What was Noam Chomsky’s theory?
Nativism; believed that learning takes place through an innate brain mechanism (LAD) lang. acquisition device
What was Jean Berko and Roger Brown’s experiment?
Phonological errors, child substituting ‘fis’ for fish, but when an adult said “fis” they said no. When the adult asked about the ‘fish’ they responded still with ‘fis’.
Child unable to link adult use of ‘fis’ with the object
What was BF Skinner’s theory?
Behaviourism; children imitate and copy adults, receiving pos or neg reinforcement which leads to conditioning of language
- Routine and ritual teaching politeness
What did Eve Clarke’s study of first words show about extensions?
- Children overextend physical qualities of objects
- Taste, sound, movement, shape, size and texture
What did Piaget say?
- Children are active learners who use their environment and social interactions to shape language
- Cognitive development; child cannot be taught before they’re ready
What are Piaget’s 4 stages of development?
Sensorimotor; up to 2, experiences world through senses
Pre-operational; 2-7, language and motor skills develop, language is egocentric (focused on child)
Concrete operational; 7-11, child thinks logically about concrete events
Formal operational; 11+, abstract reasoning skills developed
What are Bellugi’s negation stages?
- No or not at beginning or end of sentences
- No or not inside of sentence
- Attaches negative to auxiliaries such as can’t and can use copula verb ‘be’ securely eg. I AM not
What are Bellugi’s pronoun stages?
- Uses own name
- Recognises I and me but used in different places in sentence
- Child uses them according to whether they are in the subjects or object position in a sentence
What is CDS? Who?
Child directed speech or ‘parentese’; speech used by adults when talking to children to engage and interest a child
Jerome Brunner
Examples of CDS
- Repetition
- Higher pitch
- Child’s name instead of pronouns
- Present tense
- Concrete nouns
- One word utterances
- Recasts
- Closed questions
- Exaggerated pauses for turn taking cues
What is the ‘wug’ test?
By Jean Berko, child asked to say what two ‘wugs’ were and they successfully added the plural ‘s” even though they wouldn’t have heard it before
What are Halliday’s functions?
Instrumental Regulatory Interactional Personal Representational Imaginative Heuristic
Instrumental Halliday’s
Fulfilling a need
Regulaltory Halliday’s
Attempting to influence other’s actions
Interactional Halliday’s
To maintain relationships
Personal Halliday’s
To share opinions, preferences and dislikes
Representational Halliday’s
Conveying information
Imaginative Halliday’s
To create fictional or fantasy worlds
Heuristic Halliday’s
Used to discover more about the world
What are John Dore’s language functions?
Labelling Repeating Answering Requesting action Calling Greeting Protesting Practising
Virtuous errors
Mistakes made when children are developing grammatically
Overgeneralisations
When children over-generalise linguistic rules, such as adding ED to the end of past tense verbs like runnED or adding plural S
What was Vygotsky’s theory?
Social interaction; two roles, to communicate and develop understanding, learning through play
