Register  
 
About Us | Help | Sign in
 
   

Revision:Theories of Language Acquisition

From The Student Room

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.


Comments

collapse
Recent Threads
 
collapse Would you personally shop at Lidl or Aldi?
started by: burninginme
replies: 8
last post: 1 Minute Ago
collapse It's snowing!
started by: SiaSiaSia
replies: 56
last post: 1 Minute Ago
collapse Hardest education system.
started by: Checkmate121
replies: 6
last post: 1 Minute Ago
collapse Work experience at UN?
started by: NaiNai
replies: 1
last post: 1 Minute Ago
collapse Strangest/cheekiest things you've said to a teacher
started by: Kezzi
replies: 101
last post: 2 Minutes Ago
 
Article Updates