Psychology

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Children do not learn language totally anew, nor do they learn it like a parrot by memorizing complete utterances. Rather, in the early stages, they do a little of both. What they say is clearly related to adult language, and yet it is not straightforward imitation. For example, a 2-year-old was standing on a plastic box with wet feet, planning to jump into his plastic pool. The pool was sitting on a tile deck. His mom said, as she rushed towards him, "Hold still. You're going to slip!" And he responded "No owie me!" It's clear that he understood his mother's intended meaning, and he responded in the best grammar that he could, with the best vocabulary that he could. His meaning was clear!

Children seem satisfied with a rough approximation of adult language and do not attempt to perfect any single utterance before moving on to the next utterance. If they did, they would be limited in the topics they could talk about and would never become fluent speakers of the language. Linguistic competence refers to the ability to produce and understand utterances we have never heard before.

Early on, children learn that language is both systematic and creative. Language is both rule-governed and infinitely adaptable to new situations.

Skinner, the great radical behaviorist, who developed Operant Conditioning, argued that children are motivated to learn language because language makes it easier to gain rewards and to avoid punishments. If a child can ask for a cookie, that reward is forthcoming much more quickly than crying for the cookie or simply pointing at it. According to Skinner, children memorize words and phrases, only in an effort to gain rewards and avoid punishments.

Chomsky, the well-known linguist, on the other hand, believed that babies were born with an innate Language Acquisition Device. The environment in which the child is reared determines the specific language that the child will acquire, but the baby is born with an innate ability to recognize the rules and grammar of the language(s) to which he or she is exposed.