Nature vs. Nurture in Language Development

What is terminology? address is a tool we stupefy been using to generalize and develop our thinking. We have been Learning ab issue the thinking of others by reading Expressing our own thinking by writing Exchanging ideas with others by speaking and listening Thought and lecture can contribute to clear, effective thinking and communication. Language is a system of symbols for thinking and communicating. At 5 years of age gracious is expect to have Articulated speech, Vocabulary of more than 6000 words and Observe grammar rules.An Average speaker is expected to have 150 words per minute, 20,000 and 40,000 alternatives and error rates below 0. 1%. There argon two theories concerning genius or Rationalism in Language and these are the Nativism and Child Talk model of Chapman et al. (1992). In the minor talk theory the childs needs leave behind enable him to formulate speech base on his past fingers. Nature or rationalist theory is ground on the following national by prom inent great deal in gay history 1. PLATO knowledge and understanding * innate * biologic * genetically * common genius . Rene Descartes (1596 1650) Ideas existed in spite of appearance gracious creations prior to deliver. * God * index of the environment and the legal opinion to influence and initiate behavior * reflex action (unintended behaviors) 3. Kant (1724-1804) A priori knowledge as illustrated below. 4. CHOMSKY The Nativist survey Human beings are innate(p) with an innate aptitude for language. Universal Grammar * An innate property of the human hear * Growth of language is analogous to the development of a bodily organ * Abstract that it could not be learned at allPrinciples of UG 1. Language is innate 2. Our brains contain a dedicated special-purpose education device that has evolved for language alone. * domain specificity, autonomy or modularity Nurture states that knowledge originates in the environment and comes in through the sensations. This theory is called Empiricism defines as the importance of stunning experience as the basis of all knowledge. Empiricism is other cognise as the doctrine that says sense experience is the only source of knowledge, a belief that experience alone is the source of all knowledge.Empiricism is essentially a theory of knowledge which asserts that all knowledge is derived from sense experience. It rejects the notion that the mind is furnished with a range of concepts or ideas prior to experience. Three principal British philosophers who are associated with empiricism are toilet Locke (1632-1704), George Berkeley (1685-1753), and David Hume (1711-76). in philosophy, a doctrine that affirms that all knowledge is found on experience, and denies the possibility of spontaneous ideas or a priori thought. Empiricism (greek from empirical, latin experientia the experience) is generally regarded as being at the heart of the modern scientific method, that our theories should be based on our observations of the world rather than on intuition or faith that is, empirical re look and a posteriori inductive reasoning rather than rigorously deductive logic. Other basis of empiricism are 1. ARISTOTLE * Truth and knowledge to be found international of ourselves by using our senses. 2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 1778) * Emile the hero learns about life through his experiences in life 3.John Dewey (1859 1952) * Structured experience matters and disciplinary modes of inquiry could allow the development of the mind. 4. Edward Thorndike (1874 1949) STIMULUS RESPONSE * people learned through a trial-and-error approach * mental connections are formed through positive responses to particular stimuli * learning was based on an association between sense impressions and an impulse to action * structure the environment to ensure certain stimuli that would produce learning 5. Psychologist B. F. mule driver (behaviorism or associationism) 3 needs for language formation * time * opportunity * c alculation power Skinner further explains that learning is the production of desired behaviors without any influence of mental summonses. Programmed learning is positive reinforcement for correct responses Let us now bridge the gap between nature and nurture. Learning is a developmental cognitive process, human create/construct knowledge. There are trey theories involved in this process constructivism, progressivism and language acquisition theory.We will discuss first constructivism , the following diagrams will show us. plat 1 Psychologist Jean Piaget proposed two kind of interaction * Simple interactions putting unneurotic * Emergentism adding more to what was put together The first lash shows simple interaction while the second box shows emergentism. Diagram 2 shows us how the brain is constructed with interaction to the environment. Diagram 2 Vygotsky (1896 1934) states that all learning occurs in a cultural context and involves social interactions.The zone of proximal dev elopment (ZPD)learn subjects best just beyond their range of existing experience with assist from the teacher or another peer to bridge the remoteness from what they know or can do item-by-itemly and what they can know or do with assistance (Schunk, 1996) scaffolding that help students learn in systematic ways. This is illustrated further illustrated in diagram 3. To Piaget in that location are three element involved in interaction the structured environment, the senses and the brain. Vygotsky added one more element nother human being that makes now the elements of interaction four namely structured environment, the senses, another human being and the brain. Diagram 3 Second theory in bridging the gap is Progressivism which emphases on both experience and thinking or reflection as a basis for learning explore, discover, construct, and create. Emergentist (Tomasello & Call, 1997) said that there is something innate in the human brain that makes language possible, something that w e do with a large and multifactorial brain that evolved to serve the many complex goals of human society and culture.A new machine built out of old parts, reconstructed from those parts by every human child. ( contrast to domain specificity ). Diagram 4 will show us people cannot create something from nothing. People can create but from something already there. The picture on the left is the nurtured slope while the picture on the right is the natural face. Diagram 4 LAD THEORY ( Language accomplishment Device ) Chomsky regards linguistics as a subfield of psychology, more especially the cognitive psychology.The Language encyclopedism Device Chomsky argues that language is so complex that it is almost incredible that it can be acquired by a child in so short a time. He further says that a child is born with some innate mental capacity which helps the child to process all the language which he hears. This is called the quotLanguage Acquisition Devicequot (LAD). Chomsky and his fo llowers claim that language is governed by rules, and is not a haphazard thing, as Skinner and his followers would claim. We must remember that when Chomsky talks about rules, he means the unconscious rules in a childs mind.A child constructs his own mental grammar which is a part of his cognitive framework. These rules enable him to produce grammatical sentences in his own language. Chomsky does not mean that child can describe these rules explicitly. For instance, a four or basketball team year old child can produce a sentence like, I have taken meal, he can do that because he has a mental grammar which enables him to form correct present gross(a) structures and also to use such structures in the right or appropriate situation. Language learning insert Mental grammar Is an (own rules) Innate ability LADGrammatical Output sentencesChomsky suggests that the learner of any language has an inbuilt learning capacity for language that enables each learner to construct a kind of pers onal theory or chasten of rules about the language based on very limited exposure to language. John Watson / Behaviorism A branch of psychology that bases its observations and conclusions on definable and measurable behavior and on experimental methods, rather than on concept of quotmind. Behaviorism is a psychological theory first put forth by John Watson (1925), and then expounded upon by BF Skinner.Attempting to answer the question of human behavior, proponents of this theory essentially hold that all human behavior is learned from ones surrounding context and environment. Diagram 5 shows the imitation process * Children start out as clean slates and language learning is process of getting linguistic habits printed on these slates * Language Acquisition is a process of experience * Language is a conditioned behavior the stimulus response process * Stimulus Response, Feedback Reinforcement Diagram 5SUMMARY Rationalism ( Bloomfield & Noam Chomsky ) states the nativist or innate ness where children must be born with an innate capacity for language development. Children are born with an innate propensity for language acquisition, and that this ability makes the task of learning a first language easier than it would otherwise be. The human brain is ready by nature for language in the sense when children are exposed to speech, certain general principles for discovering or structuring language automatically begin to operate.Constructivism ( Jean Piaget ) proponent of cognitive theory which introduced that language Acquisition must be viewed within the context of a childs intellectual development. Linguistic structures will emerge only if there is an already established cognitive foundation. The earliest period of language learning (up to 18 months), relating to the development of what Piaget called sensory motor intelligence, in which children construct a mental picture of a world of objects that have independent existence.During the later part of this period , children develop a sense of object permanence and will begin to search for the objects that they have seen hidden. This is further emphasized by Vygotsky in his socio-cultural approach to knowledge. Another theory by C. A. Ferguson (1977) known as the Input Theory claiming that parents do not talk to their children in the same way as they talk to other adults and seem to be capable of adapting their language to give the child maximum opportunity to interact and learn. REFERENCESPinel, JJ (2011) Biopsychology Eighth Edition, Allyn& Bacon. Nature versus nurture Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurturePowell, K. (n. d. ). Nature vs Nurture How heredity and environment puzzle out who we are. Retrieved from http//genealogy. about. com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture. htmPowell, K. (). Nature vs Nurture how heredity and environment shape who we are. Retrieved from http//genealogy. about. com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/natur e_nurture_2. htm