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TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Psychology > Theories of Language Acquisition

It would appear that language acquisition is linked to physical growth and social factors.

The Behaviourist Approach

• Children learn to speak by imitation.
• Parents then reinforce or correct their speech.
• Children don't imitate perfectly they may say words similar to what they hear around them.
• They over-extend language patterns they already know
• Past tense
  • Steal > stealed > instead of stole
  • Drive > drived > instead of drove
• This is not imitation as adults do not use these words.

The Cognitive Approach

• Children can only use certain linguistic structures when they understand fully the concepts surrounding them
• Jean Piaget linked language acquisition to child's maturation, to use linguistic structures they must understand the concept. A child can not use comparison of size if the child does not understand the concept of size.

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