child language theories

Skinner

behaviourist theory

children learn through trial and error and imitating more knowledgeable others

behaviour is either reinforced by positive or negative reinforcements

known as operant conditioning

Paul and Norbury

MKOs add information to children’s speech and writing through:

recasting = changing the form of the content

expansion = adding more content

Chomsky

children experiment with grammar and able to detect patterns and rules

becomes part of our ‘language acquisition device’ (LAD)

this could cause virtuous errors and generalisation such as overapplying a rule

e.g. adding the <s> morpheme for plurality (mouses for mice)

Bruner

social interactionist theory

language acquisition support system (LASS)

child-directed speech is important to help children:

• simplified terms

• paralanguage and prosody

• convergence

• shared knowledge

• interrogatives

• third-person address

• inclusive language

• scaffolding

Piaget

cognitive theory

children can understand language once they understand the concept

comprehension comes before application

3 stages:

• sensorimotor - 0-2 years, experience senses and movements, object permanence learnt, goal-directed behaviour

• preoperational - 2-7 years, egocentric view, collective monologues, sociodramatic play, simple classification

• concrete operations - age 7-11, greater logical reasoning, problem solving, egocentric disappears, wider classification

William O’Grady

caregiver language

common for caregivers to use simple and shorter syntax in child-directed speech, often leave incorrect grammatical sentences alone

Clark

spatial adjectives

children experiment with spatial terms due to them being relative and context dependent

Vygotsky

sociocultural theory

zone of proximal development (ZPD) - range of abilities a child can perform with help - not independently

scaffolding information

problem solving with collaborators

Michael Halliday

language acquisition begins before children can speak

language is a cultural code

different taxonomies - categories :

instrumental

• express needs, language used to fulfil child’s needs, e.g. obtaining food, drink and comfort

regulatory

• language influences the behaviour of others, persuading, commanding, requesting

interactional

• social relationships and phatic connections

personal

• feelings, opinions, individual identity

heuristic

• language used to gain knowledge, curiosity

imaginative

• stories, jokes, imaginary environment

representational

• facts and information

holographic - stage of development

12-18 months

one-word utterances

Katherine Nelson

found that child’s first 50 words:

• 60% nouns

• followed by verbs

• followed by modifiers

two-word stage

19-26 months

two word combinations

e.g. “mummy drink”, “kick ball”

beginning of syntactical development

pivot (function) and open (content) words

Roger Brown

meanings relations

defined the types of two-word utterances

• entity - objects - “dolly”, “cat”

• agents - persons - “mummy”

• actions - verbs - “kick”, “drink”

• attribute - modifiers - “red”, “big”

• affected - object or person impacted

• recurrence - requests - “more”

• negation - denial/refusal

• nomination - labels

• possession - ownership

• location - whereabouts

telographic

2-2.5 years

using two/three words

“I hungry”, “give me toy”

elliptical/minor sentences

content words often used, function words often omitted

post telographic

3+ years

begin to see more syntax awareness

longer and more complete sentences

grammatical functions like “a” “the” “do”

requesting more '

using modal auxiliary verbs

expectation of overgeneralisation

Chomsky’s poverty of the stimulus

children are not exposed to rich enough data within linguistic environments

Jenny Saffron

statistical learning

too much data is being used

contradicts Chomsky

Berko and Brown

study

child called a fish “fis”

adults asked “ is this your fis?”

responded “no, my fis”

child understands the differences between phonemes even though child couldn’t pronounce it

Bleille

children between 2-5 often substitutes fricatives and affricatives for plosives

because plosives are easier sounds to produce

Bellugi - negated language

three stages of negative formations:

stage 1

• child uses “no” or “not” at the start or end of a sentence - “no read”

stage 2

• child moves the determiners “no”/”not” inside the sentence - “ I no read book”

stage 3

• child attaches the negative to verbs securely - “ I do not want to read”

David Crystal

children use pragmatic devices to say no

such as “maybe” to portray a negative response

Bellugi - pronouns

three stages of pronouns:

stage 1

• child uses their own name - “Hannah play”

stage 2

• child recognises the I/me pronouns - “I play doll”

stage 3

• child uses pronouns in mostly standard forms

• nominative and accusative pronouns

Bowerman

children use verbal overgeneralisations or adjective experimentation most commonly occur when children already have a wide vocabulary

children will test:

change of location verbs

• put, take

change of state verbs

• make

change of possession verbs

• give

Rescorla

divided overextensions into categorical, analogical and mismatch statements

most are categorical (55%)

rarely analogical overextensions (19%)

Aitchison

lexical categorisation theory - connection between lexical and semantic development

stage 1

• labelling

• child identifies/names objects and people

stage 2

• packaging

• explores length of label, under and over extensions common

stage 3

• network building

• grasping connections, understanding antonyms and synonyms

Nutbrown

for written language

quality education is key to children’s learning and development

environment exposure effects development

e.g. children mention ideas, characters, themes and media into own writing

Joan Rothery

for written language

recounts - chronology of events, first person often

usually follow a pattern:

• orientation - setting the scene, context

• event - what happens

• reorientation - completion

Labov

for written language

narrative structure :

• abstract - beginning

• orientation - context

• action - ‘what happened’ element

• resolution - what finally happens

• coda - signals the end

• evaluation - comments, gestures that run through story

James Briton

for written language

three types of mode:

• expressive - resembles speech, first person, personal context

• poetic - creativity, similes, adjectives, rhyme, alliteration

• transactional - secondary school age, more complex

Barclay

for written language

7 stages of orthography/graphology

• stage 1 - scribbling, marks, no letters

• stage 2 - mock hand writing, letter-like shapes

• stage 3 - mock letters, letters formed but not words, irregular spacing

• stage 4 - conventional letters, sounds linked to letters, irregular spacing

• stage 5 - invented spelling, phonetic spelling dominates

• stage 6 - appropriate spelling, sentences, quite legible

• stage 7 - correct spelling, cursive font is common