language acquisition

1. FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
Dr. Hashim Noor

2. Dr. Hashim Noor

3. ...GENERAL POINTS
 Language is something specific to
human.
 Human beings are provided with
tools to acquire language from
infancy stage.
Dr. Hashim Noor

4. GENERAL QUESTIONS
 How can children make use of these tools
in order to comprehend and produce the
language?
 What is that enables a child not only
to learn words, but to put them
together in meaningful sentences?
Dr. Hashim Noor

5. GENERAL QUESTIONS
 What motivates and pushes children
to go on developing complex
grammatical language even though
their early communication is
successful for most purposes?
Dr. Hashim Noor

6. SCHOOLS OF FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUSITION
Bhaviourists
Innatists
Cognitists
Interactionists
Dr. Hashim Noor

7. BEHAVIOURISTS
 Language is behaviour acquired
according to the following steps:
– 1) Imitation & Repetition
– 2) Reinforcement:
 a. Positive
 b. Negative
– 3) Habit formation
Dr. Hashim Noor

8. Behaviorism
Language Acquisition
is simply a behavior
(Skinner(1957
 Imitation and Repetition
 Reinforcement
 Habit Formation

9. Imitation & Repetition
Children imitate the sounds and
patterns which they hear around
them. They repeat what they hear
when they receive positive
reinforcement for doing so.
Dr. Hashim Noor

10. Reinforcement
The reinforcement could be
POSITIVE: that’s the child may
receive support or aid from the
people around him (e.g. rewards
or approval or just successful
communication),
Dr. Hashim Noor

11. Reinforcement
The reinforcement could be
NEGATIVE: that’s the child could be
corrected by the people around him
(e.g. by saying to child “no you
should not say this word or sentence
this way, you should say it that way”).
Dr. Hashim Noor

12. Habit formation
Encouraged by the environment, the
child continues to imitate and
practice (repeat) these sounds and
patterns until he/she forms ‘habits’
of correct language use, i.e. coincide
with the result models or forms of
the adults- correct use of language.
Dr. Hashim Noor

13. BEHAVIOURISTS
 Note..
Within this theory, a child’s
MISTAKES or ERRORS are simply
considered as a result of
imperfect learning.
Dr. Hashim Noor

14. BEHAVIOURISTS
 Criticism
This theory faced 2 critical points
regarding:
1. What children produce
2. What children do not produce
Dr. Hashim Noor

15. Criticism
 What children produce
Children sometimes say goed and
taked instead of went and took or
they say mouses and sheeps
instead of mice and sheep.
Dr. Hashim Noor

16. Criticism
 What children do not produce
For example, in the following
dialogue where a child proved
unable to use a pattern, even
though the parent presented the
correct adult model several times:
Dr. Hashim Noor

17. Criticism
 What children do not produce
CHILD: Nobody don’t like me.
MOTHER: No, say ‘Nobody likes me.’
(Eight repetitions of this dialogue)
CHILD: Oh, Nobody don’t likes me.
Dr. Hashim Noor

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