戴炜栋《新编简明英语语言学教程》(第2版)课后习题详解(第10章 语言习得——第12章 语言与大脑)

第10章语言习得

1. Try to explain the terms:

Language Acquisition

Language Acquisition Device

Critical Period Hypothesis

Key: (1) Language acquisition refers to the child’s acquisition of his mother tongue, i.e. how the child comes to understand and speak the language of his community.

(2) Chomsky referred to children’s innate ability to learn their native language as Language Acquisition Device (LAD). The LAD was described as an imaginary “black box”existing somewhere in the human brain. The “black box”is said to contain principles that are universal to all human languages. Children need access to the samples of a natural language to activate the LAD, which enables them to discover his language’s structure by matching the innate knowledge of basic grammatical system to that particular language.

(3) This hypothesis was put forward by Eric Lenneberg in 1967. It states that children have a special propensity for acquiring language, especially between the ages of 2 to 13. There are two versions of CPH. While the strong one suggests that children must acquire their first language by puberty or they will never be able to learn from subsequent exposure, the weak one holds that language learning will be more difficult and incomplete after puberty.

2. Among the language acquisition theories mentioned in this chapter, which one do you think is more reasonable and convincing? Explain why.

Key:There are three language acquisition theories mentioned in this chapter. Traditional behaviorists view language as behavior and believe that language learning is simply a matter of imitation and habit formation. According to innatist view, human beings are biologically programmed for language and that the language develops in the child just as other biological functions such as walking. The interactionist view holds that language develops as a result of the complex interplay between the human characteristics of the child and the environment in which the child develops.

Behaviorists view sounds reasonable in explaining the routine aspects, the innatist accounts most plausible in explaining children’s acquiring complex system, and the interactionist description convincing in understanding how children learn and use the language appropriately from their environment.

In my opinion, I think that the interactionist view is more reasonable, because environment plays a great role in our acquisition of language. Only when conversations provide the right level of language that children are capable of processing can they facilitate children’s language acquisition, otherwise, it is insufficient for children to learn the language’s structure.

（答案不唯一，言之成理即可）