To what extent does a nativist perspective successfully explain childrens early language development?

ED209 TMA

To what extent does a nativist perspective successfully explain children’s early language development?

Language development is the crucial part of the human cognitive nature, understanding language development is an important aspect to understand the base and to recall its various components of linguistics. It is impossible to overestimate the role of language in child development. At the end of infancy it takes communication between child and adult to a new level that boosts development enormously. Language helps children to learn and control their behaviour. As the nature-versus-nurture argument is inevitable to arise whenever human behaviors are discussed, it is not surprising that language experts have debated the relative influences of genetics and the environment on language development

The nativist approach attributes language development to nature, that is, the inborn capacity of children to learn language spontaneously just like they learn to walk and breathe. The , proposed by , says that language is a unique human accomplishment. Chomsky says that all children have what is called an LAD, an innate language acquisition device that allows children to produce consistent sentences once vocabulary is learned. He also says that grammar is universal. This theory, while there is much evidence supporting it (language areas in the brain, sensitive period for language development, children's ability to invent new language systems) is not believed by all researchers.

According to Chomsky (1965) the development of language is very different from the development of any other human behaviour. He regarded language ability as a uniquely human biological predisposition and accordingly the ability to comprehend and produce language as innate. Plunkett and Marchman developed a connectionist model that matched labels to images. The model’s learning showed the typical spurt seen in children’s vocabulary learning which is slow progress for the first 20-30 words, then a dramatic increase in success. While there are significant differences in the way a computer vs. a child learns, it does seem to indicate that it is the learning process itself that leads to the rate of increase in success. If this is so, then an additional ability is not required to account for the spurt, nor is it necessary to have two separate mechanisms to explain the spurts in comprehension and production.

Most children have more object names in their early vocabulary. However, the proportion does vary. Nelson identified two styles that are expressive and referential. Referential style has a greater proportion of object names in their first 50 words whereas expressive style has more action words and people’s names. It is argued that the type of words produced is related to their overall rate of language development and Bates et al (1988) confirmed in a study. Referential (object names) style children build their vocabularies faster. Using the MacArthur checklist, Fenson et al (1994) shows more complexity. In a 20 to 50 word vocabulary size, thus comparable with Nelson’s research, proportion of object names varies from 12 to 100%. As Nelson had argued there was a link between vocabulary size and vocabulary content. Children with small vocabulary, the proportion of object names was under 24 percent. And for children who had large vocabulary, the proportion was at least 62 percent. Close analysis showed that children with more referential style were actually older and children with less referential style. Thus this does not support the view that children who produced a large proportion of object names were more precocious in their language development. They also found that girls usually have more object names in their early vocabulary therefore, as they tend to produce words first; they may still be something in Nelson’s theory, especially as the MacArthur data is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal.

Early words are nearly always phonetic simplifications of adult speech, not until age 5-6 years that they can produce all the phonemes and their combinations required for a particular language. Parents are good at reporting new words their children produce; even if they have more difficulty in reporting what they understand (Harris et al study). Words like ‘nana’ for banana count as a word for the purposes of data collection as children often shorten or simplify longer ones. MacArthur data shows children produce first words at around 10 months and as with comprehension there is a sudden increase at ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Spoken language consists of Phonology and Grammar. Phonology is the structure of speech sounds. Whereas Grammar consists; Morphology that is the structure of words and Syntax that is the structure of sentences. Children develop a mostly implicit understanding of these elements. Languages vary as to how much morphology or syntax is used to signal who did what to whom. These differences present children who are learning their first language with a problem. Theorists have offered two types of solutions; First solution is Empiricist; children have to work out the significance of morphology & syntax based on experience. For example; Mary chases John or John chases Mary. Here there is good reason to suppose that syntax cues. On the other hand; Mary-da chases John or Mary chases John-da. Here there is good reason to suppose that morphology cues are important in the language. The alternative solution is Nativist is that they already “know” languages can be syntactically or morphologically oriented, that is, they are born with an implicit understanding. Chomsky’s universal grammar concept is necessary because children aren’t presented with coherent examples from which to ‘learn.’

Children produce first words sometime after 12 months. They are simple like mama, daddy, cup, drink, no, more, and relate to their environment. Single word conversations have surprising utility, when connected with gestures, intonation, facial expressions, gaze, and direction. The transition from early child-like word combination to a full blown grammar is rapid. By the time children are 4years old, most children are very competent. They can ask questions, make statements and issue commands. (Brown, longitudinal study of Adam provides evidence). Brown and Hanlon argue they assimilate the main structures of their native language without explicit instruction or correction. There was a disagreement as to how the processes of memorization ad inflection operate to produce the U-shaped pattern of development that is observed in English-speaking children. The Dual route theory by Pinker and Prince (1988) and single route theory by Rumelhart and McClelland (1987) are the assumption used. Dual route theories are two cognitive systems that operate in parallel. The first is; a rule system adding the ending to the stem; and second; a memory system containing a record of irregular words and most common endings. When a word needs to be inflected, the memory system is consulted first to see if an irregular form is stored. If so, it is produced, if not, the rule is activated. Single route theory differs from Dual route theory in its explanation of the cause of over-regularization. Here, it is interference of effects between words. In the case of dual route theory it is because of competition for resources between two different cognitive systems. Both theories explain the eventual disappearance of these errors as a by-product of strengthening of the memory traces of irregular inflections. The two theories also account differently for what happens when a new word is encountered. The word ‘wug’ would be inflected as ‘wugs’. Dual route theory explains this as their being no entry in memory to block the application of the ‘regular plural’ rule, whereas Single route theory explains it as being similar to other words, for example; mug, slug, bug. Experimental evidence generated by Marchman favors the single route theory where a vocabulary is very small.

The two competing explanations of how inflectional morphology is acquired have been traditionally associated with nativist (Dual Route) or empiricist (Single Route) positions, though a dual route theory can be presented that arises through learning. The acquisition of syntax, that is, word order is another nativist-empiricist discussion. Telegraphic speech, while close to normal English syntax in many ways still requires much linguistic work before it is. Wh- questions like: ‘What Daddy is eating?’ and ‘Where Mummy is going?’ have the auxiliary verb (is) in the wrong place. However, without the Wh- words they are legitimate sentences. Children therefore have to acquire the skill to perform subject-auxiliary inversion to form questions correctly. The range of possible ‘what’ sentences is endless and leading Chomsky to propose a nativist explanation arguing speakers can produce this indefinite number of sentences as they have mastered a set of grammatical rules. He also argues that these rules cannot be extracted from the environment as language is too complex. The language learner needs an innate knowledge of the rules of language made available by Universal Grammar.

Pinker (1989) found that children make over-generalization of dative alterations just like they over-regularize word endings. Brown and Hanlon argued parents do not correct grammatical errors of children systematically fashion. So any theory of language must be able to account for acquisition without the learner being provided with negative evidence. Demetras et al (1986) argued against this saying indirect or implicit feedback does occur when a grammatical mistake is made. For example indirect feedback might take the form of clarification questions or repetitions. Marcus counters arguing that such indirect evidence is unlikely to be of much use as it is still not systematic. Pinker argues that this is because they know the rules linking the meaning of the verb to the grammar associated with it. Arguing for an innate universal grammar, Pinker explains the errors by arguing it is imprecise knowledge of word meanings that causes the error. They therefore have the grammar correct and it is just the word meaning they have got wrong. It is an approach entirely compatible with an innate universal grammar.

Nativists believe that all children are born with the ability to speak any language. In conclusion, language development is a complicated process and there are many different views on this issue. Universal Grammar and Dual Route theory suggest innate capabilities (Chomsky, Pinker). Single Route theories and distributional accounts of syntax suggest empiricist explanations. Balance of evidence favors empiricist accounts like single route is more credible explanation across different languages; distributional accounts have support of evidence from the modeling studies. This theory is consistent with observational accounts of children’s learning. However, it is not the case that there may not be any innate abilities with respect to the language. Broad theoretical agreement exists that humans have specialized machinery that permits language acquisition. More recent discussions are concerned with understanding the skills that a child brings to learning languages and if they are related to a specific language or are a more general cognitive ability. Both universal grammar and grammar extraction from the environment are still being considered as possibilities. Methods are improving and changing constantly for example from diary studies to experimental studies to connectionist modeling. Some aspects of each of the theories make perfect sense. Other theories are tilted too much and emphasize on one single factor as to how language is acquired. Unlike the nativist, or cognitive theorists, I believe that both biological and environmental factors are important.

Word count: 1850 aprox.

References:

1. Kim Plunkett and Clare Wood ‘The development of children’s understanding of grammar’ in John Oates and Andrew Grayson’s ‘Cognitive and Language Development in Children’, 2004, The Open University, Milton Keynes.

2. Margaret Harris, ‘First Word’ in John Oates and Andrew Grayson’s ‘Cognitive and Language Development in Children’, 2004, The Open University, Milton Keynes.

3. Denis Mareschal, Mark H. Johnson and Andrew Grayson, ‘Brain and Cognitive Development’ in John Oates and Andrew Grayson’s ‘Cognitive and Language Development in Children’, 2004, The Open University, Milton Keynes.

4. www.wikipedia.com