LANGUAGE ACQUISITION:

Hi guys!

In the first post of my blog I wanted to discuss one topic that we saw in class and caught my attention and somehow I found it interesting to develop.
One of the slides prepared by Raquel said that children can bubble any sound, which means that as they grow they eliminate these sounds to get just with the sounds used by their mother tongue. This is quite amazing and I was researching about this topic. 

I have found that this has been one of the issues that caused more controversy throughout the history. There are different theories about this fact:

There were many psychologists who gave an opinion on this. Not everyone had so clear this idea of children born with innate language capabilities and able to bubble any sound. Below you have a list of different psychologists and a short summary of the different theories about this in chronological order:

BEHAVIORAL APPROACH: SKINNER. He did not believe in the innate capacity. He considered the language development depends on the external stimulus. He said that the language are responses that children learn by Operant Conditioning.

NATIVIST APPROACH: CHOMSKY. Chomsky thought that language is generated from innate structures, and his theory is known as “generative grammar” 
Chomsky presented two main ideas: 

    •    Autonomy:  The language development is independent of other functions and other developmental processes. 

          •    Nativism: Chomsky said the language was something innate in all of us because it is something we learn too fast and with too little aids.


COGNITIVE APPROACH: Piaget.
His thoughts were like Chomsky´s but adding a constructivist perspective. He believed that the child needs to experience basic ideas to develop language. He said that the language is equivalent to the intelligence.
                                         

States that language influences entirely on the intelligence of every person because it is the means of acquiring information and transmit information, therefore culture.


SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH: VYGOTSKY
Vygotsky said that language influences entirely on the intelligence of every person because it is the vehicle of acquiring and transmit information and knowledge.

PRAGMATIC APPROACH: Bruner
He said the child acquires language through the magnificent access he has to it, because the language acquisition is socially considered the most important thing. He called ‘external development amplifiers’ to people that allow the child has this great situation of learning, considering the family as the most important.
                                                                                                        

As you can see each of these theories has a different point of view about what is language and how we learn it. 

To finish, I have some questions for you:
What do you think about this? Which of these theories do you think more accurate? Which less? Why?