For my presentation I’ve decided to research language. I think that is interesting to know how a person acquires language and how they learn a second language. Most people say that children and people who learn a second language learn by imitating what adults or people around them say. But it has been suggested that language is a biologically programmed activity.
In 1957 B.F. Skinner published a book where he argued that children and people who learn a second language learn how to speak appropriately because people who know the language correct their grammar. He believed that a parent shapes a child’s speech by turning their babbling into words and to combine these words to short or long sentences. And for people who learn a second language, he believed that their primary teacher s
An example of learning a second language during and after the sensitive period would be immigrants. Immigrants, who came to live in France at different ages, were tested as adults on grammar. Immigrants, who learned French between the ages of 3 and 7, scored the same on grammar as a native speaker. Immigrants who arrived in France after puberty scored poorly.
In the 1960’s Chomsky proposed that humans are born with a language acquisition device (LDA), a linguistic processor that is activated by verbal input. According to Chomsky, the LAD contains the knowledge of rules that are common to all languages. So LAD should allow any child who has enough vocabulary to put words together. It’s the same for people who learn a second language. If a person who learns a second language has en
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