LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

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Introduction

Language is configured as that way that human beings have to communicate, it is a set of

signs, both oral and written, that through their meaning and relationship allow human expression

and communication.We can communicating with other people by using language. Language can

be in the form of music, gestures, signs, etc. Language is important thing for human life. Even

the baby born with disability to speak, they still could communicating with the others by gestures

or signs. By language we can survive, make interaction with the others, etc. According to Noam

Chomsky biologically children have been programmed for language and the develop is same

with the other biological functions develop. The children not need to be taught the language as

when they learn to walk. According to Chomsky, the children language ability is inherent since

they born or called as innateness.

While nativists consider it to be innate, due to biological factors and programmed in the

brain, that is, it is only due to internal factors; Behaviorists argue that language is due only to

external social factors; the child learns language because it imitates others. However, there are

also other theories such as that of interrelationists who argue that language is due to a mixture of

both factors. In the other hand, according to many linguists argued that to learn language can not

be separated from the environment. Language can not use without stimulated the environment.

Language is the process of habitual in daily interaction.

According to this, does the child acquire language or is it already determined in the child?

Developing
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To answer this question it is necessary to know the different theories about language.

In the nativist posture that was formulated by the psycholinguist Chomsky in the late fifties. It

postulates that the principles of language are innate and not learned. Language is acquired

because human beings are biologically programmed to it. All human beings will develop a

language because they are prepared for it, regardless of the degree of complexity of the language.

The basic abstract principles of the generative and transformative language are innate, so the

child does not have to learn them. According to this, children do not need to undergo any

learning to learn their language, but it is acquired and developed based on a mechanism for

acquiring universal and specific language for the human race.

The Theory of Behaviorism of the American psychologist Frederic Skinner who states that “all

our characteristics are behaviors and are governed by the general Stimulus-Response scheme, the

human being has nothing innate when learning language, we must see the language as one more

behavior and from there see how it is modified ”. Verbal behavior is characterized because it has

reinforcements; the child learns language through operant conditioning. Reinforcements modify

that response. The models for Skinner are very important since with more effort and more

stimuli, they learn more.

Behaviorism made it begin to take into account the environment in which the child moves as an

important aspect in the acquisition and development of language.

the Interactionist Theory that has as maximum representatives the Russian psychologist Lev

Vygotsky and the American psychologist Jerome Bruner. What unites both theories are the
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social, cultural and psychological rules that guide the child to how to use language in the

different contexts in which it moves.

The Interactionist Theory teaches the child how to learn the procedures of language, in addition

interactionism produces in the child self-motivation and strengthens the concept that he has of

himself, and finally the child is responsible for his own learning process. In this theory we can

talk about the scaffolding that is a teaching process that facilitates the learning of the baby and

the child, thanks to him, the child is directed, through small steps that he can understand, to

achieve the success of a more difficult complete task, all this taking into account the Zone of

Proximal Development of the child.

Conclusion

It is difficult to appreciate which of the theories set forth above is correct in the

acquisition of language. It should be borne in mind that language theories are developed thanks

to social, biological, innate factors, etc.

It is very important the environment in which the child develops for the development of

their language, being interacting and being in contact with others helps the child not only have a

better personal development but the acquisition and development of language.

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Bibliography

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Teorías sobre la adquisición y desarrollo del lenguaje en el bebé: el innatismo. (2019). Retrieved 30

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