Never say Never...

After reading through the three broad theoretical prospectives for explaining first language acquisition, I agree mostly with initiate perspective.  Chomsky believes that children are biologically programmed for language and that language develops int he child in just the same way that other biological functions develop(15).  He concludes that children’s minds are not blank states to be filled by imitating language they hear in the environment.  However, I do not agree with Chomsky’s idea of the critical period hypothesis. He suggests that children who are not given access to language in infancy and early childhood will never acquire language if these deprivations go for too long(17).  The word “never” is too strong because that is not always the case.  The child may not fully develop the language natively, but the child will be able to communicate.

On the other hand, in class, I brought up the idea theorized by Jim Cummins of BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency).  I am in total agreement with these ideas, but as for Chomsky’s idea of critical period hypothesis, I think that is a little too strong of an idea to hold when some people can easily learn their first language with the help of language resources and the environment they are in.  Jim Cummins theorized that there are two different languages, BICS which is the social language and CALP, the academic language acquisition.  BICS takes about 1-2 years to acquire and CALP takes about 7-9 years to acquire.  Although this theory is for second language acquisition I believe this clearly shows evidence that the critical period hypothesis can be questioned.  Anyone can learn a language, it just may take a lot of time to acquire.  In conclusion, to “never” be able to acquire a language after a long period of time has passed,  does not hold true for me.