What Is Language Development?

Language development mainly refers to the process of mastering a native language within a certain period of time after the birth of a human individual. It is an important research topic in child psychology. Broad language development also includes mastery of written language. The development of children's spoken language is also called language acquisition, that is, the acquisition of speaking and obedient ability.

Language is a very complex structural system. According to its constituent components, it includes three aspects: phonetics, grammar, and semantics. In addition, as a communication tool, there are also pragmatic issues on how to use it for effective communication, which are subject to certain rules. Children must gradually master these basic rules to acquire the ability to generate and understand their own language. Therefore, language development is an extremely complicated process. However, all children with normal physiological development, even those with mental retardation, can successfully acquire the ability to listen and speak their native language within 4 to 5 years after birth without any formal training. The speed of its development is unmatched by other complex psychological processes and characteristics. How can language development proceed so quickly and smoothly? What are the constraints? What is its development process and general model? Since the 1960s, these issues have become issues of general concern and heated discussion by developmental psychologists and psycholinguists.

Strictly speaking, language development begins when children speak the first real word around the age of one. Therefore, the emergence of words is usually used as the boundary, and the entire process is divided into two major stages: language preparation and language development.

There are various explanations as to why children can master extremely complex language in just a few years. The typical ones are innate ability theory, environment theory and cognitive foundation theory.

Theory of innate ability of language development

N. Chomsky put forward the claim of innate language ability, that human beings have innate language ability, that is, innate and inherent grammatical rules system. This rule system is based on the limited basic language materials and the complex processing of the device through the innate language, not the result of acquired learning. Children can produce and understand a large number of sentences based on these rules, including sentences they have never heard. This shows the creativity and uniqueness of human language acquisition. EH Renneberg explained the innate language ability from the perspective of biological maturity. He particularly emphasized the biological basis of language development, and believed that the genetic quality of organisms is the determinant of language acquisition. In his opinion, the human brain has regions that are specialized in language that are not found in other animals, so languages are unique to humans. Language is the product of the maturation of brain function. When the maturity of brain function reaches a state of language preparation, as long as appropriate external conditions are activated, the underlying language structural state will be transformed into the actual language structure, so that language ability can be demonstrated .

Whether they emphasize the innate language acquisition mechanism or the law of natural maturity, innates deny the decisive influence of environment and learning on language acquisition.

Language Development Environment

In contrast to congenital theory, various claims of environmental theory emphasize the decisive influence of acquired learning on language acquisition. Some even think that syntactic learning is not unique to humans, and primates can learn. There are three types of environmental theory: imitation theory, reinforcement theory and social communication theory.

Mimetic theory of language development: A mechanism for explaining children's speech acquisition and development through imitation. Can be divided into traditional imitation theory and selective imitation theory ^[1] . The traditional imitation theory holds that children's language learning is only a mechanical copy of adult language, and children's language is only a simple copy of adult language. This view was quite popular before the 1950s. Recent studies have proved that mechanical imitation does not help repeated imitation when children's language ability has not reached the level of mastering a certain grammatical structure. Children can only imitate the syntactic forms they already know how to say. Children's imitation is not mechanical copy but selective, they can express new content in new situations according to the syntactic structure of the model sentence. This selective imitation combines the factors of reproduction and creativity.

Language reinforcement theory (reinforcement theory of language development): Explains language acquisition and development from the perspective of the connection between stimulus and response and behavioral learning theory such as reinforcement ^[1] . New behaviorist BF Skinner believes that speech acts, like other acts, are learned through operational conditioning. He particularly emphasized the role of intensive compliance in language learning, thinking that children speak in response to verbal or non-verbal stimuli in the environment. Correct responses can be maintained and strengthened after being encouraged and rewarded by adults, and language habits can be gradually formed. Wrong responses will gradually fade away because they are not encouraged and rewarded.

Language development social communication (social communication theory of language development): Emphasize the role of social communication in speech acquisition and development ^[1] . According to J. Bruner, children do not learn language in an isolated environment, but learn language in social interaction. He emphasized the decisive influence of social interaction on language acquisition, and believed that if children were deprived of language communication from an early age, it would be impossible to learn language. Moskowitz obtained an argument from the fact that a child with normal hearing but both parents are deaf learns the language: this child can usually only learn the language through television. Because he cannot communicate with each other, he lacks proper auditory feedback. Finally couldn't learn the native language.

Cognitive Fundamentals of Language Development

Cognitive base theory of language development: Also known as the theory of speech acquisition interaction. One school, represented by J. Piaget, explains the development of language from the development of cognitive structure, and believes that cognitive structure is the basis of language development. Children's language ability is only one aspect of general cognitive ability, that is, one of many symbolic functions, and the formation and development of individual cognitive structure is neither imposed by the environment nor inherently possessed by the human brain. The result of the interaction between subject and object.

Language Development Evaluation

The above three language acquisition theories have varying degrees of desirable aspects, but they also have their own limitations and one-sidedness, and have failed to fully explain children's language acquisition. Generally speaking, language is developed by individuals with certain genetic qualities in the interaction with the social environment, especially in language communication with people, and on the basis of cognitive development. Children's language is creative, but imitation and learning still play a very important role in language acquisition. Creation must be based on a certain paradigm. It is a generalization and recombination of existing paradigms, a combination of new and imitative factors, and a specific manifestation of selective imitation. Selective imitation may be one of the important ways of language acquisition. Reinforcement theory cannot explain all the facts obtained by language, especially the creativeness of language. Chomsky's hypothesis of innate ability and a priori language acquisition device is a theoretical viewpoint lacking facts. The Piaget School explains the development of children's cognitive ability and language ability from the interaction between subject and object, which has its reasonable aspects. . However, they overemphasize that cognitive development is the basis of language development, and ignore the adverse effects of language development on cognitive development, which is inevitably one-sided ^[2-3] .