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Nativist Theory

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27 views23 pages

Nativist Theory

Uploaded by

IrisdeSilva
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Language Acquisition

Theories July, 2022

 Do you remember your first words?


 At what age do you think a child acquires a

language?
 Have you observed a child communicating

at age of 3? How is it like? What amount of


words does he/she handle?
NATIVIST OR INNATIST LANGUAGE ACQUISTION
THEORY
LINGUIST,
PHILOSOPHER
“Language acquisition
is innately determined;
that is, children are
biologically
programmed for
language learning.”
AND THIS IS THE MAN
WHO PROPOSES THAT
HUMANS ACQUIRE A
LANGUAGE IN A MERELY
NATURAL WAY.
CHOMSKY
VS. SKINNER,
PAVLOV,
WATSON

NATIVIST

BEHAVIORISM
NATIVIST THEORY
 What is exactly the nativist theory?
It is said that nativist theory is based on
natural settings and the acquisition of an L2 is
carried out through a language development
process.
NOAH CHOMSKY PREDICAMENT
 “I am frankly, rather sceptical about the
significance, for the teacher of languages, of
such insights and understanding as have been
attained in Linguistics and Psychology. Surely
the teacher of language would do well to keep
informed of progress and discussion in these
fields, and the efforts of linguists and
psychologists to approach the problems of
language teaching… it is difficult to believe that
either Linguistics and Psychology has achieved
a level of theoretical understanding that might
enable it to support a “technology” of language
teaching.(Chomsky,1966)
 Chomsky believed that as Behaviorism had
been tested on animals, would not be the
same as functioning on people. Instead
children come into the world with very
specific information or knowledge and those
innate structures develop in the child in the
same way as other biological functions.
LAD… WHAT DO YOU THINK IT MEANS?
 OF COURSE, IT IS A METAPHORICAL DEVICE.
But for Chomsky represents the way in which people
decode the language structures, as to say how to
decipher a message and be able to classify the piece of
information according to its part of speech words belong
to.
Read:

I want to drink some water.


 Chomsky believed the LAD consisted of three main
components:
 Substantive universals
 Formal universals
 Evaluation procedures.
 Formal Universals
Do you
How words work live in El
together to form Salvador
sentences ?
correctly.
 Evaluation procedures
Do you
The constant live in El
forming Salvador
hypotheses based ?
on the
information
received, and
testing these
 Chomsky gradually abandoned the LAD
concept although it has remained a powerful
metaphor in the circles of Applied Linguistics.
He has now moved in favor of a parameter
setting model of language acquisition called
“principles and paramenters”, which is
related to UG “Universal Grammar” that
claims grammar may vary from language to
language and children only need to know the
parameters and principles of their native
language in order to use it.
Now… let’s work out our minds!
 Use the information you received from
nativist theory and think about the
cahracteristics of this language acquisition
theory.
Universal Grammar
 Universal grammar is defined by Chomsky
as “the system of principles, conditions, and
rules that are elements or properties of all
human languages...the essence of human
language” (Chomsky, 1978).
 Chomsky believes eagerly that grammar system
takes part of every people’s mind according to the
region these people live in innately, and that this
grammatical systems share the same properties
of a language, such as verbs, nouns, adverbs,
etc. In other words, humans develop the system
once you are in this world and correctly applies it
when it is the right time.
Language Development Theories
 Nativist Theory (Noam Chomsky)
 Learning Theory

 Interactionist Theory (Vygotsky)


Learning Reinforcement Theory
 This theory is based on the reinforcement of external
agents, where children start blabbling a phrase and
receive a response, if this response is pleasant the child
continues to babbling the same utterance in order to
receive the same reinforcement.
 Ex: Baby: “Want bath”
 Mom: Do you want to take a bath? (the sound of
flowing water and soap bubbles are instantly part of
the scene)
 The counterparts of this theory is
that it does not tell where do these
words uttered by children come
from, and thus Chomskynian theories
of LAD and UG emerge to disqualify
this learning theory.
INTERACTIONIST THEORY
 Vygotsky, a psychologist responsible for the
foundation of the social interactionist theory
states that meaningful interaction with others is
the basis of new knowledge acquisition (Vygotsky,
1987).
 INTERACTION HYPOTHESIS

The interaction hypothesis developed on the


basis of the social constructivist and
interactionist theories of language learning
was introduced by Long in 1996.
What is this hypothesis about?
It refers to the interaction between
the language learner and
their teacher, other native
speakers and nonnative speakers and how
these agents work together in the acquisition
of a language .
According to Lightbown and Spada
(1999, p. 43) the interaction hypothesis
posits a three‐step process:
a) Interactional modification makes input
comprehensible.
(b) Comprehensible input promotes acquisition.
(c) Therefore, interactional modification promotes
acquisition.
 Go to the forum and answer the questions.

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