HOW CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE Ahmadrawi The writer can be contacted at: scholars.assist@gmail.

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1. OVERVIEW The exact way in which millions of developing children get to the point where they can produce and understand millions of words and make sentences out of it is the subject of a heated debate in the psycholinguistic field. According to Saxton (2010,p.18), the study on how children learn language can be traced back to the German biologist, Tiedermann, in 1787. However, up until the late 1950s, it is generally agreed that approach to child language research is at best haphazardly organized. Research for example was often limited to a generally informal observations (for example research done by Lukens,1894) or diary studies which were conducted by researchers on their own children (for example as were done by Taine,1877 and Marsden,1902). The total number of research on child language done prior to 1952 was significantly small. Leopold (1952 cited in Saxton,2010,p.18) had conducted a bibliographic survey of child language studies covering every possible source he could find including works in language other than English. In his survey above, Leopold found that the total number of research on child language from a period spanning a century amounted to just 746 published works. In the late 1950s however, this figure has grown exponentially due to the works by two Boston based academics-Roger Brown and Noam Chomsky (Saxton,2010,p.18). Chomsky, in particular, is instrumental in formulating a theory which fuelled the debate on children language acquisition. The debate referred above is commonly called the Nature versus Nurture debate in

psycholinguistics literature and Chomsky theory that fuelled the debate is his Nativism theory or Innate theory of language development. 2. THE NATURE VERSUS NURTURE DEBATE The nature against nurture debate centered around the polemic of whether language is partly due to nature or wholly due to learning or nurture. The polemic is not new in that it has been discussed for centuries, for examples, it was the topic of ones of Platos dialogue, the Cratylus. The modern treatment of the polemic was ignited by Chomsky 1959s scathing review of Verbal Behavior, a 1957 book by the Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner (Aitchison,2008,p.8). The effect of the debate between these two academicians is so profound to the extent that the modern version of the nature versus nurture debate is known as the Chomsky-Skinner Debate (Harris,1992,p.2). In his 1957 book, Skinner proposed that young children learn language the same way they learn everything else : through imitation, reinforcement, and other established principles of conditioning (Weiten,2011, p.326). In other words, Skinner proposed that young children learn their verbal behaviour using the same ordinary learning mechanisms (i.e. association and induction) they use to learn other behaviours-which by the way, are the same learning mechanisms used by rats and pigeons (Tomasello,2003,p.2). Skinners claim , in fact, was based on his work with rats and pigeons. He had proved that, given time, rats and pigeons could be trained to perform an amazing variety of seemingly complex tasks, as long as two basic requirements are adhered to- firstly, the tasks must be broken down into a number of carefully graduated steps and secondly the animals must be repeatedly rewarded. Skinners typical experiment involves a rat which was put in a box containing a bar. If it pressed the bar, it would be rewarded with a pellet of food. There was no stimulus for the rat to press the bar i.e. it pressed the bar on its own will. The first time, it possibly did so accidentally, when the rat found that the food arrived, it pressed the bar again. Eventually, the rat learned that if it was hungry, it could obtain the food by pressing the bar.
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Then the task was made more difficult. The rat would only be rewarded if it pressed the bar while a light was flashing. The rat, puzzled at first with this new development, eventually learned the new trick. The task was then made more difficult again. This time, the rat only received food if it pressed the bar a certain number of times. After initial confusion, it learned to do this also (Aitchison,2008,pp.8-9). This type of learning is called operant conditioning by Skinner which can be translated as training by means of voluntary responses (the word operant means a voluntary response rather than an automatic one) and Skinner suggested that a vast majority of human learning take place via this mode, including learning of language(,Aitchison,2008,p.9). In his book Verbal Behaviour, Skinner argued that child efforts to speak are rewarded by parents. Each time the child produces an utterances that comes close to sounding like an acceptable word or sentence, the parent offers a reward in the form of praise or encouragement. As this conditioning goes on, the closer the child gets to the adult model of utterance the more parental rewards that he/she gets. Thus, the operant conditioning relies on the learner producing a linguistic behaviour that is progressively shaped through rewards, until the desired behaviour is achieved (Saxton,2010,p.90). Skinners explanation of language acquisition soon inspired a critique and rival explanation from Noam Chomsky. Chomsky argued in some detail that mechanisms such as stimulus, response and reinforcement which are favoured by the behaviourists are not sufficient to explain verbal bahaviour. In this regard, Chomsky pivotal argument is the poverty (i.e. absence or lack) of stimulus argument (Geirsson and Losonsky,1996,p.403).This argument posits that there are some abstract principles of grammar for which children have no reliable and unambiguous evidence (i.e. guidelines) at all by which they can imitate its usage considering that the language they experience consists of nothing more than a series of individual utterances. Chomsky offered the theory therefore that human beings are born with an
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innate universal grammar containing a number of abstract principles that guide the acquisition process (Tomasello,2003,p.2). This theory is known as the Innate Theory of language development or sometimes also referred to as the Nativist Theory. Innate/Nativist Theory proposes that humans are equipped with a language acquisition device or LAD- an innate mechanism or process that facilitates learning of languages. According to this view, humans learn language for the same reason that birds learn to fly-because they are biologically equipped for it (Weiten,2011, p.326). The LAD possesses just enough innate knowledge for the child to learn the grammar of a language from what he hears in his environment in the first four or five years of life. This innate linguistic ability enables all children to learn those features common to all human languages because they are born with the predisposition to apply rules of grammar, to use words, to create sentences and to learn meaning in whatever languages to which they are exposed. Chomsky later referred to LAD as Universal Grammar (O'Dea and

Mukherji,2000,p.29).LAD is not without critics however. The critics of Chomskys LAD ask : what exactly is language acquisition device (LAD)?How does it works? what are the neural mechanisms involved? The critics argued that LAD concept is notoriously vague(Weiten,2011, p.326).

3. FURTHER THOUGHT Perhaps the debates on how children acquire or develop language ability should not be approached from the strict confines of the opposite duality of nature or nurture. A way out of the nature versus nurture debates has been given by Elizabeth Bates, a pioneer in many different areas of developmental psycholinguistics. Bates took a many perspectives view of children acquisition of language and made significant contribution from almost all of these perspectives. Among these perspectives are (Tomasello and Slobin, 2005 pp.xv-xvi):
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Pragmatics : She started some of the first modern studies of childrenss use of different kind of devices of communication, from prelinguistics gestures to linguistics markers of politeness,to achieve pragmatics ends.

Crosslinguistic Comparisons : She started some of the first modern studies of childrens language, from first words to complex grammar, in which systematic crosslinguistic comparisons were used to make inferences about the human capacity for language.

Lexical Development : She originated the idea for the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory now the most widely used instrument in the field for measuring childrens vocabulary development.

Grammatical Development : She was one of the originators of the Competition Model and its application to children learning many different languages. The Competition Model is used in an effort to identify the grammatical devices that children use at different stages of development to identify important grammatical relations in their language.

Individual Differences : Bates was among the first to study in a systematic way individual differences in language acquisition, and also to focus attention on the theoretical importance of the fact that different children learn language in different ways.

Connectionism : Bates was a collaborator and contributor in some of the most important work applying principles of connectionist modeling to problems of child language acquisition.

Neurophysiology and Evolution : Bates was among the first to systematically study children with various kind of brain damage and to apply insights from this research to basic questions of child language development.
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Processing : Bates was a collaborator and contributor in important work studying online language processing in adults, as well as in some of the most important work applying principles of online processing to problems of child language acquisition. Bates preferred to ask how nature and nurture interact, in particular, what sort of innate

mechanisms would be required to take the linguistics input to which humans are exposed and what sort of innate mechanism would be required to generate both universal and unique pattern of language development (Tomasello and Slobin, 2005,p.75). Know as Interactionist Theory, this theory asserts that biology and experience both make important contributions to the development of language.Like the nativists, interactionists believe that the human organism is biologically well equipped for learning language. They also agree that much of this learning involves the acquisition of rules. However, at the same time, they also agree with the behaviourists that social exchanges with parents and others play a critical role in moulding language skills. Thus,interactionist theory maintains that a biological predisposition and a supportive environment both contribute to language development (Weiten,2011, pp.326-327). 4. CONCLUSION

As has been discussed above, the exact way by which children learn language is still debateable. As has been pointed out by Aitchison(2008,p.11),just because Skinners ideas were overly simple, that does not automatically mean that Chomsky ideas were right, in fact there is possibility that both Skinners and Chomskys view were outdated. The debate is not expected to end soon as theory after theory is being offered to explain the phenomenon of children language learning. Perhaps, with the advance of scientific discovery in the realm of brain topography, the time has come for the neuroscience discipline to take the centre stage in the studies on children language learning.

REFERENCES :
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Aitchison,J.(2008). The articulate mammal: an introduction to psycholinguistics. New York NY : Routledge Geirsson, H. & Losonsky, M.(1996). Readings in language and mind. Cambridge MA : Blackwell Publishers Inc. Harris,M.(1992). Language Experience And Early Language Development: From Input To Uptake. East Sussex UK : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd. Mukherji,P. & oDea,T.(2000). Understanding Children's Language and Literacy. Cheltenhan UK : Nelson Thornes Ltd. Saxton,M.(2010). Child Language: Acquisition and Development.London : SAGE Publication Ltd. Tomasello,M. & Slobin, D.I.(2005).Beyond Nature Nurture : Essays in honour of Elizabeth Bates.Mahwah NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Tomasello,M.(2003). Constructing a language: a usage-based theory of language acquisition. Boston MA : Harvard University Press Weiten, W.(2011). Psychology: Themes and Variations.Belmont CA : Cengage Learning