Chapter10LanguageAcquisition.doc

Chapter 10 Language Acquisition Language acquisition refers to the child抯 acquisition of his mother tongue, i.e. how the child comes to understand and speak the language of his community. Theories of child language acquisition A behaviorist view of language acquisition 行为主义论 Habit-forming Imitation, practice ( preliminary Discrimination, generalization ( key to language development Burrhus Frederick Skinner (1904-1990) American psychologist. A leading behaviorist, Skinner influenced the fields of psychology and education with his theories of stimulus-response behavior. His books include Walden Two (1961) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971). Only some regular and routine aspects of language An innatist view of language acquisition 语言天赋论 Noam Chomsky: biologically programmed Language Acquisition Device ( LAD Principles be activated by the access to natural language samples ( Universal Grammar (UG) One language: particular use of the principles Logical problem: children can discover the underlying rules with confusing information and without guidance and correction An interactionist view of language acquisition 身心交感论 The complex interplay between the human characteristics of the child and environment in which the child develops. Special speech: motherese, child directed speech, caretaker talk. Comprehensible language samples: right level conversation can facilitate FLA In addition to the 搈otherese?or 揷aretaker talk? parents provide children with direct linguistic training by c (19orrecting ill-formed utterances, i.e. to offer 揻eedback?and “recasts”. Such recasts provide the children with potentially useful information ?adding a missing verb, changing the form of a pronoun and so on. e语言习得 语言学中指儿童如何掌握本族语的过程。这问题涉及语言是天生就有的，还是后天获得的。行为主义心理学认为语言习得过程就是刺激和强化的过程，主张后天说。认知心理学认为语语言能力是天生的，主张先天说。先天说的代表任务乔姆斯基认为有如下特点：（1）儿童生来就有特殊的语言能力；（2）儿童无需教语言，也无需改正他们的言语错误；（3）他们通过接触语言学语言；（4）他们的语言规则是无意识发展起来的。语言习得研究一般从出生 后开始，按年龄或月龄分“习得阶段”，并就每一阶段探讨儿童获得语言技能之途径及方式。 Language en