Transcript nature or nurture?

NATURE OR NURTURE?
First language acquisition theories
Behaviourism
Watson, Pavlov and Skinner
Tabula rasa
Focus on
observable behaviour
role of the environment
Imitation and practice
Pavlov and classical conditioning
Developing unconditioned responses
through stimulus–response-reinforcement
Skinner: operant conditioning
We are goverened by the consequences
of our actions
Behaviouristic pedagogy
Objections
 1. "What children say"
Jean Berko (1958):
wug-wugs, gling-glinged-glang
wented, taked, mices, mouses, sheeps
ett, kenyért, lót, tégem
> Analogous thinking
 2. "What children don't say"
McNeill (1966):
CHILD: Nobody don't like me.
MUM: No, say "nobody likes me".
CHILD: Nobody don't like me.
(eight repetitions of this dialogue)
MUM: No, now listen carefully, say "nobody likes me".
CHILD: Oh! Nobody don't likes me.
> Inability to imitate
Nativism/Innatism
Chomsky: genetic pre-programming
Based on
1. the Argument from the Poverty of the
Stimulus
2. evidence of rule governed language
generation
LAD, language universals
Example: SVO components in sentences
- 75% of the world's languages:
SVO (English, French, Vietnamese) or
SOV (Japanese, Tibetan, Korean)
- 10 - 15% VSO ( Welsh) or VOS (Malagasy)
- 10-15% free word order (Latin, Hungarian),
but SOV common: Márta tortát evett.
„Setting the parameters” – matching UG to particular
language
Criticism of Chomsky
1. Competence – performance
- Performance igored
- Competence judged on the basis of intuitions?
2. Core grammar – peripheral grammar
- focus on core grammar(?) only
?We was there. I ain’t no fool.
3. Syntax vs. semantics
- Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
- My mother, he no like bananas.
4. Ignoring meaning, function, context
- situation for child FLA
Functionalism
 Focus on imput: Interaction vs. exposure
 Bruner’s Language Acquisition Support System
(LASS)
- parents communicate
in ritualistic scenarios
- easily comprehensible
and predictable language
- emotionally charged
situations
- repetition of acts
and language
Findings from motherese
Not so partial and ungrammatical as suggested by
Chomsky
a large number of WH forms
However
 No close correlation between motherese and
child speech
 Not all social groups adapt speech to young
children
 Children do not simply repeat the language they
hear from their caretakers.
 They also produce
utterances that they
have never heard.
Eszel tégem?
Mummy sock.
 Motherese: focus on meaning, not on grammar
Child : Mamma isn't boy, he a girl.
Mother : That's right.
Child : And Walt Disney comes on Tuesday.
Mother : No he does not.
 Children’s mistakes not random errors - own
grammar.
INTERLANGUAGE
Negation sequence of Englishspeaking children
1. No and Not appear as single word sentences.
2. Two-word (pivot) sentences: No car, Not gone
3. Negative words used within constructions:
You no do that, Mummy
4. Negative auxiliaries appear: Won't, can't
5. Not replaces no. Double negatives
6. Any, hardly, scarcely during early years of
school.
Connectionism
Focus on neuro-programming: neurons,
synapses, wiring, circuits
Where does language reside in the brain?
Is there a LAD?
Answer from neurology
- Lateralisation
- Left hemisphere:
language and logical functions
Aphasia studies
 Paul Broca 1861: „Tan”
 Broca’s aphasia: inability to form correct
sentences, patient is aware of difficulty
 Broca’s area: responsible for grammatical
structuring
 Carl Wernicke, 1874: Wernicke’s area
 Wernicke’s aphasia: grammatical correctness,
semantically meaningless utterances, unaware
of problem
Relation between Broca’s and Wernicke’s
areas
Phases of development
Before birth: neurons,
wiring for life functions
0/1: "biological exhuberance„
neurons connect in response
to environmental impulses
Language:
- vocal map of L1 is formed
1/10: flexible synapses, easily formed
Language:
- sensorimotor connections flexible (no
accent!)
- vocab.learnt through repeated
exposure and interaction
After 10: "pruning"
Language: fixed synapses
Our language learning ability is
time limited: Critical period in FLA
Evidence
- Feral kids
- Deaf speakers
and signers
- Aphasia studies
GENETICALLY PROVIDED BRAIN
POTENTIAL
RICH ENVIRONMENT
RICH BRAIN
"Experts now agree that a baby does not
come into the world as a genetically
preprogrammed automaton or a blank
slate at the mercy of the environment ...
Learning happens by the interaction of the
genes and the environment.„ (S. Begley)
Conclusion
Language learning, a unique human
capacity: neurological basis
Genetic programme + environment
Learning capacity limited by time (CPH)
Loss of unconnected neurons and unused
synapses
Also influenced by personality factors