From the moment a child arrives to this world is exposed to an endless of signals and stimulations that the brain begins to assimilate. Lights, colors and sounds which will be a part of the new born life until his death. One of the first stimuli received by the baby is the voice from the parents. These voices are translated into sounds by the phonological system, some months later into meanings then complete words and eventually, some years later, into sentences. These four steps could summarize the acquisition of the language which even not being taught it is one of the longest and most laborious processes for the child. In Sapir’s words “Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious …show more content…
This process has been the subject of study of linguists, philosophers and psychologists throughout the history trying to understand and explain how a child makes the use of a language so spontaneously and how they learn it so accurately without any overt instruction.
The question is how can children acquire a language and be able to use it in a so astonishing way?
For the purposes of this essay I will focus on the process of language acquisition and the importance and influence of the environment as well as how Nature and nurture interact to support its complexity and elaboration throughout a human’s life.
Language acquisition starts at birth. The child is exposed to a spoken language and the Phonological system starts working. This system is responsible of recognizing the sound of a language. This spoken language entails phonemes, phonotactics, stress pattern and intonation system all of them included in the same received sound. Therefore, children have to differentiate all these elements every time they are exposed to the speech of those close to them and somehow children do that and they are not only able to differentiate the elements found in their native languages but also switch languages with this language’s characteristics if they are exposed to another language
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Even if genetically we are designed to acquire a language, the communication with people sharing the same language’s characteristics is essential. This interaction’s crucial role would explain the obvious nurture importance in the process of acquiring a language.
Many linguists have defended the importance of the environment and experiences in the acquisition of a language. Piaget argued that language is not the direct result of an innate characteristic but a capacity related to cognitive development. There are many social and linguistic factors which determine the development of this process. Moreover those factors interact and depend on each other.
Even some linguists like B.F Skinner (1957), convinced of the absence of innate skills in the acquisition of a language, developed the Behaviorism theory, attributing the acquisition of the language to environmental factors. Asserting that the acquisition is based on mechanisms like the imitation.
With these theories we could assume that the adults’ role has great relevance since a human being can only become human when is raised in a human’s
Piaget believed that children are born with the innate skills to acquire language; whereas, Vygotsky supported the belief that it was the community that teaches a child language (Lourenço,
If students begin their bilingual education as early as kindergarten, they are more likely to successfully acquire a second language. Children are like sponges and soak up information easily. Research conducted by Dr. Patricia Kuhl at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington shows that by 8-12 months, if babies are exposed to a second language, they retain the ability to distinguish those foreign sounds. Moreover, through the age of 7 or 8, children are able to learn to speak a second language with fluent grammar and without an accent.
From past to present, there has been a wide array of arguments about the implicit and explicit knowledge from many aspects of language related fields. The three different articles from various perspectives will be examined and responded briefly by focusing on their points about two knowledge systems. Before getting into details, it should be declared that it is common idea that whereas the declarative knowledge, explicit one, is related with the question of knowing what, occur without awareness, and necessities the ability of verbalizing; procedural knowledge, implicit one, has features of knowing how, having intuition and the ability of using the knowledge. Initially, the article of, Automatization, Skill Acquisition, and Practice in Second Language Acquisition, by Robert Dekeyser and Raquel Criado mainly focus on the systematic practice by getting into details about explicit and implicit knowledge, the process of automatization and showing how all these elements are associated in each other.
It starts with infancy and continues to adulthood. By gaining knowledge about child development, a synopsis of what children can do at various ages can be formed. Following are the three theoretical perspectives of child development: i. Maturationist’s View of Child Development : Maturationism is a premature childhood educational philosophy emphasizing the child as a growing individual in which knowledge exists. Based on Arnold Gessell’s work, maturationists suggest that “genetic factors play a bigger role in development than environmental ones” [8].
Language skills Language skill is one of the milestone achievements of the first two years of life. Children are born with innate schema of communication, such as body language or facial expression to communicate with parents or caregiver. The acquisition of language starts from phonology, which is an important skill for a child to master where he or she is to absorb the sound and identify the sounds form one language to another. This was nurtured both at home and in school where Alexander has to absorb sounds from native (Cantonese) and foreign languages (English).
Hamna Iqbal Baig Ms. Maria Kamal English Writing Skills November 26th, 2014 Outline Nature vs. Nurture Thesis statement: Nurture dominates nature in determining gender roles. Gender roles are socially constructed and are acquired through the process of socialization. . Nature is a key determinant of gender roles.
Name two major Psychologists who put forward theories on language acquisition. o BF Skinner o Noam Chomsky 5. Briefly describe the theory of Universal Grammar by Noam Chomsky Universal grammar is a linguistic theory by Noam Chomsky that argues that the ability to learn language is natural/innate, distinctly human and distinct
This is referred to the interactionist theory. “Similar to the behaviorist theory, the interactionist theory believes that nurture is crucial in the process of language development. Though, the interactionist perspective differs from the behaviorist
Background information on the theory ‘Behaviorism’ It was invented by John Broadus Watson who was born on January 9, 1878 who died on September 25, 1958 (aged 80). He was residing in New York City, New York. His Nationality is American. Mr. J. Broadus was in the field of Psychology.
The worries articulated by parents and educators relate to the children’s ability to differentiate the linguistic system, the possibility of significant delay in the rate of acquisition, and possible deviations from developmental paths observed in monolingual acquisition. Volterra and Taeschner (1978) proposed a three stage model of bilingual language development. They argued that initially the child is unable to distinguish two different systems .According to this model a child begins with a single linguistic system, which is gradually separated into two. • In the first stage of the model, the child’s system consists of a single lexical system which includes words from both languages .This
The questionable and ambiguous nature surrounding the notion that children play an active role in acquiring language has been debated by many theorists of different perspectives. These three perspectives include the learning view, the nativist view and the interactionist view. In this essay I will discuss each perspective with reference to psychological theories and research that relates to each view. The learning perspective of language acquisition suggests that children acquire language through imitation and reinforcement (Skinner, 1957). The ideology behind this view claims that children develop language by repeating utterances that have been praised by their parent, therefore gaining a larger vocabulary and understanding of phrases over
DEVELOPMENT PSYCHOLOGY: REFLECTIVE ESSAY In life of an individual there are several developmental changes or events which occur as continuity of span of life. Some of life developmental stages include infantile, adolescence, maturity, and adulthood. These phases have biological, social, psychological and physiognomic reasons to which an individual completed the course of life. Psychological analysis upon the developmental stages include the focus on characterization, demarcation and the social interaction of individual’s life (Baltes & Schaie, 2013).
What do we get we this assumption? Comparing the two life stages, one from the early beginning, while we where a child and second from this period, we can easily realized huge changes. It was back then when we didn't feel responsibilities, when we exactly knew what we want (want to do, to be, to have) and what we don't. But then something happens (actually it was happening every day) ... and after several years we forgot what we want, who we are or what we want to do.
This paper, contrasts social conventions with individual psychology, has a means of explaining the nature of human language. It will also take a closer look at controversies regarding the nature of language and the debate of psychology over structuralism. Noam Chomsky has already established first language acquisition as an innate human ability. In his opinion language is part of the individual and therefore a result of natural human biology development. However, in Fernand de Saussure’s opinion language is not only part of a social construct by it is controlled by social conventions.
Research Questions From the literature review, it was established that there were several factors affecting language learning and acquisition. More specifically, it was revealed that factors such as exposure at an early age, motivation, attitudes, incentives and educational system can influence language acquisition. However, most of the research were conducted in the west and were focused on students as subjects to the study and foreigners working in the country where they need to learn the language to lengthen their range of employment opportunity.