英语语言学教案chapter 10.doc

Sanmenxia Polytechnic A New Concise Course in Linguistics Chapter 10 Language AcquisitionObjectives After this period, the students are supposed to master major views of child language acquisition, cognitive development and stages of language development.Key points and DifficultiesThe behaviorist, the innatist, the interactionist viewsThe critical period hypothesisStages in language developmentTeaching procedure1 Revision1The definition of cultureThe relationship between language and cultureSapir-Whorf HypothesisLinguistic evidence of cultural differencesCultural overlap and diffusion2) Check homework.2 Lead-InHow does the child come to understand and speak the language of his community?Why do most children acquire the language quickly and effortlessly?How are children able to acquire a language and master its complexities?What enables children to learn words and string them together into meaningful sentences?What facilities children to develop the grammatical system of their language？All these are closely related to the core issues in linguistic studies. This chapter will provide tentative answers to the questions concerning how language is learned. The following points will be discussed:Theories of child language acquisitionCognitive development in child language developmentLanguage environment Stages in child language developmentLangrage acquisition refers to a childs acquisition of his mother tongue.3 Theories of child language acquisition1) A behaviorist view (Skinners) The chief exponent of the behaviorist view is Skinners Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 August 18, 1990) was an American behaviorist, author, inventor, social philosopher and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called radical behaviorism, and founded his own school of experimental research psychologythe experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increasecitation needed in interest experimentally and in applied settings.Skinner discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement. In a June, 2002 survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. He was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles. Traditional behaviorists view language as behavior and believe that language learning is simply a matter of imitation and habit formation.The theory: The child learns his language in much the same way as habit-forming. So imitation and practice are preliminary and this discrimination and generalization are crucial to language development.Mother: Would you like some bread and peanut butter?Katie: Some bread and peanut butterThe deficiencies of the theory* Learning cannot account for the rapid rate at which children acquire language.* There can be an infinite number of sentences in a language. All these sentences cannot be learned by imitation.* Children make errors, such as over regularizing verbs. For example, a child may say Billy hitted me, incorrectly adding the usual past tense suffix -ed to hit. Errors like these cant result from imitation, since adults generally use correct verb forms.* Children acquire language skills even though adults do not consistently correct their syntax.2）An innatist view of language acquisition (Chomsky) According to the innatist view of language acquisition, human beings are biologically programmed for language and that the language develops in the child just as other biological functions such as walking. Chomsky referred this innate endowment as universal Grammar and held that if children are pre-equipped with UG, the what they have to learn is the ways in which their own language makes use of these principles and the variations in those principles which may exist in the particular language they are learning The position in a way serves as an answer to the logical problem of language acquisition that the behaviorist view fails to recognize. The logical problem means the fact that children come to know more about the structure of their language than they could reasonably be expected to learn from the language samples available. So when exposed to confusing information or when guidance or correction is not available, children can discover for themselves the underlying rules of the language system. (see examples on page 143)3) An interactionist view of language acquisition The interactionist view holds that language develops as a result of the complex interplay between the human characteristics of the child and the environment in which the child develops. Integrated with the innatist view, the interactionist further claims that the modified language which is suitable for the childs capability is crucial in his language acquisition. (motherese)In everyday life, adults speak differently when talking to little children. They use a special speech known as motherese or child directed speech or caretaker talk to make themselves understood. The motherese or caretake talk shares such characteristics as low rate of speech, high, rich intonation, shorter and simpler sentences structures, frequent repetition, paraphrasing and limited vocabulary. In addition, the de children with direct linguistic training of such talks are closely related to the here and now environment. In addition to the motherese or caretaker talk, parents provide children with direct linguistic training by correcting ill-formed utterances, i.e, to offer feedback and recasts. Parents oen respond to a childrens utterances by repeating it while making adjustments to its forms and content. Such recasts provide the children with potentially useful information- adding a missing erb, changing the form of a pronoun and so on.In behaviorist approach, language environment plays a major role in providing both language models to be imitated and necessary feedbacks.The innatist view emphasizes more on childrens internal processing of the language items to be learnt. The environment functions as a stimulus that triggers and activates the pre-equipped UG to process the materials provided by the linguistic environment around the children.The interactionist view calls for the quality of the language samples available in the linguistic environment, only when the language is modified and adjusted to the level of childrens comprehension, do they process and internalize the language items. 4 Cognitive factors in child language developmentThe role of childrens cognitive development is also important as both their linguistic and nonlinguistic abilities change dramatically in the early development. Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a childs development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology. The cognitive development relates to language acquisition mainly in two ways:1) Language development is dependent on both the concepts children form about the world and what they feel stimulated to communicate at the early and later stages of their language development. (the acquisition of perfect tense and the concept of present relevance)2) The cognitive factors determine how the child makes sense of the linguistic system himself instead of what meanings the child perceives and expresses. (the acquisition of negative form)A large portion of research has gone into understanding how a child conceptualizes the world. Jean Piaget was a major force in the founding of this field, forming his theory of cognitive development. Many of his theoretical claims have since fallen out of favor. However, his description of the general tendencies of cognitive development (e.g., that it moves from being dependent on actions and perception in infancy to understanding of the more observable aspects of reality in childhood to capturing the underlying abstract rules and principles in adolescence is still generally acceptable. Moreover, many of the phenomena that he discovered, such as object permanence in infancy and the conservations in school age children, are real and still attract the interest of researchers. In the recent years alternative models have been advanced, including the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, which aim to integrate Piagets ideas which stood up well the test of time with more recent theorizing and methods in developmental and cognitive science.A major controversy in cognitive development has been nature vs. nurture, or nativism versus empiricism. However, it is now recognized by most experts that this is a false dichotomy: there is overwhelming evidence from biological and behavioral sciences that from the earliest points in development, gene activity interacts with events and experiences in the environment. Another issue is how culture and social experience relate to developmental changes in thinking. Another question is phylogenic convergence or homology with non-human animals. Most aspects of learning and cognition are similar in humans and non-human animals. These issues propagate to nearly every aspect of cognitive development.5 Language environment & the critical period hypothesis 1) The environment: (behaviorist, innatist, interactionist)In behaviorist approach, language environment plays a major role in providing both language models to be imitated and the necessary feedbacks among which the positive reinforcement or reward encourages childrens efforts and facilitates the “correct” learning of the language while the negative feedback discourages children to repeat the “mistakes”.在行为主义者理论中，语言环境在提供被模仿的语言模式和必要的反馈中引起到了主要作用。在反馈中，积极的强化或奖励能鼓励儿童作出努力，并促进他们“正确的“学习语言。而负面的反馈使儿童失去再去犯“错误”的勇气。Innatist view emphasizes more on childrens internal processing of the language items to be learnt. The environment functions as a stimulus that triggers and activates the pre-equipment UG to process the materials provided by the linguistic environment around the children. The interactionist view calls for the quality of the language samples available in the linguistic environment, only when the language is modified and adjusted to the level of childrens comprehension, do they process and internalize the language items.语法天生主义者观更强调儿童对于要学的语言项的内在处理。环境的功能起刺激作用，它出发和即或先天具备的G来处理由儿童周围的语言环境所提供的材料。互动主义者观讲求语言环境中语言样本的质量，只有将语言限定或调整到儿童可以理解的水平时，他们才能处理语言项目，并将其内在化。2) The ageThis factor can be used to explain why the teenagers could learn foreign language efficiently and effectively.这个因素可以用来解释为什么少年学习语言既有效率又有效)Critical Period Hypothesis:临界假说 the theory that in child development there is a period during which language can be acquired more easily than at any other time. According to the biologist Lenneberg, the critical period lasts until puberty (around age 12 or 13 years), and is due to biological development. Lenneberg suggested that language learning may be more difficult after puberty because the brain lacks the ability for adaptation. This, he believed, was because the language functions of the brain have already been established in a particular part of the brain; that is, because lateralization 偏侧优势(see Brain) has already occurred by this time.认为儿童发展时期内有一段时间语言习得最顺利的一种理论。根据生物学家Lenneberg，关键时期持续至青春期（约十二或十三），这是处于生物发展原因。他还提出，语言过了青春期，由于大脑缺乏适应能力，会变得越来越难。他认为，这是因为大脑的语言功能已经在大脑某一部位确立，也就是因为这个时期偏侧优势已经出现了。Latera