Behaviorist And Innatist Approach To First Language Acquisition
Maryam Hamad
Introduction Language production is one of the unique abilities that sets human apart from other creatures. While animals have basic communication patterns, being able to produce sounds, utter words and make complex sentences only human beings have the capability to do. However, as the human knowledge progresses, how an individual acquires and learns language, especially on children, is becoming a big question. If we are going to observe the language development of a baby, from crying to babbling to simple uttering words to being able to say complete sentences, it is an amazing thing to see how a child can seemingly acquire a first language without any difficulties. Hence, first language acquisition has become a point of interest in the field of linguistics. First language acquisition theories generally fall in “nurture” and “nature” ideas, in which it could be approached through behaviorism, innatism, interactionist or developmental perspectives. However, this essay is focused only to behaviorist and innatist approach to first language acquisition.
Behaviorist Approach The central idea in the behaviorist approach is that children acquire their first language through imitation. Skinner, the proponent of behaviorism in first language acquisition, reiterated that language development occurs through environmental influence, in which “children learn language based on behaviorist reinforcement principles by associating words with meanings” (Lemetyinen, 2012).
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