Social interactionist theory is an explanation of language development emphasizing the

role of social interaction between the developing child and linguistically knowledgeable
adults. It is based largely on the socio-cultural theories of Soviet psychologist, Lev
Vygotsky.

Initial stages[edit]
Approach to language acquisition research has focused on three areas, namely the
cognitive approach to language acquisition or the developmental cognitive theory of Jean
Piaget, the information processing approach or the information processing model of Brian
MacWhinney and Elizabeth Bates (the competition model), and the social interactionist
approach or social interaction model of Lev Vygotsky (socio-cultural theory). Although the
initial research was essentially descriptive in an attempt to describe language development
from the stand point of social development, more recently, researchers have been
attempting to explain a few varieties of acquisition in which learner factors lead to
differential acquisition by the process of socialization; called the theory of “social
interactionist approach”.[1]

Socio-cultural theory[edit]
Vygotsky, a psychologist and social constructivist, laid the foundation for the interactionists
view of language acquisition. According to Vygotsky, social interaction plays an important
role in the learning process and proposed the zone of proximal development (ZPD) where
learners construct the new language through socially mediated interaction. Vygotsky's
social-development theory was adopted and made prominent in the Western world though
by Jerome Bruner [2] who laid the foundations of a model of language development in the
context of adult-child interaction.
In contrast to the theoretical positions of behaviourism, the approach to language
acquisition emphasizing that children are conditioned to learn language by a stimulus-
response pattern with which it is sometimes confused, the social interactionist approaches
rests on the premises of a social-cognitive model, emphasizing the child's construction of a
social world which then serves as the context of language development.
It levels an outline of a language acquisition theory in combining of both the traditional
behavioral and linguistic position in language production; the essentials of this theory,
which differentiate it from a semantically based theory, are that the deepest level of
representation specifies the communicative intent primarily and semantic content
secondarily. Thus, within this theory the language acquisition can easily be realized
differently in emphasizing the role of the environment in producing such differences, as is
most often the case in child language and not infrequently the case in adult language. It is
incumbent on this model as on any serious attempt to provide a theory of language
acquisition, to answer questions about how the model accounts for changes in the child's
knowledge with development, and how the model can account for the adult's language
system.
And as the behavioral approaches view that children as passive beneficiaries of the
language training techniques employed by their parents and the linguistic approaches view
that children as active language processors of whose maturing neural systems guide
development; conversely, social integrationists communication enjoys a rather curious
position in contemporary theories of language acquisition as a dynamic system where
typically children cue their parents into supplying the appropriate language experience that
children require for language advancement. In essence, it turns in supplying of supportive
communicative structure that allows efficient communication despite its primitives. [3]

Current strand[edit]
Social-interactionists, such as Alison Gopnik, Andrew Meltzoff, Anat Ninio, Roy
Pea, Catherine Snow, and Ernest Moerk theorize that interaction with adults plays an
important part in children's language acquisition . However, some researchers such as
Bambi B. Schieffelin and Elinor Ochs claim that the empirical data on which theories of
social interactionism are based have often been over-representative of middle class
American and European parent-child interactions. Anthropological studies of other human
cultures, as well as low-educated Western families, suggests rather that many of the
world's children are not spoken to in a manner documented for educated Western families,
but nevertheless grow up to be fully fluent language users. Many researchers now take this
into account in their analyses.
In addition, social interactionists criticize the claim made by Noam Chomsky according to
which the linguistic input children are presented with by adults addressing them, is full of
errors and discontinuities. Another argument of nativists on which interactionists provide
contrary empirical evidence is the availability of negative feedback on, and corrections of,
children's errors.[4] Moerk (1994) conducted a meta-analysis of 40 studies and found
substantial evidence that corrections do indeed play a role. From this work, corrections are
not only abundant but contingent on the mistakes of the child.[5] (see behavior analysis of
child development).

Social Interactionist Theory

Social Interactionist Theory

Stresses the functional basis of communication

Children are social beings who acquire language in service of their needs to communicate

Early language is like any other biologically based attachment behavior (smiling, following the parent, crying if
parent
leaves, e.t.c.). It serves the social and affective needs of both infants and their parents

Child-directed speech (CDS) or Babytalk (BT)

Speech addressed to babies differs from speech addressed to adults
Cross-Culturally, mothers use similar intonation patterns in speaking to infants to indicate approval, disapproval,
encouragement, and discouragement (Fernald, 1985).
Speech to infants is marked by a slower rate, exaggerated intonation, high frequency, repetition, simple syntax,
and concrete vocabulary. (Snow & Ferguson, 1977)

Child Directed Speech & Language Acquisition

According to social interactionists, babytalk may influence language learning, perhaps even enable it
Infants would rather listen to CDS than to adult-directed speech (Fernald & Kuhl, 1987)
Parents make efforts to tailor articulation to young children to maximize phonemic contrasts and respond to
children’s immature pronunciation by repeating them in the correct form (Bernstein & Ratner, 1992).
Young children’s vocabulary acquisition seems inherently tied to external experience
Joint attention focus (the time that a mother spends talking about topics that the child is already focused on)
highly correlates with early vocabulary size. (Barret, 1995)
Babytalk may possibly allow children to “bootstrap” their progress in language acquisition

Definition
The theory that language is acquired from an
interaction of a human’s innate biological capabilities
to acquire language with exposure to language in the
environment in which the child is developing.

Description
The interaction theory of language development is a
compromise between the nativist theory and the
behaviorist theory of language development. The
interaction theory recognizes that both environmental
and biological factors are important in language
development [2]. Within this theory of compromise
are theorists who are closer to one end of the
extreme than the other. However, all interactionists
believe that language acquisition occurs as a result of
the natural interaction between children and their
environment, more specifically, their parents or
caregivers.
For example, interactionists believe that language is a
byproduct of children’s social interactions with the
important people in their lives. Vygotsky [4] believed
that children developed thou ...