First Language Acquisition

null First Language Acquisition First Language Acquisition Li Jinlian 29,3, 2012Theories of First Language AcquisitionTheories of First Language AcquisitionBehavioristic Approach (行为主义理论) The Nativist Approach (先天理论) Functional Approach (功能理论) Behavioristic Approach Behavioristic Approach Behavioristic approach: explains how an external event (a stimulus) caused a change in the behavior of an individual (a response) without using concepts like “mind” or “ideas”, or any kind of mental behavior. (Stimulus—Response—Reinforcement) (Environmentalism 环境决定论, 1960s) Brief History of BehaviorismBrief History of BehaviorismEarly 20th centrury: Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov American psychologist Edward Thorndike American behaviourist John Watson Mid 20th centrury: American psychologist B. F. Skinner Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov Classical behaviourist Basic principle: some srimulas may elicit a desired response after many repetitions. Learning process consisted of the formation of associations between stimuli and relexive response. 1849-1936American psychologist Edward ThorndikeAmerican psychologist Edward ThorndikeNaturalistic situation Trail and error: this behavior was elicited by placing an animal in some kind of problem situation in which it could be motivated to solve the problem. 1874-1949American behaviourist John WatsonAmerican behaviourist John WatsonFather of behaviourism Behaviourism: which stressed environmental modifiability of behaviour as againest determination by the constitutional structure.1878-1958American psychologist B. F. SkinnerAmerican psychologist B. F. SkinnerBehaviour of Organism (1938) Verbal Behaviour (1957) Neo-behaviourist Skinner’s boxes Operant Conditioning 1904-1990B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behabior (1957)B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behabior (1957)Like other forms of human behavior, language is learnt by a process of habit-formation, in which the main components are: The child imitates the sounds and patterns which he hears around him. People recognize the child’s attempts as being similar to the adult models and reinforce (reward) the sounds, by approval or some other desirable reaction. In order to obtain more of rewards, the child repeats the sounds and patterns so that these become habits. In this way, the child’s verbal behavior is conditioned (or ‘shaped’) until the habits coincide with (are in agreement with…) the adult models.Inadequacies of the behaviorist approachInadequacies of the behaviorist approach1. Language is not simply ‘verbal behavior’. There is a complex system of rules underlying the actual behavior. These enable speakers to create and understand an infinite number of sentences, most of which they have never encountered before. The knowledge of these rules is our ‘linguistic competence’, which is different from the ‘performance’ that we can actually observe.Inadequacies of the behaviorist approachInadequacies of the behaviorist approach2. What children learn is an abstract knowledge of rules (or ‘competence’). However, they are only exposed to people’s speech (‘performance’). This process of extracting abstract knowledge from concrete examples cannot be explained by habit-formation.Inadequacies of the behaviorist approachInadequacies of the behaviorist approachJohn is easy to please. (It is a question other people pleasing John.) John is eager to please. (It is John himself who wants to do the pleasing.) 3. They are identical in the surface structure, but such information about deep relationships could not be acquired simply by observing and imitating verbal behavior. Inadequacies of the behaviorist approachInadequacies of the behaviorist approach4. By the age of between three and a half and five, normally-endowed children have internalized all the basic structures of their language. This cannot be explained by habit-formation alone. 5. The child’s language is not simply being shaped by external forces: it is being creatively constructed by the child as he interacts with those around them.Nativist ApproachNativist ApproachNativist approach (Innatist hypothesis 语法天生说): human knowledge develops from structures, processes, and “ideas” which are in the mind at birth (i.e. are innate), rather than from the environment, and that these are responsible for the structure of language and how it is learned. This hypothesis has been used to explain how children are able to learn language. Noam Chomsky David McNeil Eric LennebergNativist ApproachNativist ApproachLAD: Language Acquisition Device 语言习得机制 Children are born with an innate capacity for acquiring language. Chomsk assumed that LAD probably consists of three elements: liguistics universal hypothsis-making device evaluation process Language Acquisition DeviceLanguage Acquisition DeviceThe so-called LAD has a number of linguistic universals, or universal grammar (UG) in store. It also has a hypothesis-making device, which is an unconscious process and enables the child to make hypotheses about the structure of language in general, and about the structure of language learning in particular. The hypotheses that the child subconsciously sets up are tested in its use of language, and continuously matched with the new linguistic input that the child obtains by listening to what is said in his immediate environment. This causes the child’s hypotheses about the structure of language to be changed and adapted regularly, through the evaluation procedure, and through a process of systematic changes towards the adult rule system.Chomsky’s Universal GrammarChomsky’s Universal GrammarAccording to Cook (1997), UG is the black box responsible for language acquisition. It is the mechanism in the mind which allows children to construct a grammar out of the raw materials supplied by their parents. UG research is attempting to discover what it is that all children, regardless of their enviromental stimuli (the language they hear around them) bring to the language acquisition process.Contributions of Nativistic Theories of L1 AcquisitionContributions of Nativistic Theories of L1 AcquisitionFirst, they accounted for the aspects of meaning, the abstractness of language, and the creativity in the child’s use of language. Secondly, they freed L1 acquisition study from the restrictions of the so-called “scientific method” of behaviorism and begun to explore the unseen, unobservable, underlying, invisible, abstract linguistic structures being developed in the child in the L1 acquisition process. Thirdly, it has begun to describe the child’s language as a legitimate, rule-governed, consistent system. Functional approachFunctional approachThe study of language now centers on the relationship of cognitive development and the construction of meaning in the environment; Language is seen as one manifestation of the cognitive and affective ability to deal with the world, with others, and with the self; Language must be understood from two stand points: the abstract, formal, explicit rules proposed under the generative grammar [form of language], the functional level of meaning constructed from social interaction.Representatives of functional approachRepresentatives of functional approachLois Bloom Jean Piaget Dan I. SlobinLois BloomLois Bloom Children learn underlying structures not superficial word order. Mommy sock 1) Mommy is putting the sock on. (agent-action) 2) Mommy sees the sock. (agent-object) 3) Mommy’s sock (possessor-possessed)1933-2010Jean PiagetJean PiagetCognitive psychologist Language ability never develops earlier than cognitive ability. Functional invarients Cognitive structure1896-1980Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive DevelopmentPiaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development What children learn about language is determined by what they already know about the world. Cognitive development is at the center of the human organism --language is dependent upon and springs from cognitive development; Cognitive or mental structure: scheme. Meaning is construed based on previous background knowledge structures.Dan I. SlobinDan I. SlobinProfessor Emeritus of psychology and linguistics University of California, Berkeley. Language acquicition theory 1939-Stages of L1 acquisitionStages of L1 acquisition1. Caretaker speech (motherese, mother talk, baby talk)保姆式语言 Features: a. shorter utterances than speech to other adults; b. grammatically simple utterances; c. few abstract or difficult words, with a lot of repetition; d. clearer pronunciation, sometimes with exaggerated intonation patterns.Stages of L1 acquisitionStages of L1 acquisition2. Pre-linguistic stage (cooing, babbling) 语前阶段: 3-10 months, [k], [g], [i], [u] 3. The one-word or holophrastic stage 表句词： 12-18 months，is characterized by speech in which single terms are uttered for everyday objects, ex.: milk, cat, cup… Stages of L1 acquisitionStages of L1 acquisition4. The two-word stage: 18 or 20 months – 2 years, ex. baby chair has different meanings: a. This is baby’s chair. (an expression of possession) b. Put baby in the chair (as a request). c. Baby is in the chair (as a statement). 5. The multiword stage (or telegraphic speech电文语言)：2-3years, characterized by strings of lexical morphemes in phrases such as Andrew want ball, cat drink milk, and this shoe all wet. The child has clearly developed some sentence-building capacity by this stage and can order the forms correctly.null