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Theories of First Language
Acquisition
Behavioristic Approaches: Bloomfield,
Fries, Pavlov, Skinner
Focus on the immediately perceptible
aspects of linguistic observable behavior– the
observable responses and the relationships or
associations between those responses and the
events that surrounds them.
Effective language behavior is the production
of correct responses to stimuli.
If a linguistic response is reinforced, it
becomes habitual or conditioned; otherwise is
abandoned
Skinner’s theory of Verbal Behavior (1957)
learning occurs by operant conditioning;
a response or operant is maintained by
reinforcement from another person;
verbal behavior is controlled by its
consequences
Theory does not adequately account for
The human capacity to acquire language
Language development and language creativity
The abstract nature of language
Other behavioristic options
Charles Osgood’s mediation theory (1953): A
linguistic stimulus –word or sentence elicits a
response that is self-stimulating of following
responses by a process that is invisible (abstract)
Jenkins and Palermo (1964): the child may
acquire frames of a linear pattern of sentence
elements and learn the stimulus response
equivalences that can be substituted; imitation is
essential aspects of stimulus-response
associations.
Theory does not account for the abstract nature of language
and for the fact that all sentences that we utter have
underlying/deep structures that are intricately interwoven in a
person’s total cognitive and affective experience
Generativist Approaches (cognitive):
Chomsky, Lenneberg, Berko
The Generative Model: The focus is on abstract rules –
freedom from the scientific method/the observable. The
approach offers a systematic description of the child’s
language as being innately determined, ruled-governed
and operating in a parallel fashion. Human languages
are all alike at the deep structure—theory proposes a
number of potential properties of Universal Grammar
UG.
Eric Lenneberg: language is human and certain modes
of perception, categorizing abilities, and other language
related mechanisms are biologically determined –we are
born with the capacity to learn language.
Berko (1958): The child learns the language not a a
series of discrete units, but as an integrated system.
Chomsky (1965)
 Chomsky: Language is innately determined.
Language innate properties explains the child’s
mastery of his native language in such a short
time despite the abstract nature of linguistic
rules.
 LAD--language acquisition device is a little
black box that we all have in our brains that
allows humans to master a native language:
–Ability to discriminate human sounds from other
sounds and to determine which sounds and structures
are not part of our native language;
–Ability to organize linguistic data;
–Ability to construct a complex system such as
language out of limited linguistic input.
Other contributions of the theory
 Universal Grammar UG: Explains why is it that
children, regardless of their environmental stimuli
(the language around them) learn a linguistic
system and how they are innately equipped to
build it and their contribution to the acquisition
process.
 The child’s linguistic development is not a
process of developing fewer and fewer incorrect
structures, not a language in which earlier stages
have more mistakes than later stages.
 The child’s language at any stage is systematic—
the child is always making hypotheses in speech
and comprehension that are continually tested,
revised, reshaped or abandoned.
According to the model generative rules are
connected serially. However,
Spolsky (1989): Proposes the distribution processing
model PDP--the child’s linguistic performance may be the
consequence of many interconnected levels of simultaneous
neural interconnections acting in a parallel fashion, rather
than a serial process of one rule being applied, then
another, then another;
The human brain enables us to process many segments
and levels of language, cognition, affect, and perception all
at once in a parallel fashion; a sentence has a phonological,
morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, discourse,
sociolinguistic and pragmatic properties.
A sentence is not generated by a series of rules, rather
sentences are the result of simultaneous interconnection of
a multitude of brain cells.
Constructivist Approaches
(functional): Piaget, Vygotsky, Bloom
The study of language now centers on the
relationship of cognitive development and the
construction of meaning in the environment;
Language is seen as one manifestation of the
cognitive and affective ability to deal with the
world, with others, and with the self;
Language must be understood from two stand
points:
the abstract, formal, explicit rules proposed under the
generative grammar [form of language],
the functional level of meaning constructed from
social interaction.
Cognition and Language development
Bloom (1971): Children learn the underlying
structures and not superficial word order; however
an utterance carries meaning that is context-bound;
What children know will determine what they learn about
the code for speaking and understanding messages
Piaget (1969): The child’s development is the
result of his interaction with the environment, with a
complimentary interaction between their developing
perceptual cognitive capacities and their linguistic
experience.
What children learn about language is determined by
what they already know about their world;
Children appear to approach language learning
equipped with conceptual interpretive abilities for
categorizing the world (Gleitman and Wanner, 1982)
Social Interaction and Language
development
Social constructivist emphasis of the
constructivist perspective—the functions of
language in discourse: language functioning
extends beyond cognitive thought and
memory structure:
Language development is a reciprocal
behavioral system that operates between the
language-developing infant-child and the
competent [adult] language user in a socializingteaching-nurturing role;
 Language is used for communication; it
has a social function
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
What children learn about language is
determined by what they already know about
the world.
Cognitive development is at the center of the
human organism --language is dependent
upon and springs from cognitive development;
Cognitive or mental structure: scheme.
Meaning is construed based on previous
background knowledge structures.
Vygotsky’s Language/Thought Relationship
Language is used for communication; it initially
serves a social function.
Social interaction, through language, is a prerequisite to cognitive development; cognitive and
communicative development evolves from the social
function of language;every child reaches his or her
potential development (including language
development), in part, through social interaction.
Language and thought are distinct and develop
independently; when the two systems fuse with the
development of inner speech, logical reasoning
develops.
Current Approaches:
Constructivism
Constructivism is a social construction and negotiation of
meaning;
Learning is a dynamic process that is both social and
mental; language is a representational system formed by the
child as she relates symbols to concrete concepts and
experiences
Language and thought interact to promote intellectual
growth; thus such representations function as a medium for
intellectual growth.
Children’s language use reflects their underlying cognitive
abilities and their social and emotional growth; Children’s
language is culture/community based—it reflects their
experiences.
Brunner’s constructivism (1994)
Children are the active transformers of
their experiences with the world –they
pick and choose what they need to make
their own world in their head;
Children construct meaning by means
of social contact and negotiation;
Children’s learning occur within a
socio-cultural plane and is internalize to
the cognitive plane.
Language from the perspective of
Constructivism
Language is a representational system formed by the
child as she relates symbols to concrete concepts and
experiences
Language and thought interact to promote intellectual
growth; thus such representations function as a medium
for intellectual growth.
Children’s language use reflects their underlying
cognitive abilities and their social and emotional growth.
Children’s language is culture/community based—it
reflects their experiences;