Language Acquisition

Noam Chomsky can be regarded as the most influential and well-known linguist on the twentieth century. He has made a number of claims about language; in particular he suggests that language is an innate discipline in that we are born with a set of rules about language in our heads which he refers to as the 'Universal Grammar'. The universal grammar is the basis upon which all human languages build. In Chomsky's early work, this takes the form of an innate structure called the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Psychologists have produced several accounts of infant language acquisition, which differ in their underlying theoretical perspectives.

Behavioral perspectives in Language acquisition identified a sequence in language development. Skinner argued that language was learned by the child through the process of operant conditioning, a process of stimulus-response where a result occurs as a consequence of actions and that the environment in which a child lives reinforces behavior. Skinner suggests that the prelinguistic stage of language in which a baby cries with hunger, pain and anger at the early stages and then progresses on to cooing and babbling is reinforced by the parents, in particular the mother, by rewards such as a smile or attention. Both Skinner and Bandura believed that this behaviorist perspective on language was based on observation and imitation by the child, although this has later been criticized by Brown and Hanlon as their studies of parent child interaction showed parents often reward of incorrect utterances and are also not able to reinforce all the utterances a child will use.

These very early stages of language acquisition are the same the world over. De Villiers and De Villiers also stated that during this prelinguistic stage of babbling, babies produce every known phoneme that occurs in any human language. This is a unit of sound which is narrowed down by the parent to produce random noises, which in turn produces early utterances and then moves on to the One Word Stage and Stage One Grammar. This stage of language usually occurs between the ages of twelve and thirty months. Initially this stage starts with one word utterances such as 'broom' for a car and 'woof' for a dog, words applied to their surrounding environment and then progresses on to simple two word sentences such as 'mummy gone' or 'want milk'.

The Biological or cognitive perspective was documented by Chomsky in 1957, in which he challenged Skinner's approach to language on several grounds. He argued that Skinner's theory implied that children learn entirely through trial and error, that they try out possible utterances which they adopt if approved and reject if they do not. He argued that children acquire language in such a short space of time, acquiring complex grammatical rules and extensive vocabulary that would not have been possible through a trial and error system. Chomsky proposed that the child has a language acquisition device (LAD) which is an inherent mechanism allowing the child to hear the spoken language around it to reveal the basic principles of the language. In 1983 J Bruner brought together the two previous perspectives on Language acquisition to form the Interactionist Perspective, which consisted of the two elements, cognitive and social interaction between the child and the environment. He argued that parents provide their children with a language acquisition support system (LASS) which is a collection of strategies that parents use to facilitate their children's acquisition of language.

One of these strategies is scaffolding, here a child is deliberately spoken to in a language slightly beyond that of their understanding therefore leading to a child acquiring language quicker that they might have on their own. The cognitive side of the perspective originates from the work of Piaget (1936) in which he suggests that only by a child's interaction with the environment, and an understanding of what they have heard can they develop and enhance their skills. The social side of the perspective is based on the learning being interactionally organized, concentrating on the joint attention studies, Schaffer and the theory of turn taking, Snow in that learning is primarily organized.

With the introduction of the Interactionist perspective, the views of Chomsky were greatly criticized. J Bruner holds that while there may be as Chomsky suggests a LAD, a LASS must also be in place. And that without the close interaction of a child and their parents there is not the opportunity to acquire language. Chomsky was also criticized for appearing to reduce language to its grammar, regarding the meaning as secondary. With disregarding meaning and the social situation in which language is normally produced, he disregards in particular the situation in which the child learns its first language. His main weakness was that he saw the child as essentially autonomous in the creation of language that he is programmed to learn and will learn so long as minimal social and economic conditions are realized. Bard and Sachs undertook a study of a child born to deaf parents.

This child was surrounded by language in the form of television and radio but received no spoken language or LASS from his parents. The child only succeeded in acquiring language once he was referred to a speak therapist. As soon as the child received the social interaction of language he developed very quickly. This disproved Chomsky's views on the biological perspective. Although there have been many critics of Chomsky, many of his views have appeared in later research into the interactionist perspective.

The focus of attention on features of languages common to all languages is one of the strengths of Chomsky's approach, the idea of universal grammar. The theory that a child does not simply copy the language that they hear around them, they deduce rules from it, which they can then use to create sentences that they have never heard before. Many studies of child directed speech, research undertaken by Catherine Snow, show that speech to young children is slow, clear, grammatical and repetitious, supporting the work of Chomsky that children are able to learn without the social interaction.