Historical and Contemporary Views of Language Learning

Traditionally, the theoretical approaches that are included in accounts of language acquisition occupy different positions on a continuum with regard to how much emphasis is placed on the internal wiring of the child (i.e., the child’s given biological nature) versus the environmental input that the child receives (i.e., nurture). In contrast to these two views, an interactionist approach to language development focuses not only on the structures and mechanisms internal to the child, but also on the powerful influence that experiential and social factors have in concert with unobservable mental faculties. The charge for this chapter is to review the continuum of nature, nurture, and interactionist perspectives and to discuss their impact on the world of speech-language pathology. By tracing the roots of and variations of the nativistic, behavioral, and interactionist approaches to the development of language, we can begin to understand how the trends in modern language science have affected the profession of speech-language pathology over the last 50 or so years. As we consider the status of the nature–nurture debate, the contemporary science of child development informs this discussion in interesting new ways. In fact, this science suggests that the nature–nurture question Historical and Contemporary Views of Language Learning