,
whom ignore unfamiliar sounds and show increased attention to the
reinforced phonemes, extinguish the acquisition of phonemes and
morphemes. The morphemes then become refined into words by shaping.
Parents’ accuracy will lead to total extinguishment of “baby” pronunciation and
finally, by selective reinforcement and behavior shaping, words will be shaped
into telegraphic two-word sentences, later into sentences until the full
language has been acquired. Skinner differentiated between two types of
verbal responses that a child makes. One of them, the mand is verbal
behavior that is reinforced by the child receiving something it wants. For
example, when the child sees a chocolate, it can show its own demand by
calling out “choc”. As the child used appropriate verbal behavior, he then
receives chocolate and reinforcement. The other one is tact, which is verbal
behavior caused by imitating others. For instance, when a parent points at an
object and says “ball”, the child imitates this word and the parent will then
approve, which is just another form of reinforcement.
Chomsky’s theory
Chomsky, who was a linguist, argues that the ability of language acquisition is
innate; therefore taking a biological approach-stand. Children will
automatically acquire language by being exposed to it. There is no need for
operant conditioning. This ability is supported by, what Chomsky calls a LAD
(innate language acquisition device) an inbuilt mechanism that automatically
allows a child to decode any spoken language it hears around it. Chomsky
suggests that all languages share a similar deep structure despite the
differences in their surface structure.
For instance, “I did the homework” and “The homework was done by me”
have the same deep structure but differ in the surface structure. The LAD
supplies humans with the transformational grammar, which simply means the
process of translating underlying meaning into speech. Children use these
rules but will sometimes make errors, such as goed and comed (went and
came). These are errors in performance not in competence, Chomsky claims.
Social Interactionist Theory
Supporting that the development of language comes from the early
interactions between infants and caregivers, the Social Interactionist theory
holds a more social factor-stand, including the ideas of the two previous
theories. Snow suggested proto-conversations, which she called the
conversations exchange between the caregiver and the infant. Trevarthen
used pre-speech. However, probably one of the most known theorists here
might be Bruner. He gave more significance to pragmatics, rather than the
development of grammar. He suggested LASS – where turn taking of a
conversation between a caregiver and an infant is necessary for development.
The Social Interactionist theory does not neglect the previous theories, but
gives an additional social perspective of language acquisition.
Comparing & Contrasting
Skinner and Chomsky’s theories contradict each other by Skinner suggesting
that the behavior of language is learnt like any other cognitive behavior – and
Chomsky holding a stand of language being innate – born with the ability. The
Social Interactionist theory gives an additional perspective, more of in social
terms and does not exclude either Skinner’s or Chomsky’s theories. However,
the Social Interactionist theory is concerned more by the pragmatics of the
language, unlike Chomsky whom gives a greater deal of significance to the
development of grammar.
Even though the Skinner and Chomsky theories can be related to the Social
Interactionist theories, the divisions of all of these three are different – the
Social Interactionist theory is social constructivist – where the acquisition of
language has its roots in the earliest infant-caregiver conversations. Yet, all of
these theories are involved with some form of mechanism – either child
directed speech, language acquisition device or language acquisition support
system. Both Chomsky and Skinner’s theories were made during the mid1950s (1954), whereas the Social Interactionist theory came approximately
twenty years later than so, basing its additional theory on the possible two
theories.