Child Language Development From A Formal-Functional Perspective

The myth that almost all normal children acquire a language, however complex or large may its grammar or vocabulary be, in such a short time has caught the interest of many linguists and psychologists. Child language development, which is believed to be a helpful means to understand the nature of language, has been an increasingly popular and important area of study. Chapter One states the general purpose of the present study. This Ph.D dissertation, through critical analysis of the explanatory power of various attractive theories in child language development, mainly innatism and functionalism, is intended to provide a complementary perspective on child language development — a formal-functional approach based on Chomsky's and Halliday's theories.Any theory aiming to account for the development of child language would have to, first of all, define language adequately, or clarify its object of inquiry, to be more exact. What will a child have to learn to know a language? Whatever is language? A linguist's understanding of it will definitely govern his scope of study. Chapter Two is then devoted to the clarification of various linguists' views of the nature of language. We first consider Saussure's view of language, because of his special position in modern linguistics and uncountable influence on the succeeding linguists, including Chomsky and Halliday, whose theories form the framework of the present research. We then examine respectively Chomsky's and Halliday's philosophical views of language, for they are chief representatives of the two main camps: formalism and functionalism which provide important perspectives to child language development.Chapter Three outlines various approaches to child language development. Among others, we probe mainly into the behaviorism, innatism and functionalism. Behaviorism believes that the mind of a newly-born baby is like a blank slate, and that it masters his mother tongue through imitation, practice and reinforcement. Although the behavioristic view can certainly offer a partial explanation of some aspects of children's early language learning, it cannot account for the development of some more complex aspects of their language. Innatism, which is at the other extreme, claims that a child is biologically preprogrammed...