French Presentation

For my presentation I’ve decided to research language. I think that is interesting to know how a person acquires language and how they learn a second language. Most people say that children and people who learn a second language learn by imitating what adults or people around them say. But it has been suggested that language is a biologically programmed activity.

In 1957 B.F. Skinner published a book where he argued that children and people who learn a second language learn how to speak appropriately because people who know the language correct their grammar. He believed that a parent shapes a child’s speech by turning their babbling into words and to combine these words to short or long sentences. And for people who learn a second language, he believed that their primary teacher sh

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But an adult would not be able to recover fully because his brain is fully developed and the right side of the brain can no longer assume any linguistic functions from the left side of the brain.

In the 1960’s Chomsky proposed that humans are born with a language acquisition device (LDA), a linguistic processor that is activated by verbal input.

An example of learning a second language during and after the sensitive period would be immigrants.

There are differences between people who learn a second language at an early age and people who learn a second language at a later age in the organization of the brain. apes their grammar and teaches them how to put word together to form sentences. If a person who learns a second language has enough vocabulary he can put word together to make sentences. Immigrants, who came to live in France at different ages, were tested as adults on grammar. People who learn French as a second language may speak very good French, but they will never speak it perfectly. But a person who learns a second language can not use the LAD to learn a second language unless he learns the second language during the Sensitive Period. According to Chomsky, the LAD contains the knowledge of rules that are common to all languages.

The sensitive period is the period when a child’s brain is not developed yet and is specialized to learn language. Bilinguals, who learned a second language during childhood, activate the same area of the brain when they speak either language. It’s the same for people who learn a second language. This sensitive period occurs between birth and puberty.

Approximate Word count = 530
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

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