In terms of child language acquisition ...
Chomskyan linguists argue that:
- Children learn language too easily. It should take them longer for the whole behaviourist learning process
- Children have innate knowledge of language
- Children produce incorrect utterances that they haven't heard anywhere before and so can't have imitated.
In terms of second language acquisition ...
- Learners make mistakes that are not grammatical in their first language either. Again, they can't have imitated this.
- Learners learn some things easily but some things, no amount of imitation and reinforcement will help them learn
Among other things...
No-one really believes in behaviourist learning theory anymore.
Generate all sorts of sentences
Language acquisition is the ability of the brain in its cognitive development & process to conceptualise concepts,structures and semantics in a language , while learning is the active participation and effort to learn a language. Language teachers devise methods as components of language acquisition, while learners use them to learn. Language acquisition is a natural process for any native to acquire his native vernacular language.Language learning is a structured system for anyone to learn a language.
yes
In language learning theories, the terms nature and narture are used to refer to two positions to account for first language acquisition.
No, it is rather difficult!
English is relatively a very difficult language. It has so many rules and all of them have exceptions. Unlike Spanish it isn't a phonetic language, meaning all of it's word aren't spelled how they sound. It is hard to full master the language, but it is a major language of the world and will prove to be helpful throughout one's life.
B.F. Skinner proposed that children's language development was caused by imitation and reinforcement.
Yes, language is learned in those ways.
reinforcement
The three main theories of first language acquisition are behaviorism, nativism, and interactionism. Behaviorism suggests that language is learned through imitation and reinforcement. Nativism proposes that humans are biologically predisposed to acquire language. Interactionism emphasizes the role of social interaction and cognitive processes in language development.
Duncan Markham has written: 'Phonetic imitation, accent, and the learner' -- subject(s): Second language acquisition, Speech perception
Behaviorism theory of second language acquisition focuses on the role of reinforcement and conditioning in learning language, emphasizing practice and repetition of language skills to build fluency. Cognitivism theory emphasizes the mental processes involved in language learning, such as memory, problem-solving, and understanding language structures, viewing language acquisition as a complex cognitive process. Both theories highlight the importance of practice and meaningful interaction in acquiring a second language.
Yes, second language acquisition is fundamentally different from first language acquisition. In first language acquisition, children acquire language naturally and effortlessly through exposure and interaction with their environment. In second language acquisition, however, learners are consciously and intentionally acquiring a new language, often in an instructional setting, which involves different cognitive processes and strategies.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition was created in 1978.
The behaviorist view of language acquisition is that children learn language by receiving reinforcement from their parents after speaking correctly (operant conditioning). If a child's parents become ecstatic when the child says "mama", the child will want to continue speaking to get the same positive reaction. If a child gets a sip of milk after saying "milk", the speech is reinforced, and the child learns that it can get what it wants by saying so.
project X
To answer briefly and non-technically, Behaviorism discounts the validity of seeking answers to the question of language acquistion through a "psychological" approach. That is, language is a learned behavior conditioned through stimulus-response-reinforcement processes. Imitation plays a large role in the Behaviorists explanation of how humans learn a language. Psycholinguistics, greatly informed by Noam Chomsky, argues the opposite. That is, language acquisition is an innate ability. Psycholinguistics, among other things, also investigates the cognitive and neurological processing of language in the human brain. To make a simplified analogy: language, according to Behaviorists, comes from the outside in. "Mentalists" argue that language goes from the inside out.
The term "language acquisition" refers to the way in which humans learn languages. The ability to use and comprehend language is unique to humans. There are three main theories of language acquisition.