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language acquisition device

noun Psycholinguistics.
a hypothesized innate mental faculty present in infants that enables them to construct and internalize the grammar of their native language on the basis of the limited and fragmentary language input to which they are exposed. Abbreviation: LAD

Language Acquisition Device


The Language Acquisition Device, or LAD, is part of homs!y"s acquisition hypothesis. The LAD is a system of principles that children are born with that helps them learn language, and accounts for the order in which children learn structures, and the mista!es they ma!e as they learn. #econd language learning theory proposes that acquisition is possible in second and subsequent languages, and that learning programmes have to create the conditions for it. Example $ne piece of evidence for the existence of a LAD is the fact that physical areas of the brain concerned with production and comprehension have been identified. In the classroom The belief that acquisition is possible lies at the heart of any method that involves engaging the learner in natural communication and authentic input, these include tas!%based learning, L&L, and some story% and activity%based programmes.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)


Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence by Jill De Villiers !h"D" #mith College

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Learning theorists argue that the environments of young children everywhere are supportive of learning. All young children are surrounded by speech from the beginning: parents and others address remar s to babies! respond to their vocali"ations and heap praise on their earliest attempts to say words. #eople ad$ust their own speech to accommodate the young child%s needs! simplifying their vocabulary! shortening their sentences! and tal ing about the here&and&now! usually in a special speech 'register.' (his motherese or parentese that cues the child that this is tal meant for the child%s ears.

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(here are some theorists who argue that this environmental support gives the child everything necessary to 'figure out' the rules of language. /n other words! the child is li e a miniature linguist! collecting evidence to decide among hypotheses about the grammar. 1ut mathematical linguists have determined that any set of sentences is compatible with an infinite set of possible grammars. /n 1789 a startling proof showed that human language is unlearnable in a finite amount of time: there are too many potential rule systems that could have generated the set of sentences a learner has heard at any one time. :ne solution is to argue that the child receives accurate corrective feedbac about his hypotheses. ;nder this ind of condition! language would be learnable in a finite time. 1ut evidence for reliable and consistent corrective feedbac in the average child%s environment is very wea . ,hen it comes to grammar! most parents notice only the superficial mista es made by their children! and these only when the child is 'old enough to now better!' e.g.! saying foots or comed when in grade school. #arents do provide some feedbac about the clarity or truth of their children%s sentences! but studies reveal that adults do not provide reliable feedbac on the grammaticality of children%s sentences. .xplicit correction seems to be too rarely and inconsistently used to 'train' the child to spea grammatically. (he alternative solution is to claim that the child has some preconceived ideas! or innate nowledge. Learning language is possible in a finite amount of time if the learner already nows the range of possibilities existing in universal grammar. Linguistic approaches to language ac<uisition assume that some nowledge about language is built into the human child. Linguistic theory states that languages are deeply similar in ways that have only $ust begun to be uncovered. All languages seem to ma e use of the same small inventory of categories for the construction of sentences: noun phrases! verb phrases! sentences! and the li e. /n addition! there are principles that seem to be universal and which constrain the forms that sentences can ta e. -urrently many people are persuaded that these facts might be part of the assumptions that the child brings to the language ac<uisition tas . (he child may in fact ' now' that sentences are built from the abstract categories! and now in advance the principles that dictate that the rules are going to have a limited range of possible forms. (hese central ideas were introduced by Noam -homs y in 178= and have motivated much wor on language development. -homs y proposed that children are born with a Language Ac<uisition +evice >LA+? that contains hypotheses that guide their language learning. (o demonstrate the subtlety of the abstract principles on which these arguments depend! consider the following short story:

:nce there was a boy who loved climbing trees in the forest. :ne afternoon he slipped and fell to the ground. 2e pic ed himself up and went home. (hat night when he had a bath! he saw a big bruise on his arm. 2e said to his dad! '/ must have hurt myself when / fell this afternoon.' Now comes the <uestion: a? ,hen did the boy say he hurt himself3 Notice there are two possible answers! either to when he said it! or to when he hurt himself. (hat is! the 'when' <uestion could be connected to the 'say' or to 'hurt.' 0esearch shows that three&year&olds also allow both answers: sometimes giving one! sometimes the other. 1ut now consider the subtle variant: b? ,hen did the boy say how he hurt himself3 5uddenly! the ambiguity is gone! and only one answer seems right: 'that night in the bath.' (hree&year&olds also only give that answer to b?. (hey seem to now already the constraint that <uestion words may not 'move' over another <uestion word: a constraint that is embedded in universal grammar. )or a learning theory account to be viable! the two&year&old would have to have the ability to sift through evidence of this subtlety to arrive at the appropriate generali"ation. (he problem that then arises is the rarity of such sentences. /n hundreds of hours of recorded conversations between several young children and their caregivers ! there are typically only a couple of do"en examples! and of course never the close contrasting pairs described above. /t does not seem plausible that the child learns the contrasts for himself. /nstead! it is argued! the child is in possession of considerable pre&existing nowledge about the forms that rules can ta e. (here is still considerable scope for learning theories. .ven if the starting point is not a 'blan slate' but a LA+! the child has to learn the meaning of every word in her language: no one has argued that words are innate@ )urthermore! the child has to use the evidence of conversation to ma e a multitude of choices about the rules of her language >and their irregularities?. (he doctrine of innate ideas may have a relatively limited role to play except in defining the boundaries within which learning can ta e place.

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AA)# *a es +eal ,ith -o e )or '.ducational' -ontent /n 0eform 1ill! -omprehensive 1enefits Are /ndispensable Are Nursing 2omes -rying ,olf3 #atient 4isits Are +own *ore (han #hysician 0evenues 2ealthcare /ndustry 2elps 5hape 5enate 0eform 1ill *ore 6 1er o&Aleason! B. (he +evelopment of Language . New Cor : *acmillan! 1773. de 4illiers! #.! and B. de 4illiers. .arly Language. (he +eveloping -hild series. -ambridge! *ass.: 2arvard ;niversity #ress! 17D7.

)letcher! #.! and 1. *ac,hinney. (he 2andboo of -hild Language. -ambridge! *ass.:1lac well #ublishers! 177=. Aoodluc ! 2. Language Ac<uisition: A Linguistic /ntroduction. -ambridge! *ass.: 1lac well #ublishers! 1771. #in er! 5. (he Language /nstinct. New Cor : *orrow! 177E.

Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood & Adolescence. Aale 0esearch! 1779

Language Acquisition Device


The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is a hypothetical brain mechanism that Noam Chomsky postulated to explain human acquisition o the syntactic structure o language! This mechanism endo"s children "ith the capacity to derive the syntactic structure and rules o their native language rapidly and accurately rom the impoverished input provided by adult language users! The device is comprised o a inite set o dimensions along "hich languages vary# "hich are set at di erent levels or di erent languages on the basis o language exposure! The LAD re lects Chomsky$s underlying assumption that many aspects o language are universal (common to all languages and cultures) and constrained by innate core kno"ledge about language called %niversal &rammar! This theoretical account o syntax acquisition contrasts sharply "ith the vie"s o '! (! )kinner# *ean +iaget# and other cognitive and social,learning theorists "ho emphasi-e the role o experience and general kno"ledge and abilities in language acquisition! See also: LAN&%A&. D./.L0+1.NT

Bibliography
Chomsky# Noam! Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge# 1A213T +ress# 4567! Laura L. Namy

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Language acquisition device


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(he Language Acquisition Device >LA+? is a postulated 'organ' of the brain that is supposed to function as a congenital device for learning symbolic language >i.e.!

language ac<uisition?. )irst proposed by Noam -homs y! the LA+ concept is a component of the nativist theory of language. (his theory asserts that humans are born with the instinct or 'innate facility' for ac<uiring language. -homs y has gradually abandoned the LA+ in favour of a parameter&setting model of language ac<uisition >principles and parameters?. -homs y motivated the LA+ hypothesis by what he perceived as intractable complexity of language ac<uisition! citing the notion of 'infinite use of finite means' proposed by ,ilhelm von 2umboldt. At the time it was conceived >17=DG178=?! the LA+ concept was in strict contrast to 1.). 5 inner%s behavioral psychology which emphasi"ed principles of learning theory such as classical and operant conditioning and imitation over biological predisposition. (he interactionist theory of Berome 1runer and Bean #iaget later emphasi"ed the importance of the interaction between biological and social >nature and nurture? aspects of language ac<uisition. -homs y >178=? set out an innate language schema which provides the basis for the childHs ac<uisition of a language. (he ac<uisition process ta es place despite the limited nature of the primary linguistic data >#L+! the input signals received? and the degenerate nature >fre<uent incorrect usage! utterances of partial sentences? of that data. Aiven this poverty of the stimulus! a language ac<uisition model re<uires a number of components. )irstly! the child must have a techni<ue for representing input signals and! secondly! a way of representing structural information about them. (hirdly! there must be some initial delimitation of the class of possible language structure hypotheses. )ourthly! the child re<uires a method for determining what each of these hypotheses implies with respect to each sentence. )inally! an additional method is needed by which the child can select which hypothesis is compatible with the #L+. .<uipped with this endowment! first language learning is explained as performed by a Language Ac<uisition +evice progressing through the following stages: 1. (he device searches the class of language structure hypotheses and selects those compatible with input signals and structural information drawn from the #L+. 2. (he device then tests the compatibility using the nowledge of implications of each hypothesis for the sentences. 3. :ne hypothesis or IgrammarH is selected as being compatible with the #L+. E. (his grammar provides the device with a method of interpreting sentences >by virtue of its capacity for internally representing structural information and applying the grammar to sentences?. (hrough this process the device constructs a theory of the language of which the #L+ are a sample. -homs y argues that in this way! the child comes to now a great deal more than she has IlearnedH! ac<uiring a nowledge of language! which 'goes far beyond the presented primary linguistic data and is in no sense an %inductive generali"ation% from these data.' /n some views of language ac<uisition! the LA+ is thought to become unavailable after a certain age J the critical period hypothesis >i.e.! is sub$ect to maturational constraints?.

$edit% &eferences

-homs y! Noam >178=?. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. */( #ress

Language Acquisition Children learn to speak language in an extraordinarily short period of time after they are born. How is it that language is acquired this quickly?

Stages of language acquisition There are five basic stages of language acquisition:
1.

2.

3. E.

=.

Cooing: Appears at about 6 months or so. All infants coo using all the phonemes from every language. Even congenitally deaf children coo. Babbling: Appears at around 9 months. Infants are starting to selectively use the phonemes from their native language. One-word utterances: At around 12 months, children start using words. Telegraphic speech: Children start making multi-word utterances that lack function words. (about 2 years old) Normal speech: By about 5-6 years of age, children have almost normal speech The Nature-nurture debate

Is the ability to learn language innate, or is it the result of children being exposed to lots of language early on? Nature:
o

Perception for speech sounds is better than perception for other sounds Congenitally deaf children will learn sign language at about the rate that normal children learn spoken language, and will progress through roughly the same stages. Children are not exposed to as rich a variety of speech as they are able to develop. Parts of the brain seem to be specialized for language processing Parts of our physiology (larynx, highly manipulable tongue) seem to have no purpose except to facilitate the use of speech.

Chomskys Language Acquisition Device Chomsky hypothesized that children have a built-in system to aid in the acquisition of language called a language acquisition device. The LAD can be thought of as a system containing a large number of switches that determine the features of the native language.

For example, there would be a switch for describing whether the language is SVO (English), SOV (Japanese), or some other combination. Nurture arguments Critical period: There appears to be a critical period for language acquisition, that corresponds roughly to the time before puberty. After puberty hits, people will never learn a language like a native speaker will. In other words, if youre not exposed to language as a child, you wont acquire it all that well, no matter how predisposed your cognitive system may be to learn it. Models of language acquisition Hypothesis testing: An attempt to integrate nature and nurture. As kids are exposed to language, they form "hypotheses," which are kind of like tentative rules for the language. As these hypotheses are confirmed or disconfirmed, they are modified appropriately. The nature side of the equation provides the biases that guide what features of language kids pay attention to. Imitation: Pretty self-explanatory.

Modeling: Children sound like the adults around them, such as by sharing accents and idioms. Adults use childdirected speech to make themselves easier for children to understand

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