Art Un ticle I.1 ited Sta In the ates News - Woodring College of ...

the students. Another common fallacy is that acquiring more than one language is “difficult” andcan lead to academic problems. Some teachers have been heard to suggest that their bilingualstudents don’t speak any language to a real extent and are “semilingual.” We will return to thesemyths at the end of this chapter. By then, the intervening information will have provided youwith enough understanding about the normal process of language acquisition that the faulty logicof these beliefs should be obvious.Regardless of whether the above beliefs lack grounding, they are very common and caninfluence how educators assess and educate CLD students. Without understanding how languageacquisition works, the continuation of these fallacies is understandable. Therefore, educatorsworking with bilingual students must understand the language acquisition process for effectiveimplementation of assessment and selection of appropriate intervention techniques.Language AcquisitionTheories of Language AcquisitionWhy do we study language acquisition? Depending on the orientation of the researcher, the studyof language acquisition can be either important in and of itself or as a mechanism forunderstanding other areas of research such as theoretical linguistics, cognitive psychology,neuroscience, or child development. Some want to know what the process of first and secondlanguage acquisition tell us about human development, learning, and organization of the brain.Others want to know about language acquisition so they can make recommendations abouteducational programs. Regardless of their research focus, all of these researchers must take aposition on some fundamental arguments about the development of language and its relationshipto other mental functions.Linguistic theory can be divided into several main camps depending on 1) whether language isviewed as either separate from or as an outgrowth of cognition and 2) whether languageacquisition is believed to be directed by a preprogrammed, language-specific area of the brain orwhether it is guided primarily by experiential factors. Noam Chomsky addressed both of theseissues when he proposed that human brains are “hardwired” for language acquisition via whathas come to be called the “Language Acquisition Device” or LAD (Chomsky, 1965). This isconsidered a “nativist” theoretical position. The development of this theory was in directopposition to B. F. Skinner’s ideas about the development of language as shaped by behavioralreinforcement received from a child’s environment (Skinner, 1957). Chomsky demonstrated thatthe language available in a child’s environment is far too complex and the reinforcement (i.e.praise) far too inconsistent to account for a behavioral model of language development. Althoughthe extent to which grammatical structures are specifically preprogrammed is still hotly debated(Bowerman, 1994), most child language specialists today agree that, at least to some extent, thehuman brain is predisposed to 1) attend differentially to language input, 2) process that inputaccording to some preset principles, and 3) formulate unconscious rules for languagecomprehension and production.This perspective of language as biologically driven has been traditionally considereddiametrically opposed to sociocultural perspectives that recognize the role of the environment inshaping language development. However, many child language researchers are coming to theconclusion that this does not necessarily need to be the case. Some have come to take theposition that “it is perfectly consistent to believe that, while much of language development isgoverned by the operation of powerful innate principles, some important aspects of earlylanguage development are significantly influenced by the child’s language experience” (Harris,© 2008 Dr. Catherine CollierAll Rights Reserved84