Theories of language acquisition

• ADDITIONAL
LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT:
FROM THEORY TO
PRACTICE
Cognitive
Theory
 Cognitive
Theory

• The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget placed acquisition of language

within the context of a child's mental or cognitive development.
Thus, language is just one aspect of a child‟s overall intellectual
development.
• He argued that a child has to understand a concept before s/he can
acquire the particular language form which expresses that concept
• A good example of this is seriation. There will be a point in a child's
intellectual development when s/he can compare objects with
respect to size. This means that if you gave the child a number of
sticks, s/he could arrange them in order of size. Piaget suggested
that a child who had not yet reached this stage would not be able to
learn and use comparative adjectives like "bigger" or "smaller".
• Language is acquired through principles of
conditioning, including association, imitation,
and reinforcement
• According to this view, children learn words by
associating sounds with objects, actions, and
events
• PRINCIPLES: LISTEN, IMITATE, RECEIVE A
REWARD, REPEATE FOR RECALL
• Chomsky suggest that language is an innate faculty
• He claims that language acquisition is greatly
dependent upon a linguistics faculty, called Language
Acquisition Device (LAD), that is, an innate
mechanism or process that allows children to develop
language skills.
• Language is not an autonomous system for
communication. It is embedded in and supplemented
by gesture, gaze, stance, facial expression, voice
quality in the full array of options people can use for
communicating (Clark, 2009).
• Interactionists argue that language development
is both biological and social
• Language learning is influenced by the desire of
children to communicate with others
• They believe that children are born with a
powerful brain that matures slowly and
predisposes them to acquire new understanding
that they are motivated to share with others
 Suggested sites to visit
• https://sites.google.com/site/2ndlangacquisition/th
eories-models
• https://docs.google.com/a/unsil.ac.id/viewer?a=v&p
id=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnwybmRsYW5
nYWNxdWlzaXRpb258Z3g6MmMyNjQ1MTUzMWIw
MzdhZQ
• https://www.slideshare.net/sahughes/ch-1-language
-theory-and-language-development?next_slideshow
=2
• https://www.slideshare.net/AsifAliRaza/theory-of-in
nateness?next_slideshow=3