Theories of first language acquisition:

The child acquires his first language from birth, so how the process of acquiring a language
works. For that we have many theories:

Behaviourist theory:

The child is born without any linguistic knowledge, so he will acquire his first language from
the environment, through stimulus response, repeating, habit formation, conditioning and
reinforcement.

Explanation: Give a reward to the child when he produce correct sentences or correct them
when it is wrong. if a child sees a chocolate and he wants it, he will simply calls for it “choc”
and the parents will give it to him will agreement or some of approval, or will imitate the
parents as if they point something and say it is a ball so the child will imitate and repeat the
word ball, and the parents approve, it is a kind of reinforcement. (Skinner)

Innatist theory:

There is a biological process in the human being that allows the child to speak. Because the
child is biologically programmed for language and language develops in the same way as
other biological functions (walk for example) he will speak when he is exposed to the
language. (Chomsky)

The child has a device or a black box in his mind that contains all the principle which is
universal to all human languages (UG).

The human has a specific and limited time (critical period) for the LAD to work successfully
to acquire the language, after that it will be difficult for him to acquire it.

Interactionist theory:

Language is acquired by both cognitive and social environment. The child observes the
interaction of others then the behavior develops inside the child.

Explanation: the child observes adults communicate (behaviour) then develop the ability to
communicate (cognitive). (Vygovsky)
the innate
learning
ability of
children
language
development

the invironment
in which they
develop

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