12.5: Interactionist/Social Theory
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Interactionist/Social Theory of Language Acquisition
The interactionist/social theory proposes that language exists for the purpose of communication and can only be learned in the context of interaction with adults and other children. It stresses the importance of the environment and culture in which the language is being learned. Interactionists acknowledge the presence of innate biological mechanisms, but emphasize the critical role of social interactions (Jensen & Arnett, 2017; Levine & Munsch, 2018). Lev Vygotsky is the most well-known interactionist theorist and provided a theoretical framework for other interactionists to further develop theories of language acquisition. [1]
Influenced by the work of Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner believed that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition in general and language in particular. Whereas Chomsky focused on innate mechanisms of language acquisition such as the idea of a language acquisition device (LAD), Bruner proposed the language acquisition support system (LASS) in opposition to Chomsky (Bakhurst & Shanker, 2001). The LASS refers to the social and cultural experiences that support and encourage language acquisition. This includes child-directed language exposure (e.g., parentese, dialogic reading, etc.,) as well as the various activities children engage in while also receiving exposure to language. Whereas the LAD emphasizes that children come into the world programmed ready to learn language, the LASS emphasizes that it is the world that is ready to expose and support children in learning language. [2]
A powerful argument for the critical role of social interaction and not just language exposure in general, comes from the body of research comparing language learning from live interactions versus pre-recorded exposure played from a screened device. Toddlers who hear a new word uttered by a speaker on a recorded video are less likely to learn that word than those who hear the same word from an in-person speaker (Krcmar et al., 2007; Krcmar, 2010; Kuhl, Tsao & Liu, 2003; Roseberry et al., 2014; Troseth et al., 2018). Although language learning from video occurs in some situations (e.g., Scofield et al., 2007; Linebarger and Vaala, 2010; Vandewater, 2011), when learning from video is directly compared to learning from face-to-face interactions, toddlers usually learn better from an actual event or person who is present. Even when language is presented through a screen, infants demonstrate greater language learning when two or more infants are present together (Lytle, Garcia-Sierra & Kuhl, 2018). To explain what is missing from video, Patricia Kuhl and her colleagues (2003) proposed that interpersonal social cues offered in a face-to-face setting “attract infants’ attention and motivate learning” and that the presence of a person allows the sharing of “information that is referential in nature” (Kuhl, 2007). A speaker’s communicative intentions may be less clear when offered on video, and the parts of language may be more challenging to extract. [4]
The interactionist approach can also help explain how differences in the quantity and quality of language exposure affect a child's language development. The contexts that children are raised in can be very different and the differences in language exposure across various contexts should be emphasized when considering how children acquire language (Rowe & Weisleder, 2020). Differences in language exposure, even exposure very early in life, such as exposure at a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for children born premature, can have long lasting effects. Variations in the amount of adult language a newborn heard on a single day in the NICU were positively associated with language skills at 7 and 18 months of age (Caskey et al, 2014) and the more language premature children heard at 16 months, the faster their language processing abilities were at 18 months of age (Adams et al., 2018). Furthermore, the higher the quality (responsive, verbally elaborative, and non-intrusive) of caregiver interactions with 22 month old children born prematurely, the larger their vocabulary comprehension was at three years of age (Loi et al., 2017). This research, along with so much more, demonstrates the critical importance of social interaction and exposure in the process of language acquisition. [6]
[1] Psycholinguistics/Theories and Models of Language Acquisition from Wiki University is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
[2] “Jerome S. Bruner” Psychology Wiki. CC-BY-SA https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Jerome_S._Bruner
[3] Image by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash.
[4] Troseth, G. L., Strouse, G. A., Verdine, B. N., & Saylor, M. M. (2018). Let’s chat: On-screen social responsiveness is not sufficient to support toddlers’ word learning from video. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 2195. CC by 4.0 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02195/full
[5] Image by Bethany Beck on Unsplash.
[6] Brignoni-Pérez, E., Morales, M. C., Marchman, V. A., Scala, M., Feldman, H. M., Yeom, K., & Travis, K. E. (2021). Listening to Mom in the NICU: effects of increased maternal speech exposure on language outcomes and white matter development in infants born very preterm. Trials, 22(1), 1-9. CC by 4.0
https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s13063-021-05385-4.pdf