LEARNING A FIRST LANGUAGE

This post is based on the first chapter of the book How Languages are Learned, written by Patsy M. Lightbown and Nina Spada.

In this chapter, they present several examples of dialogs between adults and children that are learning how to speak their native language, and try to explain the first language learning on the perspective of three theories: the behaviorist theory, the innatist theory and the interactionist views of language acquisition.

Traditional behaviorists believe that language learning is simply a matter of imitation and habit formation. Children imitate the sounds and patterns which they hear around them and receive positive reinforcement (which could take the form of praise or successful communication) for doing so. Thus encouraged by their environment they continue to imitate and practise these sounds and patterns until they form ‘habits’ of correct language use. According to this view, the quality and the quantity of the language which the child hears, as well as the consistency of the reinforcement offered by others in the environment, should have an effect on the child’s success in language learning.

The behaviourists view imitation and practice as primary processes in language development.

IMITATION

(WORD FOR WORD REPETITION OF ALL OR PART OF SOMEONE ELSE´S UTTERANCE)

Very detailed analyses showed that children imitate new words and sentence structures until they become solidly grounded in their language system, and then they stop imitating these and go on to imitate other new words and structures. Thus, unlike a parrot that imitates the familiar and continues to repeat the same things again and again, children’s imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning. In other words, even when the child imitates, the choice of what to imitate seems to be based on something the child already knows, not simply on what is available in the environment.

PRACTICE

(REPETITIVE MANIPULATION OF FORM)

In this example, the child is practicing structures in a way that sometimes makes her sound like a student in a foreign language classroom. The children’s “He eat carrots. The other one eat carrots. They both eat carrots” is reminiscent of a substitution drill.