文档介绍：Language Development
Theories of Language Development
Introduction
Three Domains of Language Development: Syntax, Semantics, & Pragmatics
Three Theories of Language Development
1. Learning Theory
2. Nativist Theory
3. Interactionist Theories
Introduction
When municate essfully, we do so because we are able to do at least four different things.
First, we need to be able to perceive and produce the sounds that make up a language and convey meanings to other people.
Second, we need to know what the words of a language mean.
Third, we need to know how to put these words together in grammatically appropriate ways such that others will understand us.
Fourth, we need to know how to effectively use our language municate with others.
Psychologists who study language refer to each of these processes by different names.
How we produce meaningful sounds is the study of phonology.
Semantics is the study of word meaning and how we acquire a vocabulary.
The study of grammar (or syntax) refers to how we learn the rules of a language.
Pragmatics is the study of how we use language to municative goals.
Theories of Language Development
1. Learning Theory
Accounts of language development which emphasize that language acquisition can be explained using the principles of learning such as classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning.
Skinner argued that children learn language as parents selectively reward or punish only those behaviors which they recognize as appropriate, grammatically correct utterances.
Bandura argued that language learning takes place primarily by processes of observation & imitation. Simply put, children overhear language being used and they imitate the behavior of these models.
Learning theory has been criticized on a number of counts.
It is simply not possible for parents to reinforce or punish all of the possible utterances a child will use.
Studies of parent-child interaction show that parents reward grammatical