Essay EIIN: Language Approaches

Language Approaches 

In this essay I will talk about 3 different language approaches that I learned about in class this month. For each approach I will write about its meaning and what I understood from it. Then I will write about some examples for each approach.

The Behavioristic Approach

            The behavioristic approach focuses on the immediately perceptible aspects of linguistic behavior- the publicly observable responses- and the relationships or associations between those responses and events in the world surrounding them. What I just wrote is the meaning that I was taught in class. This just means that the language acquisition of a language involves more than just grammar and repetition.

            The behavioristic approach mentions a conditioning operant. What is a conditioning operant? I can “Google” the definition of what is a conditioning operant, but instead I will just give an example of what it is. A conditioning operant is when for example there is a little boy and he says, “want milk” and the mother turns around and gives the little boy milk. If the mother does that action every time the boy asks for milk, the boy will become a conditioning operant. This is part of the behavior approach because it talks about some surroundings a language learner might have. The behavior approach has to do with the surroundings and the responses whether they’re positive or negative.

            The behavior approaches has a lot to do with the way we react to certain things using verbal responses or actions. If someone is learning a language and says something wrong, and nobody corrects that person, the person will think he/she is right. If by using the conditioning operant we don’t correct something wrong as teachers, they will lack reinforcement and they will fail to learn the language.

            In the behavioristic approach there is also something called the mediation theory. This just means, from what I understood, that when someone learns something they have to process the new information, or mediate it. It isn’t something that we will be able to see right away because it is an invisible process. This theory is an abstract theory, since we can’t actually see it.

            Since the behaviorist approach mentions examples like the one from the conditioning operant, where phrase-structure grammar is used with a reply, it mentions that using certain phrases that involves their surroundings may help their language acquisition. That also is an abstract theory that can’t be physically proven.

The Nativist Approach

            This approach has to do with a child being able to acquire language in the first place. This is something that can’t really be scientifically proven, I child learns whatever language he/she is in without an explanation. This approach made stronger questions that go beyond scientific investigation.

            This approach mentions that, theoretically, we are born with some sort of device inside our brain the makes us learn any language automatically, like if it were part of our genes. Eric Lenneberg (1967) proposed that language is a “species-specific” behavior and that certain modes of perception categorizing abilities, and other language-related mechanisms are biologically determined. This practically says that only humans have the ability to acquire language, that’s why animal don’t speak, because it’s about species, and we’re the human species, which makes us special. Our species (humans) are born with knowledge in our brain that helps us learn language.

            The nativist approach mentions something that is called, “Little black box”. The theory says that we have a little black box in our brain, symbolically not literally. This little black box includes 4 abilities that help language acquisition for us easier:

1.    The ability to distinguish speech sounds from other sounds in the environment.

2.    The ability to organize linguistic events into various classes which can later be refined.

3.    Knowledge that only a certain kind o linguistic system is possible and that other kind are not.

4.    The ability to engage in constant evaluation of the development linguistic system so as to construct the simplest possible system out of the linguistic data that are encountered.

The nativist approach practically says that all children are genetically equipped with language-specific abilities, which means that regardless of where they are, they will learn the language if it is part of their environment.

The Functional Approach

            This approach talks about the interaction between the child’s language acquisition and the learning of how social systems operate in human behavior. It is one thing for the child to know certain words and the differences between speech sound and other environments sounds, but it another thing to know how to function them together.

            Language is acquired through social interaction for the native language. Even in the native language it takes time to be able to function all the words and sentences of a language together in the first place. Now, imagine how difficult it might be to function words together in a second language?

            Words have certain definitions, but they can also have many meanings, which makes things harder for a learner to acquire a second language. I think that the best way to learn a second language and all its correct functions is to interact with that language all day long, and to make it your environment.

            Language is an extremely large subject, no one can explain it, or all its functions or the ways of acquiring it in just on definition.