7 Great Theories about Language Learning

“Language is a construct human’s work in every day to express a wide range of emotions,
ideas, concepts, and actions.”
Theories of language learning have been bandied about since about as far back as one
would care to look. It may be surprising to know that the problems that philosophers in
Ancient Greece and 16th century France were concerned about are largely still relevant
today.

Plato – One of the Biggest Names in Western Philosophy

While he is best known for philosophy, Plato did a good bit of thinking about language. This
shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the fact that the use of language was how he got
his point across about philosophy. The writings of Plato stretch all the way back to the
beginnings of Western philosophical thought, but Plato was already posing problems critical
to modern linguistic discourse.
In the nature versus nurture debate, Plato tended to side with nature, believing
that knowledge was innate.
This was his answer to what has become known as Plato’s Problem, or as Bertrand Russell
summarizes it: “How comes it that human beings, whose contacts with the world are brief
and personal and limited, are nevertheless able to know as much as they do know?” Being
born with this knowledge from the get-go would naturally solve this little quandary and
consequently he viewed language as innate.
Plato believed that knowledge was something that humans simply had; it was innate. His
idea is called Plato’s Problem, in which he asked how humans were able to accomplish so
much with so little time given to them. Language was an innate human element, and that is
why most humans are able to start talking well before they are ten years old. When you
consider that language is part of your thinking process, it will be a lot less intimidating to
simply learn another way to think the thoughts you already have.
In the field of linguistics, Plato's Problem is the problem of finding an explanation for how a
child acquires language though the child does not receive explicit instruction and the
primary linguistic data a child does receive is limited. This PLD is the input, or stimuli, from
the environment, necessary for the development of an individual's grammar – language –
via input into UG. This limited environmental stimulus is referred to as poverty of the
stimulus. Specifically, the stimuli to which children are exposed during the critical period do
not encompass every lawful example of grammatical structure relevant to the particular
language.
Cartesian Linguistics, by Descartes
Centuries later, the French philosopher Descartes took a crack at linguistic philosophy. In his
opinion, language acquisition was a simple and easy process, barely worthy of his attention.
Like Plato he believed in the innateness of language because he thought it reflected the
general rationality of human beings.
Descartes subscribed to Plato’s idea that language is simply something people do naturally.
Descartes’ belief was based on the fact that he believed humans to be largely rational
creatures, and language was required to interact. The Cartesian movement that started
based on his beliefs reflected on the fact that language was used creatively. Yet there are
still many similarities even between the least similar languages. This is heartening because it
means that you just need to find the similarities between English and your target language
to start understanding how the language works. But rather than Descartes himself, it was
the rationalist movement that he symbolized and that was thriving in the time period when
he lived that was most important for linguistics. This “Cartesian” movement, according to
Chomsky, noted the creativity involved in everyday language and presented the idea that
there were universal principles behind every language.

Locke’s Tabula Rasa

This is the idea that all knowledge comes from outside ourselves through sensory
experience rather than through innate knowledge that we have at birth. This naturally
carried over to language theory with Locke rejecting the idea that there was an innate
knowledge behind language.
John Locke in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding restated the importance of the
experience of the senses over speculation and sets out the case that the human mind at
birth is a complete, but receptive, blank slate (scraped tablet or tabula rasa) upon which
experience imprints knowledge.
Locke argued that people acquire knowledge from the information about the objects in the
world that our senses bring. People begin with simple ideas and then combine them into
more complex ones.
Nevertheless, Locke himself admitted that the human mind must have some type of pre-
existing, functional ability to process experience. His view merely precludes the notion that
there are fixed ideas in our mind at birth. Unlike Hobbes, Condillac and Hume, Locke thus
believed that the combination of simple ideas derived from experience into complex ideas
required the intervention of our mental activity.
Skinner’s Theory of Behaviorism
B.F. Skinner is one of the major thinker on Behaviorism along with John Watson, Ivan Pavlov
and more. Skinner was an American psychologist and behaviorist best known for his
innovative research on experimental analysis of behavior.
According to behaviorism, a radical variant of which was put forward by Skinner, all
behavior is no more than a response to external stimuli and there’s no innate programming
within a human being to learn a language at birth. This theory implies that the learners
respond to environmental stimuli without their mental state being a factor in learner’s
behavior. There are two types of conditioning through which individuals learn to behave:
operant, and classic.
Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments
for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and
a consequence for that behavior.
Behaviorism can perhaps be best summed up by the following quote from the famous
psychologist:
"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them
up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of
specialist I might select -- doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man
and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of
his ancestors."
--John Watson, Behaviorism, 1930
Classical conditioning is a technique used in behavioral training in which a naturally
occurring stimulus is paired with a response and a previous neutral stimulus comes to evoke
the response without the presence of naturally occurring stimulus. The two elements are
then known as ‘conditioned element’ and ‘conditioned response’.

Chomsky’s Universal Grammar

Noam Chomsky presented this theory in 1976. It proposed that all children are born with
the ability to acquire, develop and understand grammar regardless of where or how they
were raised. Where Skinner saw all learning came from external stimuli, Chomsky saw an
innate device for language acquisition. The basic postulate of Universal Grammar is that a
certain set structural rule are innate to human, independent, and of sensor experience.
Chomsky in this Universal grammar theory suggested that some rules of grammar are hard-
wired into the brain such as prescriptive, descriptive and pedagogical grammar. He said that
the developer of language must involve these facts: genetic endowment, external data and
principal.
In short while Chomsky’s theory may be still important in the linguistic field as part of an
ongoing discussion. It offers a little help for learning second language other than to provide
you with confidence that the grammar for all language is already inside you head.

Schumman’s Acculturation Model

In 1978, John Schumman’s Acculturation Model described the process by which immigrants
pick up a new language while being completely immersed in that language. We can call it
‘the process of becoming adapted to a new culture’.
The theory doesn’t deal with the process of language as we normally see, but rather focuses
on the social and physiological aspects that influence our success. So this model deals with
the learner in the society (immigrant) but not in a formal setting, where society identifies
the major causal variable underlying the natural process of 2nd language acquisition.
Schemas define acculturation as social and physiological integration of learner with the
target language group. There are two kinds of acculturations. In the first kind, individual is
socially integrated with the other community and psychologically open to other language. In
the second kind, the individual takes the other community as a reference group for the
whole lifestyle and value that he consciously and unconsciously desires to adopt.

Stephen Krashen’s Theory

Stephen Krashen (University of Southern California) is an expert in the field of linguistics,
specializing in theories of language acquisition and development. He presented 5 main
hypothesis which we shall discuss.

The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis:

The Acquisition-Learning distinction is the most fundamental of the five hypotheses in
Krashen's theory and the most widely known among linguists and language teachers.
According to Krashen there are two independent systems of foreign language performance:
'the acquired system' and 'the learned system'. The 'acquired system' or 'acquisition' is the
product of a subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo when they
acquire their first language. It requires meaningful interaction in the target language -
natural communication - in which speakers are concentrated not in the form of their
utterances, but in the communicative act.
The "learned system" or "learning" is the product of formal instruction and it comprises a
conscious process which results in conscious knowledge 'about' the language, for example
knowledge of grammar rules. A deductive approach in a teacher-centered setting produces
"learning", while an inductive approach in a student-centered setting leads to "acquisition".
The Monitor Hypothesis:
The Monitor hypothesis explains the relationship between acquisition and learning and
defines the influence of the latter on the former. The monitoring function is the practical
result of the learned grammar. The monitor hypothesis asserts that a learner’s learned
system acts as a monitor to what they are producing. In other words, while only the
acquired system is able to produce spontaneous speech, the learned system is used to check
what is being spoken. Before the learner produces an utterance, he or she internally scans it
for errors, and uses the learned system to make corrections. The 'monitor' acts in a
planning, editing and correcting function when three specific conditions are met:

 The acquirer/learner must know the rule: This is a very difficult condition to meet
because it means that the speaker must have had explicit instruction on the
language form that he or she is trying to produce.

 The acquirer must be focused on correctness: He or she must be thinking about

form, and it is difficult to focus on meaning and form at the same time.

 The acquirer/learner must have time to use the monitor: Using the monitor
requires the speaker to slow down and focus on form.
It appears that the role of conscious learning is somewhat limited in second language
performance. According to Krashen, the role of the monitor is minor, being used only to
correct deviations from "normal" speech and to give speech a more 'polished' appearance.
Krashen also suggests that there is individual variation among language learners with
regard to 'monitor' use. He described three types of users:
Monitor Over-Users: These language learners are too concerned and focused on
correctness that they can’t speak with any real fluency. Some characteristics of monitor
over-users are:

 They know many of the rules of the English language

 They are not able to communicate in speech

 Their written English might be quite accurate

 They don’t have speaking fluency because they are too concerned with being
grammatically correct

 When speaking, these language learners make many pauses, repetitions and speech
repair.
Monitor Under-Users: These language learners are not focused on correctness because
they have not consciously learned the rules or because they have decided not to use their
conscious knowledge of the target language. Some characteristics of monitor under-users
are:
  They don’t use the monitor under any conditions even when they have the
opportunity

 They don’t use conscious linguistic knowledge in their speaking performance

 These learners aren’t able to correct their own errors in written English

 These students might not like grammar

 They believe that grammar rules are important but hardly use when they speak

 These learners tend to rely on instinct to spot errors in their second language
performance

 These students are not embarrassed to make mistakes

Optimal Monitor -Users: These language learner are able to keep a balance between self-
correction and fluency so error correction is not an obstacle in their quest of
communication. These learners use their knowledge appropriately. Some of the
characteristics of these users are:

 They have fluency and accuracy when they speak or write

 These learners are able to correct errors and mistakes in their own language
performance.

 They know the rules and use them when they communicate

Natural Order Hypothesis

Natural Order hypothesis is based on research findings which suggested that the acquisition
of grammatical structures follows a 'natural order' which is predictable. Research is said to
have shown that certain grammatical structures or morphemes are acquired before others
in first language acquisition of English, and a similar natural order is found in second
language acquisition.
Example: According to the natural order hypothesis, learners acquire the grammatical
morpheme-ing before the morpheme third person -s.
Errors are signs of naturalistic developmental processes, and during acquisition (but not
during learning), similar developmental errors occur in learners no matter what their
mother tongue is.
Krashen however points out that the implication of the natural order hypothesis is not that
a language program syllabus should be based on the order found in the studies. In fact, he
rejects grammatical sequencing when the goal is language acquisition.
The Role of Grammar in Krashen's View
According to Krashen, the study of the structure of the language can have general
educational advantages and values that high schools and colleges may want to include in
their language programs. Any benefit, however, will greatly depend on the learner being
already familiar with the language. It should also be clear that analyzing the language,
formulating rules, setting irregularities apart, and teaching complex facts about the target
language is not language teaching, but rather is "language appreciation" or linguistics, which
does not lead to communicative proficiency.
The only instance in which the teaching of grammar can result in language acquisition (and
proficiency) is when the students are interested in the subject and the target language is
used as a medium of instruction. Very often, when this occurs, both teachers and students
are convinced that the study of formal grammar is essential for second language acquisition,
and the teacher is skillful enough to present explanations in the target language so that the
students understand. In other words, the teacher talk meets the requirements for
comprehensible input and perhaps, with the students' participation, the classroom becomes
an environment suitable for acquisition. Also, the filter is low in regard to the language of
explanation, as the students' conscious efforts are usually on the subject matter, on what is
being talked about, and not the medium.

Input hypothesis:
Input hypothesis is also known as the ‘Monitor Model’ is a group of five hypothesis of
second language acquisition developed by Stephen Krashen. Originally, it was one of the five
hypothesis but over time, the term has come to refer to the five hypothesis as a group.
If i represents previously acquired linguistic competence and extra-linguistic knowledge, the
hypothesis claims that we move from i to i+1 by understanding input that contains i+1.
Extra-linguistic knowledge includes our knowledge of the world and of the situation, that is,
the context. The +1 represents 'the next increment' of new knowledge or language structure
that will be within the learner's capacity to acquire.
The comprehensible input hypothesis can be restated in terms of the natural order
hypothesis. For example, if we acquire the rules of language in a linear order (1, 2, 3...),
then i represents the last rule or language form learned, and i+1 is the next structure that
should be learned. It must be stressed, however, that just any input is not sufficient; the
input received must be comprehensible. According to Krashen, there are three corollaries to
his theory.
Corollaries of the input hypothesis
1. Talking (output) is not practicing.
Krashen stresses yet again that speaking in the target language does not result in
language acquisition. Although speaking can indirectly assist in language acquisition,
the ability to speak is not the cause of language learning or acquisition.
Instead, comprehensible output is the effect of language acquisition.
2. When enough comprehensible input is provided, i+1 is present.
If language models and teachers provide enough comprehensible input, then the
 structures that acquirers are ready to learn will be present in that input. According to
Krashen, this is a better method of developing grammatical accuracy than direct
grammar teaching.
3. The teaching order is not based on the natural order.
Instead, students will acquire the language in a natural order by receiving
comprehensible input.

Affective Filter:
The affective filter is an impediment to learning or acquisition caused by
negative emotional ("affective") responses to one's environment. It is
a hypothesis of second-language acquisition theory, and a field of interest in educational
psychology.
According to the affective filter hypothesis, certain emotions, such as anxiety, self-doubt,
and mere boredom interfere with the process of acquiring a second language. They function
as a filter between the speaker and the listener that reduces the amount of language input
the listener is able to understand. These negative emotions prevent efficient processing of
the language input. The hypothesis further states that the blockage can be reduced by
sparking interest, providing low-anxiety environments, and bolstering the learner's self-
esteem.
According to Krashen (1982), there are two prime issues that prevent the lowering of the
affective filter. The first is not allowing for a silent period (expecting the student to speak
before they have received an adequate amount of comprehensible input according to their
individual needs). The second is correcting their errors too early on in the learning process.