Language acquisition theories and models

Linguistics

Language and Culture: An Important Intersection

While language acquisition has been a popular theory since Noam Chomsky's emergence into the field of linguistics, understanding the exact ways in which language acquisition occurs is still explored. While the connection between language and culture has long been explored, true believers in language acquisition might dismiss the fact that the two are related. Still, in their article "The Symbolic World of the Bilingual Child: Digressions on Language Acquisition and Process of Thinking," Nowak-Fabrykowski and Shkandrij suggest that culture and language acquisition share an important bond that cannot be broken. Through an explanation of their theories, as well as an application to classroom learning, a better understanding of language acquisition and its facets can be grasped.

First, the authors suggest that teachers should use a student's own culture and worldview to help them learn new languages. For instance, ELL students can be taught English not necessarily by immersion into American or British culture, but instead through applying their cultures to the English language and vice versa. The article calls on previous pedagogical study that has remarked upon scaffolding as an important technique in teaching. Applying scaffolding to the teaching of English as a second language might be similarly successful, as the authors' argue making a connection between what a student is familiar with and new tasks is one way to encourage learning.

Second, the authors argue that previously held concepts of alienation might actually be hindering a student's ability to learn a second language. They argue that students who are separated from their own cultures and forced to learn new ones are also forced to drop parts of their own language and culture, making them unsure of themselves and their position in society. Because this can not only cause problems with academic learning, but also psychological and behavioral issues, teachers who use this method are not only risking a child's success in a particular field, but they might also be risking the child's entire life and well-being. Thus, traditional methods of teaching English or any other language to native speakers of another language can be damaging to students, according to these authors.

Thus, teaching English as a second language must be considered as a cultural and linguistic adventure. Noam Chomsky's theories of language acquisition, which apply to language learners in infancy, but also make important suggestions for second language learning, can also be considered in light of culture. As a child acquires language for the first time, culture is integrated with it. By asking a child to forego his or her own culture to acquire another language and another culture is akin to asking him or her to take on a new identity.