Nature vs Nurture

• Behaviourism (CORE BELIEF)

  Children learn language by imitation and reward: they simply copy others and when they get it right they are rewarded
• Nativism (CORE BELIEF)

  Children are born ready for language: the brain has built-in systems in place that just need triggering after birth
• Cognitism (CORE BELIEF)

  Children‘s language learning is a matter of building mental ‘maps’ of understanding from new experiences: what their brains have understood, their language use can now follow
• Social Interactionism (CORE BELIEF)

  Children learn language by interaction: others support and guide them in a social context
• Classical conditioning 


  Reactions dictated by past experiences and their interactions (learning by association)
• Unconditioned stimulus


  What the child first experiences to begin associating it to the conditioned stimulus
• Conditioned stimulus


  The association made with the unconditional stimulus which overtakes the original experience
• Operant Conditioning (B.F Skinner)


  Consequences lead to a change in natural behaviour
• Positive reinforcement 


  Rewarding a behaviour which makes the subject more likely to carry out the operant response
• Negative reinforcement 


  Taking something away from the subject to make them more likely to carry out the operant response
• Blank slate metaphor

  Behaviourism
• Hard-wired metaphor

  Nativist
• Virtuous error


  An error made for the right reasons (eg. overgeneralisation/ irregular verbs)
• LAD


  Language acquisition device, the human brains in-born faculty for language learning and working out the systems of grammar and syntax
• Pinker (Original sentences)


  Children sometimes make new sentences they couldn't have ever heard before. (eg. More outside!)
• Lenneberg (Critical period)


  The idea there is a critical period in a child’s development when the LAD must be triggered, otherwise the child’s language will never fully develop
• Stages of cognitive development


  1. Sensorimotor stage
  2. Pre-operational stage
  3. Concrete operational
  4. Formal operational
• Assimilation 


  The child has an existing structure of ‘building blocks’ of understanding. They encounter a new experience, they compare the new experience to their existing knowledge. The new experience fits without any new ‘bricks’ added
• Accommodation 


  The child has an existing structure of ‘building blocks’ of understanding. They encounter a new experience, they compare the new experience to their existing knowledge, they need to add a new brick to the structure in response
• Schema


  The ‘building blocks’ that combine to form the child’s understanding of the world. Each schema can be reinforced through assimilation, or it can be adapted for a new experience through accomodation
• 3 main schemas

  >Schema for object permanence

  >Schema for naming/labelling

  >Schema of symbolic thought (imagination)
• Halliday 1975 (functions for children’s speech)


  1. Instrumental
  2. Regulatory
  3. Interactional
  4. Personal
  5. Heuristic
  6. Imaginative
  7. Representational
• Instrumental


  Aims to fulfil a need
• Regulatory


  Aims to control the behaviour of someone
• Interactional


  Aims to develop relationships with others
• Personal


  Aims to express views, opinions and preferences
• Heuristic 


  Aims to explore the world around them, usually by questions
• Imaginative 


  Aims to explore something creatively or during play
• Representational


  Aims to exchange information - to give or receive information or facts