Which theory would you support – language acquisition or language learning.?

Provide enough
evidence from your experience.

Language acquisition

FOR
-human brains contain a Language Acquisition Device that includes a universal grammar that
underlies all human language
-result of the universal elements that structure all languages
-Universal Grammar: an idea of innate, biological grammatical categories, such as a noun
category and a verb category that facilitate the entire language development in children and
overall language processing in adults
-According to this approach, each of the many languages spoken around the world (there are
between 6,000 and 8,000) is an individual example of the same underlying set of procedures
that are hardwired into human brains
- children are born with a knowledge of general rules of syntax that determine how sentences
are constructed
-Children who are not exposed to language early in their lives will likely never learn one
E.g. Case studies, including Victor the “Wild Child,” who was abandoned as a baby in
France and not discovered until he was 12, and Genie, a child whose parents kept her locked in
a closet from 18 months until 13 years of age
Both of these children made some progress in socialisation after they were rescued, but neither
of them ever developed language
-also why it is important to determine quickly if a child is deaf, and to communicate in sign
language immediately

AGAINST
-One critique that particularly concerns us is that it may have little to do with learning a second
language
-Evans and Levinson (2009) surveyed the world’s languages and found that none of the
presumed underlying features of the language acquisition device were entirely universal
E.g. they found languages that did not have noun or verb phrases, that did not have
tenses, some that did not have nouns or verbs at all

Language learning

FOR
-Skinner argued that children learn language based on behaviorist reinforcement principles by
associating words with meanings
-all behavior is no more than a response to external stimuli
-no innate programming within a human being to learn a language at birth
-language learning grew out of a process of reinforcement and punishment
-most straightforward explanation of language development is that it occurs through the
principles of learning, including association and reinforcement
-supporting this idea is the gradual improvement of language skills with time
-During his experiments, he created the ‘Skinner Box’ which was a simple cage like box which
the animal was placed within. This box allowed Skinner to prove the success of positive
reinforcement as the animal learned that they would receive food with the press of a button
within the box. Later, this method was proven to work on humans, especially children.

AGAINST
-Chomsky argued that children will never acquire the tools needed for processing an infinite
number of sentences if the language acquisition mechanism was dependent on language input
alone
-children learn words too fast for them to be learned through reinforcement
-language is more generative than it is imitative
E.g. When a child says that she “swimmed” in the pool, for instance, she is showing
generativity. No adult speaker of English would ever say “swimmed,” yet it is easily generated
from the normal system of producing language.
-children may learn languages better than they ever hear them
-Deaf children whose parents do not speak ASL very well nevertheless are able to learn it
perfectly on their own.
E.g. Nicaraguan Sign Language: original system was not a real language, it is becoming
closer and closer every year, showing the development of a new language in modern times
-Theory of Imitation does not work because children produce sentences never heard before
-Pavlov’s Dog experiment: misinterpreting reactions through reinforcement as learning language

Second Language Acquisition

-Stephen Krashen’s theory
-input hypothesis: i+1, where i is the current level of learning and 1 is the next immediate level,
language acquisition occurs with comprehensible input (i.e. hearing or reading things that are
just slightly above our current language level)
-language transfer: link between related languages, easier in learning
-primary factor is the input that learners receive and the time they spend voluntarily learning
-speaking is the result of comprehensible output, there is no immediate manifestation while
learning a language eg speaking
-while learning a language what matters most is how much you can understand and how
effectively you can stimulate responses from other people, i.e. how involved one is in a
conversation
-affective filter hypothesis: three factors affect acquisition: motivation, self-esteem, anxiety
Language acquisition depends on the affect associated with the environment in which it is being
carried out. Unfavourable combinations of the the factors aforementioned factors produces a
mental block in front of the LAD (Language Acquisition Device) due to which it becomes harder
for a person to retain the information learned