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Intro: Hello everybody! My name is Michelle and I will be your host for today. On the fourteenth episode of A POP of Psych, I will be discussing the theories behind language acquisition, a topic that I personally find fascinating as a bicultural bilingual. If you are fascinated by polyglots or toddlers who pick up languages with great ease, then today’s episode is one you don’t want to miss!
Segment 1: History of Language Acquisition Theories
Just thinking about language and what it allows humans to do is so cool! Think about it: no other species, at least that I know of, can express ideas through sentences and words.
So many questions! How did we get to know the languages that we speak? What is language?
So i’ll start off by defining language in the context of this podcast episode today:
Language is a “collection of arbitrary symbols with rules used by members of a community to communicate an infinite variety of messages”
To start talking about some language acquisition theories, I’ll be discussing the earlier ones to give an overview and a big picture of how language acquisition research has evolved - to go off on a brief tangent, it’s really interesting how different experts and scholars interact with their own theories and thoughts.
Now back on track: In 1957, Burrhus Frederic Skinner was one of the pioneers of behaviorism and the behaviorist approach to language learning. Skinner believed that language development was accounted for by environmental influences.
So, to give context in terms of the nature vs. nurture ideas, Skinner was definitely a believer of nurture rather than nature
He also argued that children learn language based on reinforcement principles → which entails associating words with meetings → correct utterances would be positively reinforced as the child realizes the communicative values of words and phrases → & this obviously evolves into learning how to use sentences to state your thoughts and opinions and so on so forth
Before I move on, I just want to quickly illustrate an example of this positive reinforcement.
Up to 1:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA96Fba-WHk
While this scene in The Big Bang Theory is more so about behavior rather than language learning, the principle is the same. For example, if a toddler says milk and the mother smiles and rewards the toddler with milk, the child will find this outcome rewarding and positive, enhancing the child’s language development.
Later on, in the spirit of the cognitive revolution of the 1950s, a now world-renowned linguist by the name Noam Chomsky criticized this aforementioned behaviorist nurture theory.
Chomsky argued that in fact, children will never acquire the tools needed to process an infinite number of sentences and words if the language mechanism was dependent on language input alone
Instead he proposed the theory of Universal Grammar (I want to preface that if you take or have taken IB Language and Literature this is a concept you learn and discuss → pretty interesting!) → and this is the nature view
The theory of Universal Grammar asserts that there is already innate, biological grammatical categories, such a noun category and verb category inside the brain of a child that facilitates the entirety of a child’s language development as well as the procedure of language processing within adults
In other words, Universal Grammar asserts that all the necessary grammatical info needed to combine these categories (noun, verb, etc) into phrases is already there → the child just needs to learn the words of the language and connect everything
However, research on this theory is still ongoing → the underlying biological mechanisms to back it up are still unknown
On that note, in the next segment, I’ll be discussing more modern research regarding language acquisition
Segment 2: Contemporary Theories
Now moving onto more recent and modern theories and research regarding language acquisition !
So, a decade or two later after Noam Chomsky began to talk about Universal Grammar, some psycholinguists, people who study the relationships between linguistic behavior and psychological processes, began to question the soundness and validity of Universal Grammar
These critics argued that categories like the noun and verb are biologically, evolutionarily, and psychology implausible
So these researchers and critics started to suggest that instead of there existing a language-specific mechanism for language processing, children may be utilizing some general cognitive and learning principles.
To clarify: while researchers approaching the questions of language acquisition from the perspective of Universal Grammar argue for early productivity, the opposing constructivist investigators argue for a perspective that concerns a more gradual developmental process
These constructivist researchers suggested that children are actually sensitive to the patterns of language, which enables them to acquire the language itself
So an example of this gradual pattern learning is morphology acquisition
Morphology acquisition has to do with morphemes, which are basically the building blocks of language; small grammatical markers that alter words
An example of a morpheme is the “s” that follows words like: going from the word “dog” to “dogs”
It is believed that children acquired their first instances of the third person singular forms, like “the dog barks” or “she eats” as entire phrasal chunks rather than understanding the individual grammatical components of the phrases
Eventually, when a child hears a sufficient amount of instances of a certain linguistic construction, such as this 3rd person singular verb form we have been discussing, the child will start to detect patterns in the many utterances that have been heard
And as a result of these repetitions and repeat examples, this child will eventually acquire the sophisticated knowledge that in English, verbs must be marked with this -s morpheme in the 3rd singular form
So to summarize things: basically, people who believe in Universal Grammar are still trying to research and prove their assertion that language is a demanding task, too demanding to acquire without some innate equipment in your brain, whereas these more recent constructivist believers and researchers are arguing that linguistic input is more important in language acquisition than this innate toolkit
In addition to the theories of Universal Grammar and constructivism, there are other theories that I want to briefly touch upon. The social learning theory emphasizes the importance of imitation in language development; this is thought to be partly correct as it is unable to account for the errors in child speech. Moreover, another theory is the socialization theory which views children as novices who learn language through corrective feedback from adults as they interact to communicate their desires. These social interactions eventually guide children through linguistic socialization and allow them to learn grammar and vocabulary. There are many more theories, so if you are interested, make sure to head on to our website, at www.apopofpsych.wixsite.com/psych to click through our list of resources.
Nonetheless, the many questions about language acquisition still remained unanswered.
What is the exact biological and psychological process that transforms a child’s utterances into grammatically correct speech? How much does a child need to be exposed to a language to achieve an adult-like state of language fluency? And perhaps, more interestingly in my opinion, What can explain the variation between languages and the language acquisition process in children acquiring second languages or other languages that are not English?
With these questions in mind, I’ll now be moving onto the next segment, which is about language learning, specifically second language acquisition.
Segment 3: Language Learning Tips
Why do many students and adults struggle learning a second or third language at school or independently?
On the other hand, for newborns and toddlers, it seems that learning a language is quite effortless. Since our brain plasticity tends to decrease with age, it becomes more difficult to acquire a new language with native-like competence.
In the context of picking up a second language for monolinguals, or perhaps a third language for bicultural bilinguals, which is the case for many immigrants or 1.5 or 2nd generation hyphenated Americans, the context of learning this extra language depends on the native language as your brain has been preconfigured to recognize and produce that particular language or languages
So to give tips on learning a new language, I’d say focusing on key vocabulary that are relevant to your learning purposes is really important
For example, when I tried learning Japanese over the summer, I focused on learning words that I needed as a student and a possible tourist.
Another tip is to focus on learning the most practical and common grammatical patterns
Since Korean and Japanese are grammatically similar, this wasn’t a huge struggle for me. But as I learn Spanish in school, it is difficult to spontaneously speak in Spanish since English grammar is different from Spanish. I am trying to focus on learning grammar by identifying common patterns in the sentences I read and the examples my teacher gives. Also, to go off on yet another tangent, I just realized this, but I think its interesting that I think in Korean as I try to formulate thoughts in Japanese while I think in English to formulate sentences in Spanish. Perhaps someone is doing research on how bicultural bilinguals acquire other languages, who knows?
And Obviously, if you can, you should interact in your target language as often as possible.
My motivation for learning Japanese is to understand the lyrics to my favorite Japanese songs as well as eventually watch a Studio Ghibli film without the need for English subtitles or Korean dubbing. I am nowhere near there, but one day…
Outro:
You have reached the outro!
In this episode, I discussed many language acquisition theories as well as some general tips and ponderings regarding language learning.
And, as usual, please feel free to send in audio messages or requests through our Anchor link.
Thank you for listening and we’ll be back soon with another engaging episode within the next 2 weeks.
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