This is a list of pyscologists/ theorists linked to children acquiring and learning language. I have an exam coming up on this subject in June. Many people who study English Language at A-level will have this exam too. By the way this is a way of helping me revise and may provide readers with some interesting information.

Chomsky- Noam Chomsky stated that children are born with an innate knowledge of language when they are born and learning of their native language is at high speed when hearing it from others. This links to children overrgularising and putting grammar into utterences when they are not needed. Chomsky is one of the most famous theorists on child language acquisition, but becase his theories were based on his own intuitions about English and not actually studied on real children, many theorists find flaws within his theories and statements

Chomsky created the LAD- language acquisition device

1. Baby already knows about linguistic rules, as they are born with an innate knowledge of language.

2. The baby hears examples of his/ her native language

3. The linguistic rules help the baby make estimations and presumptions about the language it is hearing.

4. From these estimations and presumption the baby works out grammatical sets of rules. As more language is heard the grammar becomes more and more like adults.

Skinner- Skinner bases his theory of children acquiring language thrugh behaviourism. Skinner states that all behaviour is conditined e.g. punished or rewarded until it becomes natural and automatic. Babies imitate their parents/carers and are either reprimanded or praised according to their accuracy. This is Skinner going against Chomsky, as he believe biology plays almost no part in the way children learn language.

Piaget-  Piaget's theories on children learning language is mainly focused around "cognitive development," meaning language is controlled by the development of thinking. If a baby can use sentences involving phrases such as, "more than", "less than" it is obvious that the concepts of "more than" must have been grasped, before the child uses the phrase in an utternace.

Bruner-  As a way of respoonding to Chomsky's LAD learning system. Bruner theorised the lanuage acquisition support system (LASS) Bruner states through lass that parents often use books and images to develop their childs naming abilities and their ability to get involved in conversation.

(LASS)

1- Gaining attention- drawing the babies attention to a picture

2- Query- asking the baby to identify the picture

3- Label- telling the baby what the object is

4- Feedback- responding to the babies utterances