CLA Theories

CLA Theories

SKINNER
1. Children will acquire language by imitating the speech of others
2. When a child produces words successfully, it receives approval and encouragement
  1. The reinforcement motivates the child to repeat the behaviour
3. FOR
  1. Language is a behaviour like any other and behaviours and learnt by imitation
  2. Imitation plays a large part in phonological development
  3. Children develop regional accents which indicates that they imitate the sounds they hear around them
4. AGAINST
  1. Children have the capacity to understand an infinite number of sentences that are entirely original
  2. Children develop an understanding of how grammar works... They are not imitating these mistakes
  3. All children go through the same stages of language development, therefore if they were totally dependent on parents, there would be much more variation between individual children
CHOMSKY
1. Children have an innate ability to extract the rules underlying language from the words they hear being spoken- the 'language acquisition device' (LAD)
2. Different languages have different surface structures but they all share the same deep structure :EXAMPLE~ UTTERANCES CONTAINING S,V&O ARE COMMON TO ALL LANGUAGES
3. The brain is ready to analyse what is heard and able to understand and apply to rules of grammar
4. FOR
  1. An innate LAD would explain impressive speed which children learn to speak
  2. LAD explains the fact that children from all cultures pass through similar stages of language development
  3. LAD explains the existence of the grammatical features that are common to all languages- linguistic universals
5. AGAINST
  1. Underestimates the role of interaction with others in language development
  2. Implies that if a child is exposed to language, its acquisition will happen automatically
PIAGET
1. Suggested that a child who had not reached the seriation stage, would not be able to learn and use comparative adjectives; like 'bigger' and 'smaller'
2. Piaget's theory takes the view that creating knowledge and intelligence is an inherently active process
3. Believed that there were 4 stages:
  1. Sensinimotor
  2. Pre- operational
  3. Concrete operational
  4. Formal operational
BRUNER
1. Suggests that the language behaviour of adults when talking to children is specifically adapted to support the acquisition process
  1. This support is described as SCAFFOLDING for the child's language learning
TREVARTHEN
1. He studied the interaction between parents and babies who were too young to speak
2. He concluded that the turn- taking structure of conversation is developed through cames and non- verbal communications long befoe word are actually uttered
BROWN, CAZDEN AND BELLUGI
1. "It seems to be truth value rather than well formed syntax and chiefly governs explicit verbal reinforcements by parents...
2. ... which renders mildly paradoxical the fact that the usual product of such a training schedule is an adult whose speech 'is highly grammatical but not notably truthful'"

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	Created by Hannah Beck almost 8 years ago