FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Several theories have been developed to explain first language acquisition; the major theoretical

positions are the behaviourist, innatist, and interactional / developmental perspectives, discordant from each other but particularly significant to understand better the first language acquisition process. First, the behaviourist perspective, with B.F. Skinner as its preeminent exponent, claimed that a positive reinforcement from the environment stimulates children to produce language. In other words, motivating children to imitate and practice the language, results in the gradual development of the childs language behaviour. In addition, the quantity and quality of the reinforcement given to children has repercussions on the language acquisition effectiveness. Thus, behaviourism contemplates the environment as fundamental for providing children the resources needed to acquire language. This theoretical position exerted great influence between the fortys and fiftys mainly in the United States. Second, the innatist perspective, supported mainly by Noam Chomsky one of the leading exponents in linguistics, proclaims that all human languages are innate and share the same universal principles. Contrary from behaviorists, Chomsky considers the environment merely as a basic contributor in the language acquisition process in children. In his view, whereas a child has available language to hear, the childs biological endowment will be in charge of its respective development. Furthermore, Chomskys theory argued that children possess a specific innate ability to encounter for themselves the language precepts, since understanding complex syntax definitely requires more than just reinforcement from the

environment. Consequently, innatist perspective insists in childrens innate language ability that holds the Universal Grammar which enables them acquire language during a critical period of their development. Third, cognitive and developmental psychologists around the seventies, focused on childrens ability to learn from experience as part of their cognitive development. They analyzed the interaction between the childrens innate language ability and the environment to show how the language acquisition is produced and altered. The most influential proponents of the view are Piaget and Vygotsky. For instance, Jean Piaget, after studying childrens behaviour and their spontaneous interaction with objects and people, concluded that childrens understanding of different concepts through their physical interaction with the environment, determines their representation of symbol systems in their cognitive development to express it with the use of language. On the other hand, Lev Vygotsky believes that although language is internalized, it can only emerge, develop, and improve through dynamic interaction with others. Alternatively, researchers in the 70s were particularly interested in studying not only about the acquisition and development of language, but also in how the diverse cultural environments affect childrens language learning. In fact, professionals in cross-cultural research have collaborated to draw conclusions on how society affects language, such as Dan Slobin, whom edited a series of volumes dedicated exclusively to analyze the language learning environments from distinct world communities in the mid-eighties. All in all, it seems that interaction is essential to make the acquisition of a language occurs and develops, as well as Childs general ability of creating associations between things that occur together permits its progress, accordingly to connectionism (qtd. in Lightbown and

Spada 24). In particular, connectionists perceive language as a progressive learning aspect of childrens cognitive development which takes place from connections children identify between the language input and the representation they have in their minds from previous situations.