Socio‐perceptual bases for the emergence of language: An alternative to innatist approaches

Abstract

Recent challenges from a variety of fields suggest a re-examination of the nativist position and its implications for child language and communication research and theory. Basic assumptions crucial to the innatist position influence researchers to ignore the source of input, its characteristics, and its impact on language development. In contrast, from a socio-perceptual/ecological position, the linchpin of the emergence of language is the dynamic structure of the social-interactive environment in which the child develops. Evidence from a series of studies investigating the social and perceptual bases of the emergence of the lexicon is marshaled to support and illustrate this perspective. Parallel arguments can and ought to be constructed to explain other aspects of language learning.

Three Myths from the Language Acquisition Literature

“…All three offerings have played particularly vigorous roles in nativist arguments. Typically, those who are sympathetic to an empiricist account of language acquisition have responded to the Brown and Hanlon study by critiquing it on methodological grounds, for example, by noting that there were too few participants in the study (e.g., Zukow, 1990) or by providing evidence that both reinforcement and negative evidence not only occur but are efficacious in strengthening grammaticality and weakening ungrammaticality during language acquisition (e.g., Moerk, 1990). Similarly, the common response to Gold has been to offer evidence in support of the existence and efficacy of negative evidence.…”

“…counted as a correction, but responding with ''You DID it!'' was not so scored (Zukow, 1990, footnote, p. 719).…”

“…Unfortunately, although Brown and Hanlon still acknowledged that expansions could be effective in promoting grammaticality in children, their study did not address this issue. Indeed, Zukow (1990) has reported that Hanlon, in a personal communication, stated that her study (Brown & Hanlon) was not designed to examine the role of all forms of correction, but only those operationally defined as explicit disapproval. For example, if a child said ''Doed it!''…”

“…Thus, Moerk's reanalysis of Brown's data offers evidence that Eve's mother provided expansions that, as negative evidence, functioned to prompt well-formed utterances while simultaneously punishing those that are ill formed. However, as Hanlon's personal communication to Zukow (1990) reveals, the Brown and Hanlon (1970) study was not designed to examine negative evidence so broadly conceived. Rather, they ignored maternal responses in their role as prompts, and, except for explicit disapproval, ignored their role as punishers.…”

“…On the contrary, just as they maintained that ''strictly speaking, there is no way to disconfirm'' (p. 46) the claim that parents reinforce grammatical utterances, so they acknowledged that there is no way to disconfirm claims that ungrammaticality is punished. Indeed, Hanlon's personal communication to Zukow (1990) brings to light the fact that Brown and Hanlon's study was not designed to examine other forms of negative evidence (e.g., other types of punishment and prompts) and thus cannot be properly cited by others as evidence that such corrective feedback is nonexistent. In the years following Brown and Hanlon's study, accumulating evidence indicates that not only does negative evidence exist (e.g., Bohannon et al, 1990), but that it is effective in weakening inappropriate vocalizations (e.g., Ahearn et al, 2007) and ungrammaticality (e.g., Goldstein, 1984).…”