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• Different Theories Of Language
• Jean Aitchison Theory Of Language Learning
• Jean Aitchison Theory Of Language Development

Drivers for sandisk cruzer. Jean Aitchison (born Jean Margaret Aitchison, 3 July 1938) is a Professor of Language and Communication in the Faculty of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. Her main areas of interest include: Socio-historical linguistics; Language and mind; and Language and the media. It concludes that language is neither progressing nor decaying, but that an understanding of the factors surrounding change is essential for anyone concerned about language alteration.

Theories of Language Acquisition
Language is acquired very quickly in a child’s life. This speed of acquisition has influenced a number of schools of thought about the ways that children learn to communicate.

Noam Chomsky (1965)
Noam Chomsky is an American linguist who believes that learning takes pace through an innate brain mechanism which is pre-programmed with the ability to acquire grammatical structures. He calls it the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Chomsky finds it significant that although human languages seem different the share many similarities which he describes as universal grammar.

Different Theories Of Language

Supporting this theory is evidence that children from all around the world develop at a similar rate in similar stages. All children can acquire complex grammar by an early age, regardless of their environment or intelligence does suggest an innate learning device. However, the actual nature of this has not been pinpointed.

Alan Cruttenden (1974) compared adults and children to see if they could predict football results from listening to the score. He found that adults could successfully predict the winners by the intonation placed on the first team, but the children (up to the age of 7) were less accurate.

Categorising First Words

Katherine Nelson (1973) identified found four categories of first words:
• Naming
• Action/Events
• Describing/modifying things
• Personal/social words

60% were nouns. Verbs were the second largest group. Modifiers were third. Personal and social words made up 8% of the results.

Aitchison’s Stages of Children’s Linguistic Development

Jean Aitchison looked at the connections between children’s lexical and semantic development. These developmental stages are shown in the table on the next page. Once children expand their vocabulary they use network building to sort the words. An aspect of this stage is understanding hyponymy which occurs at around 18 months.

1 Labelling:Linking words to the objects to which they refer Understanding that objects can be labelled
2 Packaging: Exploring what labels can apply to. Over/under extension occurs in order to understand the range of a word’s meaning
3 Network Building: Making connections between words – understanding similarities and opposites in meanings

Piaget’s Stages of Children’s Linguistic Development – Cognitive Theory

• Sensorimotor
• Pre-operational
• Concrete operational
• Formal operational

Lev Vygotsky – Social Interactionist Theory

Vygotsky, an early child development researcher observed children’s play and linked it to both cognitive and social development. Young children often use props as pivots to support their play but when they get older they use their imagination instead. Vygotsky noticed how children role-play adult behaviour as part of exploring their environment.

Catherine Garvey’s study of pairs of children playing found that children adopt roles and identities, act out storylines and invent objects and settings as required in role-play scenarios. This is called “pretend play” and fulfils Halliday’s imaginative language function. Children play together because it is enjoyable, but it also practises social interaction and negotiation skills with roles and responsibilities often decided as they play. This is sometimes called “sociodramatic play” as it involves both social and dramatic skills, with clear rules and reflecting real world behaviour.

Sociodramatic play usually begins when the child is around four years old – possibly linked to their cognitive understanding of the different roles people have and how this affects their language. In their re-enactments they use subject specific lexis and structure them in some of the formulaic ways that adults use in real-life situations, suggesting they can observe and imitate adult behaviours.

Related articles

• Almost all human beings acquire a language (and (awalianursafitri.wordpress.com)
• Noam Chomsky on Bilingualism (psychologytoday.com)
• First Language Acquisition (niasarinastiti.wordpress.com)
• Language Acquisition in Children (sbteach2001.wordpress.com)

• Created by: Lauren
• Created on: 14-05-14 10:26

Jean Aitchison Theory Of Language Learning

Jean Aitchison Theory Of Language Development

• Child Language Acquisition - Speech theories
  • Jean Aitchison (1987)
    • Labelling
      • Linking labels to the objects which they refer to and understanding things can be labelled.
    • Packaging
      • Exploring labels and seeing what they can apply to.
        • Over/under-extension occurs to eventually understand a range of meanings.
    • Network Building
      • Making connections between words and recognising similarities and differences in meanings.
  • Katherine Nelson (1973)
    • Identified 4 categories for first words
      • Naming things/people (nouns)
      • Actions/events (verbs)
      • Describing/ modifying things
      • Personal/social words.
  • B.F. Skinner (1957 - Behaviourist) Immitation and Reinforcement
    • Operant conditioning
    • The child imitates the speech of others
    • When the child repeats a word successfully, they recieve positive reinforcement, encouraging them to repeat the action again.
    • If the child receives negative reinforcement they are unlikely to repeat the action.
  • Noam Chomsky (1965 - Innateness)
    • Children have an innate ability to understand grammatical rules.
      • He called this the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
    • Identified virtuous errors where children make grammatical errors but still understand the rules.
  • Jean Piaget (Cognition theory)
    • Cognitive development is the overriding influence of language acquisition.
    • Identified Object Permanence
      • A child's ability to understand that objects have an independent existence.
      • When an object moves out of the child's sight, it ceases to exist.
      • Begins in the first year but is not usually complete until about 18 months.
      • Once children have learned object permanence, they begin to apply labels to these objects.
  • Bruner, Vygotsky (Input theories)
    • Emphasise the role of interaction in language acquisition
    • A child's acquisition of language depends on the input made by parents and others.
      • Parental interaction introduces the child to familiar conventions of conversation such as turn taking.
    • Parents introduce new words by using familiar sentence structures.
• A child's ability to understand that objects have an independent existence.