Theories On Language Acquisition

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Theories On Language Acquisition

What is language?

Most people think that language is the system of verbal and written system. That contains many sounds and symbols, making it come together.

"... how we classify something like American Sign Language? Animals manage to communicate — do they have language? How did language evolve? How do we learn enough language ourselves to begin to answer this question?"

Even though we have ideas of what language means, we still have many questions towards how it got involved and what it really means?

Language is the method of communication for humans but there are different way to communicate without the use of language.

"Language in its most complex form is unique to humans, although some animals have been found to have basic communication patterns."

Why is it so surprising that we can learn language?

When we learn a new language we start to notice that there are rules for grammar, which includes endless sounds, as well the need to remembering the sounds.

Regardless how fast children learn a language, they aren't able to know every possible sentence. They learn from their surrounding and what they hear. It is incredible on how a person is able to take all that information as well understanding it.

"There are new rules of grammar which come with many exceptions, new sounds that are hard to make, endless lists of vocabulary to commit to memory and so on. And yet, you managed to learn the basics of your very first language around the time you were two years old; no textbooks in sight."

What do we know?

It is most know that at the age of 10-18 month of age kids start to graduate phrase. They start to understand the rules of the language.

We understand that when learning a new language it become hard with age, as from children they are able to understand it better than adults.

"When children are first learning to talk, the verbs they use are usually the most common such as go, eat, talk, give, run, etc. These are often irregular in the past tense. Although at first they use the past tense properly (“I ran”, “he went”, etc), kids typically regress for a while."

What are the major theories about language acquisiton?

The Interactionist Approach (sociocultural theory)

"According to this theory children learn language out of a desire to communicate with thee world around them. Language emerges from, and in dependent upon, social interaction.

Which means that the environments that you are growing up is having an affect on how well you learn or how well you learn to speak.

The Nativist Theory

" The nativist theory also suggests that there is a universal grammar that is shared across differing language, because this grammar, is part of our genetic make-up."

This theory is saying that we are all born with a genes that is allowing us to learn a language with no problems.

The learning Theory

" While this is logical, it fails to explain how new words or phrase come about, since children are only parroting the things have heard from others."

The theory comes naturally due humans being able to learn new thing. Such as counting, repetitions and reinforcement.

How do scientist today study language learning?

Many scientist have been studying linguistics, to understand the effect on the system.

"An fMRI can track where and when our brains use energy. If a certain part of your brain lights up while you’re learning a language, that part of your brain is using energy, and in this context might be related to language-acquisition. Of course we learn over time and not all at once, so there is a limit to what we can learn via imaging which represents the brain in a single moment."