THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN RELATION TO
BEGINNING READING INSTRUCTION.
Theoretical studies
-The studies reviewed above appear atheoretical because the researchers made little effort to formulate and test hypotheses.
- No coherent explanation of language acquisition emerges from the studies reviewed by McCarthy.
-Children's language is derived from a pre-vocal stage, through several stages replete with errors and deficiencies.
-Through a process, the child's language becomes more and more similar to the language of the culture to which it belongs.
Behavioristic Theories
-Presents the first attempt to provide an explanation for the development of language.
Exposes the processes of language learning in children.
-Skinner was the exponent of:
A behavior, once reinforced, will continue especially after reinforcement or reward.
- In the early stages.
The children reproduced all the sounds of all the languages.
Parents reinforced what they had learned through approval.
The vocabulary of the mother tongue was strengthened through repetition.
-Jenkins and Palermo propose:
Language acquisition that recognizes some recent linguistic advances.
Cognitive Theories.
-Slobin regards language acquisition as an active process in which certain abilities of the child develop.
-One is the cognitive ability lo deal with the world.
-A second: is the mental ability to retain items in short term memory
-Cromer provides further evidence of the role of cognitive abilities in determining the language the child can use.
-Cromer: points out that the ability to express events out of chronological order develops.
Nativist Theories
-Lenneberg, proposes:
-McNeill claims that the child must acquire a generative-transformational grammar.
-According to McNeill:
An innate property of LAD is the ability to distinguish speech sounds from other sounds in the environment.