SOME

THEORIES

Wednesday
16-09-2020

The English Department of UST

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Definition & Some Basic Consepts

1. Definition:
PsyLx the study of the mental processes in understanding
and producing language, e.g. how human learn
language, first and or second, or foreign language. (FLA
& SLA)
2. Basic Concepts:
a. Applied linguistics  uses facts and findings in Linguistics
(phonological, morphological, syntactical and dicourse
issues) into the learning and teaching processes of
foreign language
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Case 1  ‘mik utih’

Reconstructed forms
Aku minta mi-mik air putih.
Mau minum air putih?
Phonology  [mik] VS [mimik)  [m,i] [Ø]
[utih] Vs [putih]  [p]  [Ø]
Morphology  {mik} VS {mimik}
{utih}  {putih}
Syntax --- mik utih.
(S?) P O
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Findings:
Phonological Level : d child comes across problems in
using initial sounds and the vowel the vowel follow
(the bilabial nasal sound) at the initial position
Morphological Level : d child doesn’t have any
problems in producing morphological constructions.

Syntactical level the child is (still) incapable of

making a complete positive sentence
construction in that s/he drops off or misses the
subject.
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2. Basic Concepts
• B. Interdisciplinary study .

linguistics psychology

• There is an overlapping area of psychology: the study

of development of human mind and linguistics: the
study of language.
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First Language Acquisition (FLA)

and its Mechanism (1)
Empiricist, behaviorism, environmentalist 
knowledge that a child gets comes from
experience.
a. focus on observable phenomenon  what
learner does in the process.
b. external factors (environment) play the
role in determining the outcome.
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Basic concepts
a. language = learned behavior /verbal behavior
 different from animal language
b. learning = change of behavior, from not
having to having a certain behavior
c. learning mechanism = habit formation in the
form of S R R.
child is conditioned by stimuli (S) in order to
produce some kind of response (R). To make
the association or bond strong, learning needs
practice (over-learning), and reinforcement
(R)’.
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d. language learning = similar to all learning starts

from a receptive process or understanding leading to
production. It starts from Listening, and Speaking
activities, then proceeds to Reading and (Writing).
e. Environment plays a very important role as a
source of stimuli and reinforcement. The
environment shapes, forms, or determines the
condition and development of language.
f. Reinforcement functions as strengthening, providing
condition for the child to produce only correct
forms.
It could be positive (reward = praise) or negative
(punishment= reprimand, correction)
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Tabularasa  child is born as a white sheet.

Environment shapes through S-R-R
Mechanism of habit formation
S q  R o  No R
S q  R p  No R
S q  R q  Give R (selective R) R
Ex.
T ‘say [tζi:s]’  Ch [i: ]  T : No R
T ‘say again [tζi:s]’  Ch [ss] T : No R
T ‘say [tζi:s]’  Ch. [i:s] T = Very good (R)
Unexpected R should not get Reinforcement to avoid
making mistakes.
Correct R should get Reinforcement to establish habit, that
is grammatical language forms.
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FLA & its Mechanism ( 2 )

Nativism, Mentalism, Rationalism
 the ability of human to learn language
builds upon an innate faculty of language
which includes innate ideas.
The process of language learning focuses on
the mental or psycholinguistic process.
Basic concepts
• a. language  rule governed or rule based
and generative in nature.
Finding/recognizing the topic
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language learning

1. Human  an innate mental capacity for

language. This is a special language mechanism in
which individuals are hard-wired with syntactic
principles, or grammatical rules. As the nature of
language is universal, anybody can learn any
language they are exposed to with comparable
ease.
2. Language development follows a chronological
program. Normal children will follow development
of the same route of development.
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Learning mechanism
Innate mechanism  child is born with language
acquisition device (LAD) which is preprogrammed
with principles of language.
LAD enables children to generate and understand
utterances.
• Children  input  LAD[Ho.testing]
Lang.Production
triggers/stimulates
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Conclusion  Nativism
1. The innate capacity plays an important role.
2. The environment serves as medium of exposure
needed to activate the mechanism.
3. Actualization of innate knowledge is conducted
through series of hypothesis testing.
Ho - x fails  ineffective  erroneous forms
Ho - y… fails  ineffective  erroneous forms
Ho - z… succeeds (correct/acceptable form)
The success of producing acceptable form will
motivate him/her to learn further and use the forms
more extensively (generative in nature).
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FLA and its Mechanism (Final)

Interactionist
•  both cognition and environment play important roles
in ch’s language development.
• 2. Basic concepts:
• a. language development is dependent on cognitive
development supported by environment/context.
• Context is defined as the quality of language input that
the child is exposed to or experience  to cover the
scaffolding, care-giver, and motherese talks. These
inputs contribute to the provision of rich input for
language development.
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Vigotsky’s
Zone of Proximal Development

• 1. Child’s cognitive capacity

• 3. Possible condition with the help of others

• 2. Distance of possible
• development with the help of 2 3 others
others (ZPD) 1
Bruner  needs appropriate
social interactional frameworks
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ZPD ..cont…
• language development is dependent on
the child’s cognitive capacity and attempts
and quality of input, or environment the
child experience to live. Thus, to enhance
the acquisition process, attention is put on
identifying characteristics of the input and
how it can be used to help language
development go more effectively.
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Conclusion  interactionism

• 1. Both innate capacity and quality of the environment

 the quality of language input, play important roles in
the process of language development.
• 2. Actualization of innate knowledge is by engaging the
child in interaction with the environment to develop their
communicative competence.
• 3. The role of environment is to enhance the
development beyond the level that the child can afford
to do by his/her own efforts. (ZPD)
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1st Assignment  FLA

Do a study of your own on the process of child
language acquisition. The study should
include at least 4 children of different age and
or backgrounds.
See handout # 5 for more information.