The basic theories of language acquisition

Paper for the seminar ‘First Language Acquisition’
University of Cologne
WS 2007

by
Lena Linden

7. Fachsemester
07.03.2007

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 2

I. Introduction 3

II. B.F. Skinners behaviouristic approach 5

    a Behaviorism 5
    b Skinner’s Theory 6
    c Chomsky’s Criticism 8

III. Chomsky’s Universal Grammar approach 12

IV. Piagets approach 15

V. The debate between Chomsky and Piaget 19

VI. Conclusion 24

VII. Bibliography: 25

I. Introduction

The question how a child’s first language is acquired puzzles parents as well as linguists and psychologists, especially because children seem to solve this complex task so fast and seemingly effortless. There are many co-existing views and opinions concerning the issue of language acquisition, some complementary and some mutually excluding each other. Central in the debate on how the native language is acquired is the question of ‘nature or nurture’. Is there some inborn human capacity, which enables or facilitates language acquisition or is it just based on the influences of the environment?
The general ‘nature or nurture’ debate, concerned with the question whether humans are mainly influenced by their genetic predispositions or a product of their environment, has been going on for a long time, already. While, for example, Francis Galton (1870), a cousin of Charles Darwin, favoured the ‘nature’ point of view, the Behaviourist John Watson (1930) thought humans were only influenced by their environment. He believed that all differences between human beings were caused solely by personal experiences and what they learned from them. He even stated that if he was given a dozen healthy babies, no matter of which origin, he could make each of them become as he intended, just by varying their environment. (Lefrancois, p. 21f) In the context of linguistics, especially research in language acquisition, this question is of particular interest, as some phenomena seem hard to explain without assuming some kind genetic endowment for language acquisition, but, on the other hand, it is not easy to find convincing evidence for this assumption.

Most of the concepts and theories explaining how native languages are acquired go back to three different approaches put forward by Burrhus Federic Skinner, Noam Chomsky and Jean Piaget, either by using their ideas as a starting point or by rejecting them and formulating a new or altered Hypothesis.

This paper will try to present those three basic theories, also taking into account the contexts out of which they emerged, as to fully understand linguistic, like any other scientific, views and theories, they have always to be evaluated with respect to the scientific and cultural background they appeared in.
First it will try to show how Skinners concept of ‘verbal behavior’ with respect to language acquisition emerged in the development of behaviouristic theories. This will be followed by Chomsky’s criticism of Skinner’s ideas, leading to his own theory of language and language acquisition, which will be presented. Jean Piaget offers a cognitive approach to the question. His view will be described before comparing nativist and cognitivist ideas, concerning the points whether or not innate structures exist and in how far linguistic and cognitive development are interrelated, taking the opposed views of Piaget and Chomsky, the forerunners of many other important linguists, as an example.

II. B.F. Skinners behaviouristic approach

a Behaviorism

The term “Behaviorism” was coined by John B. Watson (1913), who based his research on Ivan Pawlow’s findings concerning classical conditioning. Behaviourism is concerned with the objective and observable components of human behaviour and how it can be caused or changed. The overall aim of Behaviourism is to discover laws, which rule the relationship between stimuli and specific responses (reactions), taking into account resulting consequences. (Lefrancois, p.15, 17) According to behaviourist theories, learning is a change of behaviour induced by experience. (Lefrancois, p.30)
The most famous example of Classical Conditioning is ‘Ivan Pawlow’s dog’. Pawlow found out that some dogs in his laboratory did not only secrete saliva when they were fed, but that they started to do so even a bit earlier. In his following experiments, Watson showed that not only seeing the food caused secretion but also certain other stimuli, like a ringing bell, can have the same effect, if the incidents co-occurred often enough.
In these experiments, the food is the ‘unconditioned stimulus’ and the original ‘response’ was secretion. This reaction is natural, ‘unconditioned’, and therefore has not to be learned. If a bell is rang while feeding, as a ‘conditioned stimulus’, this bell alone can cause the dog to secrete saliva after a certain time, this being now a ‘conditioned response’. This way of learning is called ‘learning by stimulus substitution’. (Lefrancois, p.17f)

[...]