Running head: THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 1

Leire López Mato

The main Theories of Language Acquisition and how they differ

University College Dublin

LING10020: Language Acquisition and Disruption

THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 2

Introduction

The question of how we acquire language has always been an important issue for early

psycholinguistics and also for psycholinguistics nowadays. This paper discusses the main

theories of language acquisition and how they differ. The aim of this paper is to analyse the

main theories of language acquisition, which include Behaviorism and Connectionism,

Constructivism, Social Interactionism, and Nativism. Moreover, the following study will

examine the differences between the aforementioned theories. What is more, the debate about

nature and nurture will also be carefully looked at. Finally, the analysis presented in this paper

will support its arguments with previous work by early psycholinguistics such as Skinner,

Chomsky, Bruner, Piaget and Watson, who contributed in the studies about language

acquisition and who have different points of view. Moreover, not only early studies will be

examined but also books as Language Acquisition: A Linguistic Introduction, Language and the

Mind, Social Interaction and the Development of Language and Cognition among others.
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The main theories of language acquisition and how they differ

First of all, the Behaviourist theory claims that language is constructed thanks to the
exposure and positive reinforcement. At the beginning of the twentieth century, behaviourism
dominated psychology. Behaviourists viewed the mind as something impossible to know. As
Field (2005) claims “behaviour was entirely the product of external factors”. p. 17. What is
more, behaviourist psychologists tried to detail for language acquisition. Skinner (1957)
contributed to that by tracing an analogy between the process of acquiring a first language and a
behaviourist experiment, which consisted on training a pigeon by giving him some prizes.
Skinner argued that languages are acquired through a process of stimulus-response-reward.
Moreover, he added that the process of acquiring language can be seen as a question of
imitating parents, by “creating associations between words and real-word objects” p. 17. It is
the stimulus that acts as an object. Furthermore, it is constant repetition that makes that
association become a habit. Finally, not only will the child be rewarded by getting what he
wanted, but also he would get the approval of his fathers. (Field, 2005). All in all, this theory
claims that we are born a tabula rasa, and that it is the environment that plays an important role
on the process of acquiring language. In other words, it nurture that is responsible for learning,
not nature. Attached to this theory, one can find the theory of Connectionism, which claims that
language is a system of patterns, which has been acquired by learning mechanisms. The infant
will develop some patterns in his head, and hence these patterns will cause the emergence of
grammatical language.
Secondly, Constructivist theory claims that language is constructed as part of cognitive
learning systems that the infant builds. Piaget, who ignored behaviourism, contributed to this
theory by claiming that children pass some stages in the cognitive development, stages that will
increase in complexity. First, in the sensorimotor stage; the child interacts with the environment,
next in the pre-operational stage; the infant represents the world symbolically, next the concrete
in the operational stage; the infant learns the rules, and finally, in the formal operational stage;
the adolescent will be able to understand the situation and thus think about the future.
Furthermore, Piaget’s developed three different components: assimilation (how the information
is introduced), accommodation (the alteration of the system of knowledge on the infant’s mind)
and equilibration (the mental restructuring). He created the stage theory, which claims that
children conception of the world differs from the adult’s conception, as children start with no
conception of an external world. The infant will go into different stages that will end in adult
understanding. Furthermore “the Piagetian paradigm involved understanding the general nature
of these stage-transitions, exploring how the stage theory operates in specific domains, and
understanding the new cognitive and behavioural resources that make these transitions possible”
(Samet and Zaitchik, 2014, paragraph 28).
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Next, Social Interactionism is the theory that claims that communicative interactions are
necessary in language acquisition. This theory was based on the work of Jerome Bruner about
social learning, and claims that language is acquired as the result of interactions that help the
infant develop language. Furthermore, what this theory stresses is the functional aspect of
language. What is more, it discusses that language learning happens due to the process of
socialization; hence the child is learning to be part of the community. Bruner argues that it is
interactions that provide the infant with language acquisition support structures. What is more,
Bruner (1983) pointed that the process of language acquisition is easier thanks to social
interaction; this is because of the assistance that more efficient partners in interaction do offer.
(Garton, 1992)
Finally, opposed to Skinner’s, Piaget’s and Bruner’s ideas, Noam Chomsky (1959)
proposed another theory that would rebut the empiricist view of Skinner, who claimed that
children learn the language from the environment. Chomsky’s view of acquiring language is
called Nativism. He added that a child can not only learn his first language by listening to
adults. What is more, Chomsky pointed that in around five years a child acquires about 5,000
words, and suggested that language is independent from general thinking skills. Chomsky
(1965) described the adult speech (from where the child is supposed to acquire language) as
degenerate. On his view, the child is exposed to a range of speakers, with different voices and
accents encountering performance examples. Hence, the child acquires competence, which
allow him to produce grammatical sentences. Chomsky addresses that “possessing a language
enables us to produce an infinite number of sentences” p. 20. He added that a child is not able to
acquire language, which is a really complex system, in such a short time and claimed that
humans have an innate capacity of acquiring language. In his first studies, he considered a
language acquisition device, which caused the process of language acquisition. Nevertheless, in
some recent studies he claimed that the child is born with a universal grammar, thus helping
him to identify different features that languages share. (Field, 2005).  

Conclusion
All in all, this essay has dwell into the main theories of language acquisition, on the one
hand theories such as Behaviorism, Connectionism, Constructivism, Social Interactionism,
assume that some aspects in the process of language acquisition are innate (nurture). Whilst on
the other hand, theories such as Nativism assume that language is innate (nature). This follows
on the debate between nature and nurture. First Behaviourism claims that we are born a tabula
rasa, and that it is the environment that plays an important role on the process. Secondly,
Constructivist theory claims that language is constructed as part of the cognitive learning.
Furthermore, Social Interactionism claims that language is acquired as the result of interactions.
Finally, opposed to those theories Nativism deals with the innateness of language acquisition,
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claiming that language acquisition is an innate process, and that we are born with the child is
born with a universal grammar.

Bibliography

Bruner, J. and Watson, R. (1983). Child's talk. New York: W.W. Norton.

Field, J. (2005) Language and the Mind. London: Routledge.

Goodluck, H. (1991). Language Acquisition: A Linguistic Introduction.

Garton, A. (1992). Social interaction and the development of language and cognition. Hove:
Lawrence Erlbaum.

Samet, J., Zaitchik, D. (2014). Innateness and Contemporary Theories of Cognition. Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University

Skinner, B. (1957). Verbal behaviour. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.