Psycholinguistics: How People Understand & Produce Language - Essay Sample

Introduction

Psycholinguistics is the discipline that describes psychological processes that make it possible for people to apply and use language. Research on speech acquisition and development is conducted by psycholinguists, who document how people comprehend and produce language. Psycholinguistics also documents how children acquire knowledge of the language and how they use it. The theoretical controversies over language acquisition propagate that language is a process of imitation and reinforcements. Children learn language from the utterances they hear in their environment. Their language is strengthened by repetitions and reinforcement from parents or those around them.

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Psycholinguistic Theories of Language Acquisition

The earliest theories about language acquisition proposed that young children acquired language through imitation. Whereas there is substantial evidence that suggests children who imitate actions learn the language faster, there is also evidence that imitation only cannot be used to explain language acquisition in children as language involves practice to perfect it. The following essay confers three major theories of language acquisition and the ones that introduced them. The documentation also includes studies carried out to strengthen the arguments of the theories.

Behavioral Theory

The theory of behaviorism is one of the earliest explanations of language acquisition. B. F. Skinner is one of the pioneers of behaviorism who states that language development occurs through environmental influence. Behavioral theory is a learning theory that asserts children acquire language much like the way they learn how to count, through repetition and reinforcements. Praising a child for correct language use reinforces their language speaking. According to behavioral theorists, language is a learned behavior like any other actions. Behavior theory argues that behavior is influenced by positive and negative reinforcement. According to behaviorists, the need to use language is stimulated, and language is conveyed in response to stimuli. Behaviorists assert that competency in the rules of language is not as important, and only speaking is what makes language real. Behaviorists argue that a language-rich environment helps children in language acquisition.

Psychologist B. F. Skinner, a psychologist, gave detailed accounts of learning and language. He conducted experiments and developed the term operant conditioning, which asserts that behavior that results from positive consequences is likely to be repeated, whereas behavior that results from negative consequences will be halted. Skinner did not emphasize foundations of language learning and based his assumptions on infant-caregiver interaction (McLaughlin, 2010). Skinner believed that children imitated language models from parents, and when it is reinforced, it is repeated. For instance, when a child says milk and the parent responds with a smile, the acquisition of the word milk is reinforced by the parent's smiling stimulus. When a child uses the wrong language, with negative reinforcement, it conditions the child to use the correct language form. Some theorists such as Noam Chomsky disputed the behavioral theory stating a child cannot be taught or imitate novel sentences. Another criticism is that parents may positively reinforce errors in children.

Nativist Theory

Nativist linguistic theory posits that children acquire language through their innate ability to organize the laws of language. However, children cannot organize language without the presence of other humans. The nativist theory also claims that languages have a similar underlying structure. This is the primary reason why children are universally able to organize the rules of language. The nativist theory posits that we are born with an ingrained capacity to program language where language is thought to have a finite number of rules from which we can build infinite phrases. The theory compares minds to math, regardless of how we think of numbers, math is universally the same. Children organize language according to a set of rules to develop meaning. For instance, instead of saying, "Cookies I want," children learn to say, "I want cookies."

Noam Chomsky is the most influential linguist to make substantial claims on language acquisition. He coined the idea of universal grammar, which asserts that we are born with certain rules about language (McLaughlin, 2010). One of these rules borders on the ease with which children acquire their mother tongue. Chomsky argues that it would be virtually impossible for children to learn language the same way they learn math. He supports this argument with the assumption that children are exposed to little correctly formed language. When people speak, they interrupt themselves or change how they deliver language, yet children comprehend language all the same. Children do not simply copy language they hear; they deduct rules from it, which they can later use to form phrases. The children learn grammar that they can use to produce infinite sentences.

Social-Interactionist Theory

The interactionist theory posits that language is not innate but develops through negotiating with the environment. The environment influences the full potential of language acquisition, where children learn the language out of a desire to communicate with the world around them. The interactionist approach recognizes that children have a genetic predisposition for language acquisition. Language is, however, a process of development that is influenced by adults and other people in the environment. The interactionist perspective posits that children learn language through scaffolding. The adults will teach children certain things by pointing at them and calling out their names. When a child later calls out something by its wrong name, then the adult will correct the child's language by telling them the correct name. The interactionist perspective also involves adults changing their language to accommodate learning in children, which is commonly referred to as motherese or caregiver talk.

Lev Vygotsky is the most influential social interaction theorist. He stressed that the community plays a critical role in making meaning. In the interactionist environment, the speaker and listener of language exist in the same environment where feedback is possible. The interactionist perspective is bound by culture and environment, making its scope not universal. Language is not universal but context and time-bound. According to the interactionist theory, comprehension and not grammar is the primary concern in early childhood development. Vygotsky's approach disputes Chomsky's view emphasizing that mere absorption of words leads to formulation of incomprehensible phrases. The environment is needed to guide children's application of language. The environment in which a child grows heavily affects language acquisition; for instance, a child raised by a single mother will more likely learn the word "mama" and slow to learn the name "dada." Language classes often use the interactionist perspective where vocabulary is used to formulate sentences and engaging conversations instead of simple word memorization.

Present Studies Used to Strengthen Arguments for the Theories Introduced

Behavioral Theory

Skinner coined the term operant conditioning, which asserts that behavior is determined by consequences in the form of reinforcements or punishments. Skinner believed in a scientific approach to study behavior and not reliance on subjective mental processes. The work of Skinner relied heavily on the works of John B. Watson who believed language is a manipulative habit of making sounds, Ivan Pavlov who coined operant condition which entailed learning through conditioning, and Edward Thorndike who stated that learning is a result of habits strengthened by the nature and frequency of their application in the environment. Skinner conducted experiments on how behavior can be shaped with positive or negative reinforcement. Skinner used the concept of shaping to emphasize his theory of language learning. He asserted that the environment gently shapes learning behavior.

With the advent influence of the environment on a child's language, this supports the importance of behavioral theory. Present studies investigate the application of speech therapy on language acquisition. In speech therapy, children with speech difficulties are assisted by speech modeling. Sound is modeled to teach young people, the formation of sound so that they can do it themselves. Application of reinforcement can also be in a manner that it positively boosts correct pronunciation. Imitation therapy is also a recent development and is used to make children aware of their speaking volume and rate.

Nativist Theory

The nativist theories include a set of arguments that contend developmental processes, including language, are innate and hardwired at birth. The theories inform beliefs about language acquisition in children (Litchfield & Lambert, 2011). Nativist theories arose as disputes to the theory of behaviorism. The nativist theorists argued that language is not entirely reliant on the environment and reinforcement. They proposed that children possess genetic makeup that is universal and helps them in language acquisition. The nativist theorists, the likes of Noam Chomsky, asserted that children possess the ability to organize the rules of language to form meaningful phrases (Mehpour & Forutan, 2015).

Recent investigations into the nativist theory confer with the notion that children have a genetic makeup predisposed to learning the language. According to various research, children make novel utterances where they produce sounds; they have never heard, which suggests that they are generating language anew rather than through imitation. Another supporting element of the nativist theory is the use of pidgins. There is evidence that deaf children without the support of American Sign Language developed a sign-language named "homesign" that was comparable to spoken language. This development suggests that children have a predisposition to create language. Studies in cognitive neuroscience posit that innateness is acquired through cortical areas in the brain responsible for language acquisition.

Social Interactionist Theory

The social interactionist perspective contrasts Jean Piaget's theory, which asserts development precedes learning. The interactionist perspective, according to Vygotsky, social learning preceded learning. Vygotsky asserts that culture influences child development and that language learning occurs first in the social level between people and later on the individual level inside a child. Vygotsky developed the term 'zone of proximal development (ZPD), which is the distance between a child's ability to perform a task under adult guidance or peer support and the ability to work independently (Murphy, Scantlebury & Milne, 2015). Vygotsky asserted that learning occurred in this zone.

Present studies apply Vygotsky's social interactionist theory in learning among students. Vygotsky's take on environmental influence as the catalyst for learning puts students' interactions with teachers as facilitating learning. Learning becomes a reciprocal experience of students' interactions with teachers in the most recent advances in investigating language acquisition border on the interactionist perspective. Researchers conduct studies on how children learn to talk, taking into account the contributions of nature to functional language systems (Cicourel, 2017). Language learning is viewed as an integration of learning in both environment and genetic domains.

Daily Teaching Plan

Speaking is a process of building meaning through the use and sharing of verbal and non-verbal s...