Discuss the two main theories of how children acquire language. Which theory do you believe? Why?
What will be an ideal response?
ANSWER:
?One theory proposes that children learn language through conditioning and imitation. Children may learn syntax because of the way their parents reinforce them. Modeling or imitation of the parents' speech is also important. However, neither conditioning nor imitation seems entirely adequate to explain how children learn language. The evidence against behavioral theories comes from children's tendency to overgeneralize rules of syntax. Children must still analyze for themselves the underlying patterns in the language examples they hear.
The other theory, whose main proponent is linguist Noam Chomsky, suggests that human beings possess an built-in universal grammar that processes speech and allows children to understand the regularities and fundamental relationships among words. There is some evidence, though not a great deal, to support this theory. For example, there is some similarity in the syntax of all languages. Children born deaf and never exposed to language make up general systems that have several properties of natural spoken language.
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