Language Development Theory
Abstract
Learning theory is as di
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Learning theory is as diverse as the research community itself, and nowhere is the concern to understand how the individual responds to the wash of experience with intelligence more debated and studied than in regard to child language acquisition and development. Language, as a symbolic tool, is an important factor of any child's overall development, and its acquisition by children has been studied by any number of researchers. Scholars share the conviction that key aspects of personality and ability are formulated in the earliest stages of life. They are more divided on whether and to what extent human intuition on one hand or heredity or environment play a role in a child's development of any knowledge, aptitude, or skill. Not infrequently, theories of language acquisition and development also appear to interpret competing theories in ways that serve the commenting theorist more than authentic theoretical clarity.Language-development theory, in sum, is a matter of great dispute. Attempts to explain or criticize competing theories, as well as attempts to build on existing theory or create supposedly new theories, have had varying degrees of success at contributing to a coherent understanding of child language development. To isolate key issues affecting such understanding, and to suggest a way of approaching a theory of child language development with precision, is the aim of this paper. In 1865, E.B. Tylor remarked that what distinguishes human fr
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ry, however, is that the last-named process, which can be likened to show and tell, may well be less mysterious or elegantly intellectual than researchers would like. The key to understanding its apparently extraordinary success, however, lies in the importance of external stimulus provided by the environment (e.g., CDS) on language development. Thus the behaviorist model seems extraordinarily critical to the functioning of this theory, although replicated behavior appears to account more for the process of language development than for the basis for language acquisition. After all, a parrot can learn to replicate sounds, while only a human being brings a rational component to the enterprise.
The information-processing approach to language development is according to Bohannon and Warner-Luebecker, a new theory that appears to combine elements of the behavior model and the linguistic model. The concept of competition of words for making meaning is the real center of this theory. Any word or language unit such as a sentence, in this view, has a variety of associations, and over time, by a process of elimination, the inappropriate associations will be discarded and appropriate language forms will be settled on as having meaning. The
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Noam Chomsky, Bohannon Warren-Leubecker, Results Theories, Eric Lenneberg, EB Tylor, Michael Halliday, Snow Goldfield, Bohannon Warren-Luebecker, Perino Perino, Abstract Learning, language development, language acquisition, child language, bohannon warren-leubecker, linguistic theory, cognitive theory, behaviorist theory, generative grammar, mother child, linguistic cognitive, child language development, approach language development, transformational generative grammar, bohannon warren-luebecker 1989, language acquisition development,
Approximate Word count = 7120
Approximate Pages = 28 (250 words per page)
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