Language Acquisition

Before doing the readings, I had an idea of how children acquire language. The readings further confirmed my ideas. Children acquire language from everything around them, mostly from hearing their parents or other adults talk. Between the ages of 2 and 7 seems to be a critical time for this to take place. Children copy what they hear their parents say, even if when they say it, it’s not grammatically correct. They still understand the ideas of language enough to formulate such ideas. When children say things incorrectly, parents usually rephrase it correctly and in a positive way so as not to discourage their kids from talking. The article Mama Teached Me Talk said that when kids say two words such as “Daddy go” they have already “mastered basic rules of syntax”. As they get older, they adjust what they are saying to match that of the adults around them. The article further states that language is an “innate capacity triggered by the level of development”. The Wikipedia article discusses the fact that language acquisition sparks the nature versus nurture debate.

After reading all of the articles and this week’s chapters, I feel that it is a combination of nature and nurture. Sure there is the innate ability to develop language, however, that has to be brought about by the environment. The two examples of the children who didn’t have language skills and were beyond the critical stage, shows that environment plays a huge role in language acquisition. The articles also mention that repetition increases one’s ability to do something. Repeating a variety of language activities will further strengthen a child’s skills. Reinforcing the appropriate level of a certain behavior is also shown to increase performance.

So what might all this have to do with reading? Reading to a child is a form of communication. Hearing the words read aloud and properly will help them to acquire language and expand their vocabulary. Once they have acquired language, they will begin to read on their own. Reading and language acquisition seem to go hand in hand.