First Language Acquisition Theories : Social Interactionist Theory
Theoretician(s)
• Bruner
• Gleason
Development, Hypotheses and assumptions
Hypothesis:
Language is learned through active interaction between the child and the environment. Language learning is a process of socializaton.
• CDS--> bootstrapping
• LAD exists, but No critical period
• LASS (Language Acquisition Socialization System)
• Watching TV or listening to the radio
• Children are not little grammarians, motivated to decode the syntax of the language around them through the operation of their
LAD, but social beings who acquire language in the service of their needs to communicate with others.
• Marriage of Chomsky's LAD and Bruner's LASS.
REFERENCES
Gleason and Ratner (1998). Psycholinguistics. Second Edition. Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace Collage Publishers.
Keenan and Comrie (1977). "Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar." Linguistic inquiry.8 (1), 63-99.
