5 Language development – Nativist and behaviourist perspectives

K Arockia Maraichelvi

The previous module on cognitive development that focussed on Piaget’s cognitive theory and Information Processing had made you understand how a child could make sense of this incredible, multifaceted world. However, the organization of the thinking process has to get manifested towards the expression of knowledge, which would be made possible only through the development of language. This module gives you an insight of the development of language in young children and presents the strategies of fostering the same.

1. OBJECTIVES

This module would facilitate you

To know the meaning and concept of language and its components.
To understand the theoretical framework underpinning language development.
To apprehend the process of language acquisition and comprehend its milestones and
To realize the teacher’s role in fostering language development among young children

2. LANGUAGE – MEANING, DEFINITION, AND CONCEPT

Many of us speak more than one language. But, what makes a language? How is it expressed? To put in simple terms ‘language is a system that relates sounds or gestures to meaning’ and language is expressed through speech, writing, and signals. However, to understand the term language better, there is an important aspect to ponder upon – communication

2.1 How do you communicate successfully?

An individual communicates successfully because he/she can do at least four different things

First – The ability to perceive and produce sounds that make up a language and form new words that convey meaning to other people.
Second – The ability to understand the meaning of the formed words
Third – Capacity to put these words together in grammatically appropriate ways so that others understand it.
Fourth – The ability to use language to communicate with others.

These four skills seem to be a usual process of how we communicate. But psychologists who study the language acquisition refer to each of these processes by different names

First – The ability to perceive and produce meaningful sounds – Phonology & Formation of new words – Morphology.
Second – The ability to understand the meaning of the formed words – Semantics
Third – Capacity to put these words together in grammatically appropriate ways – Grammar/syntax.
Fourth – The ability to use language to communicate with others – Pragmatics. Therefore the four components of language namely phonology & morphology, semantics, grammar/syntax and pragmatics helps you to communicate successfully. Let us look into some examples to understand each of the components better.

Morphology – Making new word from a known word

Eg. From the known word ‘Happy’ you can make new words like ‘Unhappy,’ ‘Happiest,’ ‘Happiness,’ ‘Unhappiest.’

Semantics – Understanding what does a word mean?

Eg. Understanding the utterance ‘Doggie’ only for dogs and not for cats

Syntax/Grammar – It is how we put words together to convey meaning

Eg. ‘We will discuss violence on TV.’ This statement delivers two different meaning based on how we put the words together

Pragmatics – It is the word combinations we use in certain social situations

Eg. ‘Excuse me’ & ‘Get out of my way.’

As we are focussing on the development during early years, we must facilitate children to learn language through the below mentioned four steps.

1. Understand the differences in speech sounds and find out how to produce them.

2. Learn the meaning of words

3. Follow the rules to combine them into sentences

4. Learn effective ways of communicating with others.

Though these steps in developing language seem to be very simple and routine process, it is amazing to know how the children do it. Several theories attempted to explain the same. But before trying to understand the theories of language let us try to answer this question from our view point.

Is language a biologically determined behaviour or is it an innate, learned behaviour?

Now, justify your answer with the following clues provided by Eric Lenneberg. He had arrived at a set of criteria for identifying whether a trait/a process/a behaviour is a biologically determined one. The clues are

The behaviour emerges before it seems necessary.
Its appearance is not the result of a conscious decision.
Its emergence is not triggered by external events (though the surrounding environment must be sufficiently rich for it to develop adequately).
Direct teaching and intensive practice have relatively little effect.
There is a regular sequence of “milestones” as the behaviour develops, and these can usually be correlated with age and other aspects of development.
There is likely to be a critical period.

If yes is the answer for all the clues then language is said to be a biologically determined behaviour. But for sure, some of the clues do have ‘No’ as an answer and few with both ‘Yes and No.’ Then, how do you conclude?

3. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

To arrive at a reply let us understand and develop an insight into the three top perspectives in the theories of language development. The three aspects are

1. Behaviourist perspective

2. Nativist perspective

3. Interactionist perspective

3.1 Behaviourist Perspective

The process of language acquisition is explained by the principles of learning such as conditioning, and observational learning is termed as behaviourism. Two theorists namely B.F.Skinner (Operant conditioning) and Bandura (Observational learning/Imitation) explained language acquisition as per behaviourist perspective.

3.1.1 Skinner’s Perspective

Consider this example.

‘A 12-month-old baby often babbles book-a-book-a dook-a dook- a nook- a book –aaa…. Coincidently the mother holds a picture book in front of the baby while he babbled the same for which the mother smiles, hugs and speaks in return. This reinforcement now aids the baby to say ‘book- aaa’ in the presence of books.

As an outcome of this example, Skinner concluded that children learn the language as they are selectively rewarded for sounds/behaviours that are considered as appropriate or correct utterances.

3.1.2 Bandura’s Perspective

Bandura, also a behaviourist explained language development and its acquisition by young children as initiated by imitation which then later combines with reinforcement for fostering language learned. In other words, children tend to overhear language being used by others, and they try to imitate the same.

For example, a parent when repeatedly asks a child to say ‘I want the biscuit,’ the child overhears and resembles the language and puts it in its own words as ‘Wanna Biscuit.’ The parent praises and treats the child with a biscuit after the needed response which in turn reinforces the child to use the same utterance again and again.

3.1.3 Supporting Pieces of evidence for Behaviourism

Behaviourist’s believe that all learning is acquired step-by-step, through associations and reinforcements
According to this view, the reinforcement of the quantity and quality of talking to child affect rate of language development.
When a six month-old says, “ma-ma-ma” they are showered with attention and praise. This is exactly what the baby wants and will make the sounds again to get the same rewards.

The finding of research conducted by Tamis-Le Monda et al.,(2001) further supports behaviourism. The study had concluded that the percentage of toddlers knowing at least 50 words is on the rise for toddlers of highly responsive mothers in comparison with little sensitive mothers.

Though Skinners’s and Bandura’s perspective explains how reinforcement and imitation contribute to early language learning, there are certain flaws as their assumptions do not tell the whole story.

3.1.4 Flaws of Behaviourism

The major flaws of behaviourism in language development are as follows

Children produce many sounds/words/sentences that are never uttered by adults. For example, ‘I want a biscuit,’ is the phrase uttered by an adult. If only imitation helps in fostering language, then the child is expected to say it in the same way, but the other way happened. The child responds as ‘wanna biscuit.’
Children make consistent errors (though not attributed to mispronunciation) and produce words that are not ever heard in the adult language.
Moreover, the children seem to continue to produce incorrect utterances despite being corrected several times.

3.2 Nativist Perspective

Noam Chomsky(1957) was the first one to recognize that language learning is the wholesome responsibility of the child himself/herself. He proposed that language is the product of an unlearned, biologically based, internal mental structure. This innate mental structure is termed as LAD (Language Acquisition Device) by Chomsky.

3.2.1 Characteristics of LAD as proposed by Chomsky

LAD contains a set of features common to all languages which he termed as Universal grammar. Universal grammar refers to the entire set of rules or linguistic parameters which specify all possible human languages.
LAD allows children to combine the words learned to form grammatically consistent sentences at an early age

3.2.2 Supporting Pieces of evidence for Nativism

The significant milestones of language development have seen a similar sequence in young children from any part of the world.
The rules that underlie a language are too complex to be acquired by children in their early years. However, children do learn it which concludes that certain aspects of language are innately specified.
If an adult deliberately says a grammatically incorrect sentence, the child would notice.
Children often say things that are ungrammatical such as ‘mama ball,’ which they cannot have learned passively.
Mistakes such as ‘I drawed’ instead of ‘I drew’ show they are not learning through imitation alone.

3.2.3 Falls of Nativism

Linguists have failed to specify the nature of universal grammar. Many linguists have speculated that this may not be possible.
There is little neurological evidence to support the existence of a biologically-based LAD.
Children first word combinations like ‘biscuit give’ instead of ‘give biscuit’ reveals no grammatical rules followed by them as proposed by Chomsky.
The well-known fact that children are mastering the language usage happens as a gradual and steady process and it is not of a sudden innately determined process.

3.3 Interactionist Perceptive

Interactionist theories of language development appraise the interplay between environmental and biological factors in the process of language acquisition. Interactionists accept the fact that children have a strong biological predisposition to acquire a language. However, they differ from nativists assumption in providing strong evidence that the social support provided by the parents of a young language learner and the social context in which language learning child is instructed as important as a biological predisposition.

3.3.1 Bruner’s perspective.

Bruner, an Interactionist proposed that parents provide their children a language acquisition support system or LASS.

LASS is a collection of strategies that parents employ to facilitate their children’s acquisition of language. Few major strategies of facilitating young children in learning language are

Scaffolding – the parents deliberately use language at a level that is slightly beyond what children can comprehend. With this support, the child acquires complex language more quickly than they might on their own

Infant- directed speech or motherese – it refers to the pattern of speaking wherein parents talking in a higher pitch, stress important words and talk more slowly to their infants. This method grabs a young child’s attention and increases the chances of their understanding the message.

Expansion and recast – this is a paired technique language support system. It occurs when an adult takes a child’s utterance and expands on its complexity

For example when a child utters a wrong sentence ‘Sara eaten,’ the parent expands the complexity, adding ‘Yes that’s right, Sara ate her dinner.’ In this example the parent recasts the child’s utterances, as well they correct the grammar of it.

In sum, each of the three theoretical perspectives namely Behaviourism, Nativism and Interactionism adds valuable insight to the study of human language as follows

Behaviourism provides some thoughts on plausible mechanisms that underlie the acquisition of few facets of human language.
Nativism highlights that an innate language mechanism serves as a part of our brain that facilitates the learning of a language in a time that children can typically do.
Interactionism focuses the key role of the social environment and the importance of social input in structuring the learning of language.

3.4 HOW DOES YOUNG CHILDREN GET READY TO TALK

In congruence with the above-said theories, young children prepare for language in many ways before uttering the first word. Let us discuss the stages of language acquisition in two major heads

1. First two years

2. Two years to six years

3.4.1 First two years

The milestones to be accomplished in the first two years of life in the language domain are discussed in the following heads

3.4.1.1 Cooing and babbling

Making vowel like noises called cooing begins by two months. Gradually consonants are added and around 6 months babbling appears. Babbling is the sound made by infants while repeating consonant-vowel combinations in long strings, such as ‘babababababa’ or ‘nananananana’. Around seven months babbling starts to include sounds of mature spoken languages. Through babbling, babies experiment different sounds and later blends it into their first words.

3.4.1.2 First words

Children’s first word usually refers to objects that move (such as car, ball, cat), familiar actions (bye-bye, more) or outcomes of familiar actions (dirty, hot, wet). While learning a new word, every infant does not use it the right way as adults do. Hence two errors are commonly found among the infants in using words. They are

1. Under extension – when the toddler applies a learned word too narrowly, the error is referred as under extension.

For example, a baby uses the word ‘doll’ only for the worn and tattered doll that she carried around with her much of the day.

2. Overextension – when the toddler applies a learned word to a wider collection of objects and events For example the word ‘car’ is used for even buses, trains, trucks, etc.

3.4.1.3 The two-word utterance phase

The two-word utterance phase is called as telegraphic speech because the toddlers speak just as given in telegram. They leave out smaller and less significant words. Some of the two-word utterances are ‘give biscuit,’ ‘daddy outside,’ ‘more milk’ etc.

3.4.1.4 Comprehension versus Production

Language production – the words and word combinations that children can say is language production

Language comprehension – the words that the child could actually understand is called language comprehension.

At all ages’ comprehension develops ahead of production. Comprehension needs only to recognize the meaning of the word, while production demands that they should pronounce by recalling the word from their memories and recognizing its meaning.

3.4.2 Two to six years

The cognitive development facilitates language development. In turn, language helps the children to express a broad range of cognitive skills. Between 2-6 years the language development is remarkable. The following section details the language development in certain aspects like pronunciation, vocabulary development, grammatical development, forming sentences and becoming an effective conversationalist

3.4.2.1 Pronunciation

Certain sounds and sound combinations such as ‘z,w, d, s’ and ‘st, str, dr, fl’ respectively are very difficult to pronounce at this age. Constant listening to such words can only help in pronouncing it rightly

3.4.2.2 Vocabulary development

By the age of two a vocabulary of 200 words could be observed. But by age 6 these children would know about 14,000 words. This tremendous improvement in vocabulary happens through a process called fast mapping.

Fast mapping – connecting a new word with an underlying concept after only a brief encounter is called false mapping.

Also, preschoolers learn the meaning of new words by a special rule called the principle of contrast

The principle of contrast – it is a principle used by young children to find the meaning of a new word by comparing it with word meanings that they already know. For example, the child saying plant-man in place of gardener.

Preschoolers also extend language meanings through metaphor.

Metaphors permit children to communicate in a special, memorable way. For example, a child to represent his stomach-ache says ‘fire engine in my tummy.’ 3.4.2.3 Grammatical development

Grammar is the way the words are combined to form meaningful sentences. By 2-3 years, English speaking children use simple sentences in the subject-verb-object word order. Later they add’ s’ to plural words, add prepositions (‘in,”on’etc.). By the age of three and a half, children would have mastered the rules of grammar.

However, they apply these rules so consistently that they overextend the rules to exceptional words. This type of error is called over regularization. Eg. ‘My toy car breaked,’ ‘I runned faster’ etc.

Between 3-6 years these children master even more complex grammatical forms but do make certain errors.

3.4.2.4 Forming sentences

By 2-3 years 3-4 word sentences are used. But these sentences are incomplete. After three years the child forms 6-8 word sentences containing all parts of speech.

3.4.2.5 Becoming an effective conversationalist

As and when the children acquire vocabulary and grammar rules, they also learn to use language in social contexts. The practical, social side of language that helps to converse with others effectively is called pragmatics. The young children during their preschool years make considerable improvement in mastering pragmatics.

3.5 FACTORS INFLUENCING LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

The key factors involved are

Intelligence – More intelligent the child, better is their language development.

Type of discipline – Children growing up under permissive disciplinary technique talk more than children brought up by authoritarian disciplinary technique.

Ordinal position – First born talk faster as parents give more attention and have more time to talk to them

Family size – Bigger the size of family, the child, has more people to talk to and could develop language at a faster rate

Socioeconomic status – The children born in upper and middle-class families are more exposed to organized activities, and hence their language is faster than lower-class families.

Bilingualism – Children exposed to two or more languages at a time could talk at a faster rate.

Sex-role typing – Boys are expected to talk less than girls. Also, boys are supposed to talk matters that boast and criticise others.

3.6 ROLE OF TEACHERS IN FOSTERING LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

After realizing the theoretical inputs of language acquisition of children in 0-6 years, recognizing its milestones, and understanding the factors influencing the same, a teacher/facilitator should apprehend their role in fostering effective language learning in a young child. Researchers had found that early childhood teachers can play a crucial role in promoting young children’s emerging language skills when they

Value their role in children’s language development

Children learn many important things from them as they look at the teacher as a role model
Read with children as it is enjoyable, a time to feel close and a special time to share

Regularly engage children in language enhancing activities

Expose children learn new word, colours, names from books
Foster children to become better talkers and listeners
Understand that children are never too young to know about books

Organize the class room to support language

Plan regular time during the day to read to children
Display lots of books to read
Provide a quiet place for reading
Allow children to read on their own

Actively engage parents in the school

Seek parents help in the classroom
Involve parents as guest speakers/advisory or parent board
Converse with parents to form a strong partnership

Are themselves role models for literary

Personally, enjoy reading
Spend more time in reading
Have good memories of being read to as a child.

3.7 CONCLUSION

To sum up, hope this module had given you an in-depth insight into the four broad components of language and the way it has been used in day-to-day communication without much effort. This to be effortless language learning being supported by behaviourism and nativism does conclude that active learning of language is both to the social support and the social context the child is provided with (Interactionism). Also, this module elaborates the process of language learning concerning the milestones proposed for children of 0-6 years. However, the most important part of the module focuses on the role of early childhood teachers in fostering the language acquisition of every child.

you can view video on Language development – Nativist and behaviourist perspectives

Web links

raisingchildren.net.au/articles/language_development.html
https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/language_development/
www.parents.com › … › 9 Ways to Help Your Child’s Language Development