I believe that imitation does play an important part in phonological development, for example, the fact that kids develop regional accents indicates that they imitate the sounds they hear around them. However, I think it is unlikely that behaviourism can account for learning of all aspects of language. For example a child’s understanding of how grammar works. They show this by applying grammatical rules consistently, even when incorrect. A child might say ‘wented’ applying the past tense rule and ‘mans’ for men applying the general plural rule. This shows that they are clearing not imitating what they have learned, because they would not be encourages to make these mistakes.
Another theory was lead by Chomsky, who argues that children have an innate ability to extract the rules of language form the words they hear being spoken around them. He called this the Language acquisition device. According to Chomsky, different languages may sound different, but underneath all share the same deep structure, an example being that all languages consist of utterances containing subject, verb, and object. This explains why they develop so rapidly, because according to Chomsky, from birth their brains are ready to analyse what they hear and to understand how the language system works. This theory could also explain what children from all cultures pass through similar stages of language development and why grammatical features are common in all languages.
The main criticism of Chomsky is that it underestimates the role of interaction in language development. Chomsky’s theory implies that if a child is exposed to language, the acquisition of language will happen immediately. There are many examples of how this cannot be true. Genie, a socially deprived 13yr old was found and brought back into society, and still she could not acquire language properly, she particularly struggled with grammar. She was continually exposed to language, but still found it difficult to produce anything more than single words after years.
Jean Piaget developed the cognition theories. These theories basically say that children are only able to learn language when they are at the right intellectual development stage. Stages in language acquisition are said to be linked to the stages in cognitive development. For example, a child has the ability to arrange objects such as sticks in increasing or decreasing size. Children who are not cognitively developed will call them long or short, whereas a child who can understand the task will call them longer of shorter. Another example is the development of object permanence, which is the ability to understand that objects have an independent existence. Before this developed ability, I have read that children believe that if an object moves out of their sight, it no longer exists, and they will not look for it if the object is hidden. But when the child is about 18 months old, and has this ability there is a huge increase in the child’s vocab. Showing that children can now understand it, and begin to learn the names of objects. Something against this theory is that mentally retarded children, who cannot understand the concept, can sometimes speak quite fluently, but generally this theory is accepted and Piaget’s idea’s had a major influence on teaching and education of the time.
Input theories are the most recent theories of language acquisition. They stress the role of interaction in the development of language, focusing on the particular interaction that takes place between parent and child. Bruner was a main theorist associated with this area of language acquisition. For example, parents speak more slowly to children than they do to other adults. They use less complex vocabulary and simplified constructions. This definitely makes it easier for the child to imitate its parents, and learning is made less demanding.
Parents also tend to expand what their child says, for example is a child says, ‘sweets allgone’ the parent might reply by saying ‘yes, the sweets are all gone- you have eaten them all haven’t you?’ by means of this, the child’s vocabulary is gradually extended.
This theory is very difficult to measure, but it seems that it isn’t really essential for adults to address children in a particular way, for example different cultures and traditions tend not to speak this way and their child still succeed in acquiring language. However, I believe that interaction does play an important role in the development of children.
All of the theories that I have looked at I believe all contribute to language acquisition, and that they do need to be present for a child to be a fully competent user of language.
