PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING

(BSEE24)

NATURE OF LANGUAGE AND LEARNING

Language is...
– a system of signs.
– a set of rules and principles.
-system of conventional spoken or written symbols.
– a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and
constructed out of a finite set of elements.
– a matrix for the expression of thoughts.
– a social medium of expression.
– an instrument of social interaction.
– a weapon of empowerment and a tool against oppression
- a psychological tool used to solve problems

● Language is a system of structures

● Language is a linguistic system made up of various subsystems:

Language Subsystem

Phonology Rules of speech sounds; how

phonemes are used

Morphology Rules of wors structure; how

morphemes are used

Syntax Rules of sentence structure

Lexicon Language vocabulary

Semantics and Rules relating to the literal meaning

Pragmatics of language/ Rules that occur within
the social situation

Example:
Speaker 1: What would you like to eat?
Speaker 2: An ice cream is good during this hot weather.

● Learning a language is to learn its…

-vocabulary and structural rules.
- Syntactic system (phrase & sentences)
- Morphological/Lexical system (morphemes & words)
-Phonological system (Phonemes )
STRUCTURAL VIEW
 ● Language is a linguistic system as well as a means for doing things.
● Learners learn a language in order to do things with it (use it)
● Learners learn a language through using it
● Instruction focused on the functions and notions of language
FUNCTIONAL VIEW

● Language is a communicative tool to maintain social relations.

● Language is the reflection of cultures
● Learners need to know the rules of a language and where, when and how it is
appropriate to use them.
● Instruction on cultures and focus on appropriateness of speech

Two things are needed for communication:

● Rules of language form (grammar & vocabulary)
● Rules of language use in a context
Is it appropriate to use this language item in this context?
Interactional view

VIEWS LANGUAGE LANGUAGE LEARNING

Structural Language is a linguistic to learn these structural

system made up of items:
structural rules and *vocabulary
Vocabulary. and grammar (sentence
patterns

Functional Language is a linguistic To know how to combine

system the vocabulary to express
as well as a means for doing notions that communicative
things (to be used in real categories communicative
life). ability (to be able to
communicate)

Interactional Language is anot only to know the

communicative grammar and vocabulary of
tool to maintain social the language, but also know
relations. the rules for using them in a
whole range
of communicative contexts
-to communicate
appropriately
(communicative strategies,
cultural awareness, etc.)

Behaviorist theory
● Behaviorist
- Person who advocates or practices behaviorism;
- A person who specializes in the study of behavior. (MWD)
What is Behaviorist Theory?
- Behaviorism focuses on the idea that all behaviors are learned through interaction with the
environment. This learning theory states that behaviors are learned from the environment,
and says that innate or inherited factors have very little influence on behavior.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner “B.F Skinner”

- B.F Skinner was one of the first to develop a behavioral model for language acquisition.
Skinner’s classic work, Verbal Behavior 91957). Skinner was well-known for his animal
behavior investigations, but he was also recognized for his contributions to education
through teaching machines and programmed learning (Skinner, 1968). Skinner’s theory of
verbal behavior evolved from his broad idea of learning through operant conditioning.
Skinner’s behavior theory was founded on two presumptions;
1. That human conduct is governed by “rules”.
2. Those environmental factors, such as the environment, play a role on how people behave.
Operant Conditioning
- BF Skinner, a behaviorist, was the first to describe operant conditioning Which is the
reason why it is more often referred to as Skinnerian conditioning. Skinner, as a behaviorist,
believed that it was unnecessary to examine internal thoughts and motivations in order to
explain behavior. Instead, he proposed that we focus solely on the external observable
causes of human behavior.
- also known as instrumental conditioning, is a type of learning that uses incentives and
sanctions to shape behavior. Through operant conditioning, a connection is established
between a behavior and a result (whether favorable or unfavorable).
- S - R - R theory or Stimulus, Response and Reinforcement
Reinforcement
- It strengthen voluntary response
2 types of Reinforcement
1. Positive Reinforcement - you will add something pleasant after a desired behavior is
performed
2. Negative Reinforcement - it is a process where a behavior strengthen after you take
away something unpleasant
Punishment
- It decrease behaviour
2 types of Punishment
1. Positive Punishment - You give something that the child don't like
2. Negative Punishment - You take away something that the child like.
Behaviorist view of Language Learning
- As learners become more articulate, they become more conscious of their parents,
associate their rarely uttered words with actions, and when their parents are fully aware of
them, communication between learners and their environment begins and vocalizations
begin. Stimuli, which create behavioral patterns, are rewarded or reinforced if the learner
responds positively or negatively. On the other hand, if the learner does not respond, the
behavior pattern is ignored.
- The process of language learning is subject to conditioning. The environment helps
learners associate the sounds they hear with situations. Context helps learners understand
complex speech in childhood. You cannot communicate in formal language. They tend to
imitate the sounds they hear from their parents, recognize the actions that accompany the
words, and subconsciously modify the situation with the sounds.
Classical Conditioning Theory
- by Ivan Pavlov
- This theory states that behavior is learned by connecting a neutral stimulus with a positive
one. He uses dogs for his experiment wherein before conditioning he uses bone/food as
unconditioned stimulus and the salivation of the dog as the unconditioned response. He then
uses a bell to get the attention of the dog, but there's no response. Now, during the
conditioning, he uses a bell and bone (UCS) and then quickly salivates (UCR). After
conditioning, everytime the dog hears a bell, he quickly salivates because he's now
cognizant that there's food.
Other Principle:
1. The behaviorist theory focuses on spoken language. The primary medium of language is
oral speech because there are many languages without written forms. As a matter of fact,
we learn to talk before learning to read and write.
2. The stimulus-response chain, S- Response, is a case of conditioning. Therefore, each
stimulus initiates a response, and each response initiates another stimulus, and this process
continues.
3. All learning involves the establishment of habits through reinforcement and reward.
Negative reinforcement serves as a punishment, whereas positive reinforcement serves as a
reward.

The Nativist Approach

The Nativist Approach
Nativist - is derived from the fundamental assertion that language acquisition is innately
determined.
Eric Lenneberg (1987) suggested that language is a "species-specific"behavior.
Noam Chomsky (1985) claimed that innate properties of language explained the child's
mastery of a native language in such a short time despite the highly abstract nature of the
rules of language. According to Chomsky this innate knowledge was embodied in
metaphorical "little black box in the brain, a language acquisition device (LAD).
David McNeill (1966) described the LAD as consisting of (4) four innate linguistic properties:
1. The ability to distinguish speech sounds from other sounds in the environment.
2. The ability to organize linguistic data into various classes that can later be refined.
3. Knowledge that only a certain kind of linguistic system is possible and that other kinds are
not.
4. The ability to engage in constant evaluation of the developing linguistic system so as to
construct the simplest possible system out of the available linguistic input.
McNeill and others in the Chomsky tradition composed equant arguments for the
appropriateness of the LAD proposition. In contrast to behavioral stimulus- response theory.
Which could not account for the creativity present in child language. The notion of
linguistically-oriented innate predisposition fit perfectly with generative theories of language;
children were presumed to use innate abilities to generate a potentially infinite number of
utterances. Aspects of meaning, abstractness and creativity were accounted for more
adequately. LAD was not a literally a cluster of brain cells that could be isolated and
neurologically located, but even so, it still motivates a lot of researchers to invest in this
topic. Researchers in the Nativist tradition continued this line of inquiry through a
genre of child language acquisition research that focuses on what has come to be
known as Universal Grammar.
Universal Grammar
Is a theory in linguistics that suggests that all languages share a common underlying
structure. It proposes that humans are born with an innate ability to acquire language. Noam
Chomsky, a renowned linguist, proposed the theory of Universal Grammar. He suggested
that it is a fundamental part of human language acquisition. "Basically, universal grammar
theory is the idea that all humans are born with an inability to understand the basic structure
of language. That innate knowledge helps us learn and use language effortlessly".
Pivot Grammar
A generative framework turned out to be ideal for describing such processes. The early
grammars of child language were referred to as pivot gram- mars. It was commonly
observed that the child's first two-word utterances seemed to manifest two separate word
classes, and not simply two words thrown together at random. Consider the following
utterances: "my cap"; "that horse"; "bye-bye Jeff"; "Mommy sock." Linguists noted that the
words on the left-hand side seemed to belong to a class that words on the right-hand side
generally did not belong to. That is, my could co-occur with cap, horse, Jeff, or sock, but not
with that or bye-bye. Mommy is, in this case, a word that belongs in both classes. The first
class of words was called "pivot," since they could pivot around a number of words in the
second, "open" class. Thus, the first rule of the generative grammar of the child was
described as follows: Sentence →→ pivot word + open word
Connectionism is closely related to the word 'connect,' which is just what happens
in this theory. The stimulus and its response are connected in a person's mind. This
connection between stimulus and response is called a stimulus-response bond, or
an S-R bond.
Emergentism - The complexity of language emerges from a relatively simple developmental
process being exposed to a massive and complex environment. The interactions that
constitute language are associations, billions of connections, which co-exist within a neural
system as organisms co-exist within an eco-system. And systematicities emerge as a result
of their interactions and mutual constraints.

Cognitive Theory
Cognitive theory is a psychological approach to understanding how the brain works. We
can use cognitive theory to help us understand how human beings learn languages, whether
this is a first language or a second language. Cognitive theory is grounded in the idea that
individuals must first understand a concept before they can use language to express it. It
argues that, in order to understand new concepts, children (or adults) must develop their
cognitive abilities and build their own mental image of the world.
Cognitive Learning Theory
The concept of language acquisition based on cognitive theory was initially introduced by
Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, during the 1930s. Piaget's perspective centered on the
idea that the process of learning language is intricately connected to the growth and
progression of the human brain.
In 1936, Piaget introduced his cognitive development theory and broke the developmental
process down into four stages:
● The Sensorimotor Stage - In Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development, the Sensorimotor
Stage is the first of four phases. This era of rapid Cognitive Development lasts from birth to
about 2 years old. Infants and toddlers acquire the majority of what they know during this
stage through sensory experiences and object manipulation.
1. Egocentric - At this stage, children can utilize language but may not understand its social
function. Children's language is formed by their own experiences, and they struggle to
comprehend the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of others.
2. Socialised - Children begin to use language as a tool to communicate with others.
SCHEMA - A schema encompasses both a category of knowledge and the process of
acquiring that information.
● The Preoperational Stage - The second stage of Piaget's Stages of Cognitive
Development, the Pre-Operational Stage,occurs between the ages of 2 and 6 years old.The
majority of a child's thought process during the Pre-Operational Stage is egocentric.
● The Concrete Operational Stage - The Concrete Operational Stage, which lasts from
ages 7 to 11, is characterized by a strong grasp of logic, reversibility, and conservation.
During this time, children also lose some of their egocentricity.
● The Formal Operational Stage - The formation of logical thought processes, in particular
the capacity to comprehend theories and abstract concepts and forecast the outcomes of
hypothetical issues, characterizes the Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive Development,
which normally starts about age 11 or 12.
Examples of Cognitive Learning in the Classroom
● Active Learning
● Scaffolding
● Cognitive Conflict
● Metacognition
● Assessment
Cognitive theory of second language acquisition Information process theory
Information process theory is a cognitive approach to SLA proposed by Barry McLaughlin in
1983. The theory recognizes that learning a new language is an active process that involves
building upon schemas and utilizing specific learning strategies to enhance comprehension
and retain information

Functional Approaches
Function - the action for which a person or thing is specially fitted or used or for which a
thing exists :purpose
Functional Approaches- focuses on studying the relationship between the language form
and social meaning.
Cognition and Language development
Lois Bloom cogently illustrated the first issue in her criticism of pivot grammar when she
pointed out that the relationships in which words occur in telegraphic utterances are only
superficially similar.
Social Interaction and Language Development
In recent years, it has become quite clear that language development is intertwined,
not just with cognition and memory, but also with social and functional acquisition.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
1.Competence and Performance
2. Comprehension and Production - (listening, reading) must not be equated with
competence, nor should production (speaking, writing) be thought of only as performance.
Human beings have the competence (the internal unobservable mental and physical
“wiring”) both to understand and to produce language.
3. Nature or Nurture -
Nature - refers to all of the genes and hereditary factors that influence who we are from our
physical appearance to our personality characteristics
Nurture -refers to all the environmental variables that impact who we are, including our early
childhood experiences, how we were raised, our social relationships, and our surrounding
culture.
4.Universals - Closely related to the innateness controversy is the claim that language is
universally acquired in the same manner, and moreover, that the deep structure of language
may be common to all languages.
5.Systematicity and Variability - One of the assumptions of a good deal of current
research on child language is the systematicity of the process of acquisition. From pivot
grammar to three- and four-word utterances, and to full sentences of almost indeterminate
length, children exhibit a remarkable ability to infer the phonological, structural, lexical, and
semantic systems of language.
6.Language and Thought - For years researchers have probed the relationship between
language and cognition. The behavioral view that cognition is too mentalistic (unobservable)
to be studied by the scientific method. The issue at stake in child language acquisition is to
determine how thought affects language, how language affects thought, and how
researchers can best account for the interaction of the two.
7. Imitation - We always think of children as good imitators. We then—sometimes
mistakenly— conclude that imitation is one of the most important strategies a child uses in
the acquisition of language. On the one hand, research has shown that echoing is a
particularly salient strategy in early language learning and an important aspect of early
phonological acquisition. Moreover, imitation is consonant with behavioral principles of
language acquisition—principles relevant, at least, to the earliest stages.
8.Practice and Frequency- A subfield of applied linguistics that is occupying the attention of
an increasing number of child language researchers, especially in an era of social
constructivist research, is the area of conversational or discourse analysis.
9.Input - Some linguists have claimed that a child's input is often semi-grammatical and full
of performance variables, and that children are exposed to "a haphazard sample" of
language.
10.Discourse - A subfield of applied linguistics that is occupying the attention of an
increasing number of child language researchers, especially in an era of social constructivist
research, is the area of conversational or discourse analysis. While parental input is a
significant part of the child’s development of conversational rules, it is only one aspect, as
the child also interacts with peers and, of course with other adults
11. Acquisition- Inspired Methods - There are two revolutionaries in language pedagogy,
François Gouin and Maximilian Berlitz. Their perceptive observations about language
teaching helped set the stage for the development of language teaching methodologies for
the century following: François Gouin, created the Series Method - a method that taught
learners directly (without translation) and conceptually (without grammatical rules and
explanations), a “series” of connected sentences that are easy to perceive. Maximilian
Berlitz, established the credibility of such approaches in what became known as the Direct
Method.

Stages in Child Language Acquisition

First language acquisition refers to how a child develops its ability to speak and use the
language of its environment: its native language or languages.
Stage 1: Prelinguistic Stage
The prelinguistic stage ranges from birth to approximately 6 months. Noises in this stage
include crying, whimpering, and cooing. These sounds are not considered language
because they are involuntary responses to stimuli. Since these noises do not fit within the
definition of language, this stage occurs before language is produced by the child. It is,
therefore, the prelinguistic stage.
Stage 2: The Babbling Stage
The babbling stage begins at approximately 6 months of age and continues until
the child is about one year old. One key development leading to babbling occurs during the
prelinguistic stage; around 4 months of age, larynx starts to drop, creating pharyngeal cavity.
2 Types of Babbling May Occur:
1. Repetitive babbling - same syllable in each successive cycle. On this type, children only
repeat the same syllables. From the word itself, "repetitive".
2. Variegated babbling - variation in syllables in successive cycles. On this type, on the
other hand, children utter different syllables.
Stage 3: The First Words Stage
During this stage, children have developed enough language skills to say single words. The
words are usually simple and refer to everyday objects or help children identify their basic
needs.
Stage 4: The Two Word Stage
The Two Word stage begins at around 18-24 months (11⁄2 or 2 years) up to 21⁄2 years old.
During this stage children continue to increase the repertoire of sounds and vocabulary they
can produce according to the order of development that was begun in earlier stages.
Stage 5: The Telegraphic Stage
Telegraphic speech around 2 1⁄2 years
- It is also known as "Baby talking"
- Is the short, non-grammatical sentences children make when they first learn to talk.
- In this stage, children begin stringing more than two words together, perhaps three or four
or five at a time. However, the style of speaking children use in this stage resembles the way
of writing that used to be used in telegrams.
What is the role of telegraphic speech in development?
- Telegraphic speech is a stage of language development that comes after a child uses
single words but before they can construct complex sentences.
- It allows them to express more than one idea together.
Stage 6: Beyond The Telegraphic Stage
Beyond Telegraphic begins around the age of three and progresses to fully developed
linguistic skills.