Quick questions on Theories of language acquisition: Skinner, Chomsky, Bruner and others - OCR A-Level English Language

Each theory makes a distinct claim about how acquisition happens, and naming the theorist and the key concept precisely is the AO2 foundation.

AO3 brings in context, and in child data the key context is the interaction with caregivers. Child-directed speech (simplified, repetitive, expansive, with exaggerated prosody) and caregiver scaffolding are features to analyse in the transcript, and they bear directly on the interactionist account. Read the caregiver's contributions, not just the child's.

"The child's 'I goed there' is a virtuous error that the data makes decisive: the child cannot have imitated 'goed', which no caregiver produces, so the form must come from an internalised rule (past tense by -ed) over-applied to an irregular verb. This challenges Skinner's behaviourism, which predicts imitation, and supports a nativist or cognitivist account in which the child constructs and tests grammatical rules. Behaviourism better explains the accurate, frequent 'all gone', plausibly reinforced, so the data supports different theories for different features."

"The caregiver's turns show classic child-directed speech: short, simple utterances, repetition ('where's the ball, the ball'), and expansion of the child's telegraphic 'ball gone' into 'yes, the ball has gone'. These support Bruner's account of a Language Acquisition Support System scaffolding the child towards fuller forms, and the expansion models the grammar the child is reaching for." This reads the interaction as evidence for interactionism.

What is a virtuous error, and which theory does it support? [2 marks]

What does Bruner's LASS describe? [2 marks]

Using a transcript, evaluate the view that children acquire language mainly through imitation and reinforcement. [16 marks]