Today our topic of discussion is – Historical background of language acquisition
Historical background of language acquisition
The above discussion indicates that the field of child language studies has its place preset long back in the history. But even after a long systematic historical background and several established theoretical stands, it is still a controversial issue.
Different theories and hypotheses led to this controversy. Modern theories of child development were rooted by English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) and French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Locke believed that children take birth with an empty mind which he named ‘tabula rasa’ (blank slate) and these slates start being written on after getting experienced from the environment and by interacting with other people (Eng, 1980).
Locke emphasized the importance of relationship between old and new knowledge (principles of association) and of imitation and repetition, believing in ‘external forces’ or ‘nurture’ as the driving force in development (Gianoutos, 2006). On the other hand, Rousseau emphasized the role of
internal forces’ or ‘nature’ on child development. According to him, children are born with a natural sense of right and wrong, so they are regarded as ‘novel savages’. Rousseau has been accredited for giving the first true explanation of childhood growth by giving the idea that children and adults are very different in developmental accounts. Moreover, two more vital issues related to this area- ‘maturation’ and ‘stages of development’ were also first introduced by Rousseau.
Another name must mentionable in child language study is G. Stanley Hall (1844- 1924). He was the first psychologist to focus on studying child development. In 1890’s he founded the ‘Child Study Movement’ (White, 2002).
Hall was greatly influenced by Charles Darwin’s view on studying child development as the vital issue to understand the origins and nature of human beings. Consequently, it can be mentioned that, Darwin (1877) made a baby journal in which he has recorded his son’s developmental changes since his birth,
named as *A biographical sketch of an infant’. Later, Hall was very influential to his contemporaries and because of his strong influence child study became a discipline in its own right (Gupta, 1995).
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