The Importance of Parental Feedback in the Development of Linguistic Skills - Essay Example

How do different theories of language acquisition evaluate the importance of parental feedback in the development of linguistic skills Grade Course Tutor's Name 10 Dec 2008 INTRODUCTION Language acquisition has been defined as the process through which learners, and more so infants, acquire the ability to speak in a new language. The seemingly effortless ability of children to acquire the ability to speak a language without formally attending any language classes has always been a matter of intrigue, thereby making language acquisition one of the most researched and most controversial topics of cognitive science (Pinker, language acquisition). Even before they turn one, babies are able to understand the meaning of words and by their first birthday, they begin to pronounce them in an effort to communicate to those around them. The starting point is usually simple words before they finally master the language to which they have been exposed, that is, their first language. Several theories have been put forward that try and explain this process (Pinker, language acquisition). Some theorists believe that the acquisition of language is a natural and intrinsic part of the child growth process and down play the importance of parental feedback while others believe that it is the result of their surrounding environment and how they interact with others, thereby according significance to adult- child interaction. This paper seeks to analyze the different theories that have been put forward to explain language acquisition evaluating how they all explore the importance of parental feedback in the development of linguistic skills. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Nativist theories Nativist theorists believe that a child is born with an intrinsic ability to learn a language which makes it relatively easy for them to learn a new language as opposed to adults who wish to learn a second language. In this sense, language is viewed as part of the human genetic make up; a natural trait similar to birds learning how to fly and fish learning how to swim (Macwinney, 1998). As Macwinney (1998) points out, several researchers believe that since the acquisition of language seems to be unique only to humans and it must be part of their genetic composition. Theories have been put forward to support this infant innate grammar module. Children seem to exhibit an uncanny ability to respect syntax in their early speech. This lends credence to the belief that the ability to learn language is genetically wired in the brain. However, the nativist theories have been criticized for failing to properly and accurately account for their claims on acquisition of the language, causing researchers to look for other explanations to the inherent human capacity to learn language (Macwinney, 1998). Parental feedback in the Nativism theory Parental feedback is not perceived to be of any significance to a child's acquisition of language. Nativism theorists point out that children do most of the language acquisition by themselves, as illustrated when a family migrates to a foreign country. The parents seem to struggle with the new language and may not master it completely but children will always adapt faster and speak the language more richly and fluently than their parents. This by itself negates any role of parental feedback in the acquisition of language as the children are able to adapt better than the parents. Emergentism This is a branch of nativist theory approach but differs from nativism in that it views the acquisition of language as an outcome not just of the intrinsic biology of human cognition, but also as a result of social patterns of interaction and input. Emergentism views children as learning language through means of a self organizing map with auditory, concept and articulatory as the pillars. A child learns language almost independently by associating different elements to these pillars (Macwinney, 1998). Macwinney (1998) points out that there are neural networks in the brain that will influence the formation of auditory, articulatory and pronunciation pattern in a young child. He goes ahead to give an insightful analysis of the emergence of language as a result of neurological processes from the moment the child can hear, to vocalizing sounds until they finally pronounce their first words. Parental feedback in emergentism The role of parental feedback in this instance can be termed as fairly significant since the child has to hear a word first in order to associate it with the local maps or the three pillars and to try to speak it. If this association is not sustained through repeat exposure of which parental feedback plays a major role then chances are that the child will not remember the word anymore. However, as previously stated, if we observe the auditory, articulatory and first word pronunciation patterns, then it appears that most of the learning is seen to be done almost independently by the child the parent only being useful in making the language 'available' to the child (Macwinney, 1998). Critical age hypothesis This is a branch of the nativism theory as it attributes the ability to acquire linguistic skills to some form of neural plasticity that enables young children who are just learning a new language to have amazing abilities to imitate the words and sounds that they hear. The hypothesis as critically reviewed by Robertson (2008), asserts that there is a critical period or age gap in a child's life during which the child has a higher ability to learn language and after which this ability is significantly reduced. This age typically lasts from infancy to puberty and is termed to as the critical age for the development of linguistic skills in children. Robertson points out that the ability to learn language is inherent and fairly easy in infancy and early childhood but at around the age of six, it begins to decline and as one reaches puberty the ability becomes compromised. It is believed that some form of maturation or cerebral lateralization occurs which significantly reduces this ability (2008). According to this theory therefore, the ability to acquire a second language is significantly harder after the age of thirteen, at least in the sense of an authentic accent. For this to be made possible, the child has to be hugely exposed to the language for him or her to establish some fairly fluent level of proficiency. All in all, even as the adults acquire knowledge of the new language, it will be rather difficult and well nigh impossible for them to acquire an authentic accent (Robertson, 2008). Parental feedback does not seem to play a major role here since the child is able to learn the new language not because of the reinforcement that he or she gets form the parents or care takers but because of the wiring of the brain which enables any young leaner to be able to acquire a new language before the onset of puberty. THE NON- NATIVIST THEORIES These are those theories which reject the innate version of children being born in readiness to speak a language and instead suggest that the child's ability to learn a new language is based on their surrounding environment and the outcome of the adult child interaction. Thus if the environment is not conducive enough, then the child may not properly develop their language and speech capacity. There are several theories under this approach. These are the competition model, functionalism and the learnability theory among others. These theories advocate for the importance of feedback in the adult child interaction which is seen to greatly influence the language acquisition in the child. All theories of language acquisition do however possess some degree of innateness or belief in the inborn trait that enables humans to learn languages. The competition model Macwinney (ed) 1987 explains that in order to learn a language, a child must be richly exposed to the grammar of any language and be flexible enough to decide the representations of the language that he will be required to speak. Competition is a general means of acquiring grammar. He points out that in grammar, all knowledge is represented as lexical connections which provide an adequate base for the child to learn a language. The lexical item which is described as an association between the external form and an internal function is viewed as very important to the competition model. Macwinney presents these lexical items as always being in competition with each other and in the process of understanding and producing language. According to the competition model, the lexical items are isolated and a connection based on positive instances achieved between them and their properties. This competition that takes place between lexical items ensures that a child's manner of lexical representation will gradually become adult like. The competition model can be illustrated in the following manner. A child experiencing competition between two lexical items will have to either block one of them or find an alternative use for it. For instance, when a child hears a single word refer to two different things, he or she may become confused. In this model, the ensuing conflict will result in a period where the child is open to any information that can distinguish between the two conflicting forms. As conflicting word gains strength, it will inevitably lead to the formation of a concept in which the shared characteristics are expressed. Thus the child continually gains super ordinates and is able to improve on his language and grammar (Macwinney ed, 1987). Functionalism perspective Macwinney ed (1987) also brings forth the functionalist perspective. He points out that in this approach; the subject of a sentence has a role which is the argument from whose perspective the sentence has been interpreted. The object of the sentence also has a role which is the involvement of the argument in the changing of the verb or the action, or simply, the item that is most affected by the action of the verb. Role of parental feedback in the competition model Parental feedback is viewed as very important in this model and is usually termed as being central to the didactic parent - child interactions. This is because parents will inevitably react to their child's speech especially if it is poorly formed. Macwinney ed (1987) observes that parents have a tendency to repeat and recast in a variety of ways, whatever has been said by a child in order to correct their grammar, depending on the nature of the mistake. This is referred to as didacticism and is based on the contrast principle. As a child makes a mistake in pronunciation, the parent usually repeats it in a corrected form. If the mistake is in naming, the parent will rename the object correctly but if the child commits several mistakes in one sentence, the parent does not try to restructure it but instead tries to decipher what it was that the child intended to say, lest he or she teaches her the wrong thing. Thus some aspects of learning based on conflict- the competition model- are based on the ability to detect an error (Macwinney ed, 1987). A child's perception of the correct competitor may be quite vague. As a result, the parent's correction serves to reinforce the positive instance while at the same time, weakening the negative aspect instance or the error word. The competition model can therefore be termed as a processing model in which the child learns through the competition between seemingly like terms and is aided by parental feedback or any other form of adult- child interaction to make the grammatically correct choices (Macwinney ed, 1987). Learnability theory This is a branch of theoretical computer science that also attempts to explain the acquisition of language. It classifies learning of language into four categories; the first one is the language that will be learnt soon by the learner, the second is the surrounding environment that will give the information required for the child to acquire the ability to speak in a new language. This includes the the words and language that the parents speak, the manner and timing in which they will speak them, how they respond to the child's attempt to speak among other things. The third is the strategy, that is, how the learner will use the information obtained in the environment to attempt to speak the new language and the fourth is when the learner actually succeeds in acquiring the ability to speak the language (Pinker, language acquisition). The role of parental feedback in the learnability theory Parental feedback is seen to be very important in this theory as it facilitates the acquisition of language. The child's language is initially inferior to the language that he or she intends to learn. Thus in this instance, the child will learn through positive evidence from the parents which basically means hearing the correct form of the sentences. In other instances, if the ability to speak the language is still outside the child's capability and there are still many grammatical errors then the parents may give the child negative evidence which basically means correcting his or her grammatical errors. Pinker points out that if children do not get any negative evidence, then they will have a harder time learning the language. The negative and positive evidence enable the child to understand constraints of language, thereby learning it quickly (Language association). The non-nativist theories in general perceive parents to be very important in the acquisition of language. Children have access to the language that is spoken by their parents and will learn that language first before any thing else. The parent's role is therefore, first and foremost, to provide linguistic input which is part of positive evidence. Pinker supports this by giving an example of children who are silently in locked up room or attics. When found, these children are unable to speak and show signs of being wild (Language association). Various sociologists and psychologists have come up with models to support this claim. Skinner B.F, a renowned psychologist has come up with a theory termed as behaviorism which claims that a child's ability to learn a language will depend on the reinforcement on the grammatical behaviors that he or she receives from the parents. Other studies done on the same topic reveal that the accuracy of a child's grammar will depend not just on reinforcement through positive or negative evidence but also on the kind of follow up that they will receive from their parents. Whether they repeat the sentence, ask another question in relation to the topic or change the topic altogether, does have an effect on the child's acquisition of language (Pinker, language association). Ernst L. Moerk also lends credence to the importance of parental feed back in the acquisition of language skills. In his research on child development where he studied the interaction of mothers with their children, Moerk found out that mothers were actively involved in the language acquisition of their infants. He found that it is them who taught the child all technical aspects of language such as syntax and word formation. He describes this mother child dyad relationship as closed and regulating itself with no outside help. The mother is there to teach the child and the child is there to learn. This relationship goes back and forth with no undue influence or interference from others with the mother using a wide range of techniques to enable her little one to achieve linguistic skills (Moerk, 1976). Input occurs when adults speak to children and facilitates their learning. The utterances of the parent are typically changed to ensure comprehension in a child and in so doing, provides basis for the child to learn the rules of word order. The ensuing discourse provides a structure against which a child can learn word construction combined with a context in which the child can learn other structures of the language as well as content for him to enrich his linguistic skills. Other than grammar acquisition, the child also learns the rules of socialization such as courtesy and this empowers them to be more productive in social interactions. Parental feedback is thus perceived to be very important in the acquisition of language (Slobin ed, 1985). Criticism of role of parental feedback in the linguistic skills development Some researchers like Stromswold disagree on the benefit of parental feed back on the language development of a child. She bases her claim on the findings of her study of a child who was genetically incapable of speech but when tested, showed that he was able to comprehend complex sentences and even deduce any grammatical errors, despite never having received any negative evidence in his process of language acquisition. The child is thus perceived to have some innate abilities that enable him to acquire a great portion of his target language without any outside intervention (Pinker, language association). The benefits of motherese have also been greatly disputed. Motherese is when the parents or the care givers of a child use a slower and clearer tone to speak to the child, usually in short simple structure sentences; also referred to as baby talk. Given the central role accorded to parental reinforcement by non nativist theories in enabling a child to acquire language, one would imagine that such a language as motherese will enable the child to learn faster as it is an even clearer form of positive evidence and will enable the child to acquire his or her linguistic skills faster. In contrast however, it is found that children whose parents engage in motherese do not appear to have a higher advantage in their development of language as opposed to those children whose parents do not speak to them in motherese or in any form at all. In deed in some settings, children are there to be seen and not to be heard and are therefore rarely if ever spoken to. Nevertheless, this does not stop them from becoming good speakers of the language later on. These findings suggest that parental feedback may not be as important in the acquisition of linguistic skills as some non nativist theorists try to make it out to be (Pinker, language acquisition). CONCLUSION The acquisition of language is a trait that is unique only to human beings. While other animals have some form of communication, it is only human beings who seem to be capable of speech. This lends credence to the belief that language acquisition is a genetic trait that is unique only to human beings. We can therefore associate the ability of young children to learn language to their neurological capability. However, the influence that the dyadic adult- child interaction has on the child cannot be over looked. Significant evidence has been put forward by child development researchers that support the influence of this relationship. Since there is evidence von either side, the two broad theories should not be antagonistic but can go hand in hand with one another. The child is born capable of speech but it will take a significant language exposure in a relationship with a caregiver for him to develop this ability. REFERENCES Pinker, Steven. Language acquisition. Massachussets Institute of Technology Macwinney,Brian. Models of the emergence of Language. Annual review of Psychology vol 49. 1998. Macwinney,Brian. Mechanisms of language acquisition. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1987 Slobin, Isaac ed. The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition vol 1. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1985 Robertson, Paul. The critical age hypothesis. A critique of research methodology 1999- 2008. Asian EFL Journal 4 dec 2008. Ernst Moerk. Processes of language teaching and training in the interaction of mother- child dyads. Child development 1976 1064-1078. Read More