According to Brown, children’s early language development is characterized by:
a) Incorrect usage of syntactic rules
b) Limited vocabulary acquisition
c) A lack of understanding of semantic relationships
d) Creative and rule-based language production
The correct answer and explanation is:
The correct answer is d) Creative and rule-based language production.
According to the developmental psychologist Roger Brown, children’s early language development is marked by the ability to create novel sentences based on rules they have learned, rather than by merely mimicking adult speech. This creativity in language use demonstrates that children are not simply imitating the language they hear, but actively applying rules they are gradually learning.
Brown’s work focused on how children acquire syntax, semantics, and other linguistic components over time. He emphasized that even young children can produce sentences that they have never heard before. For instance, they might say something like “I goed to the store” or “He don’t want it,” which indicates that they are applying syntactic rules, even if the forms are not yet fully correct. These instances show how children learn and apply grammar rules, even in their early stages of language acquisition.
This creative aspect of language acquisition is a key element of Brown’s theory. Children’s ability to generate new sentences means they are internalizing grammatical structures and using them productively, not just repeating phrases they’ve heard. This contrasts with the behaviorist view that children’s language learning is solely a matter of reinforcement and imitation. Instead, Brown suggested that children’s language development follows predictable stages and that their speech reflects a growing understanding of the rules that govern sentence structure.
In addition to creativity, Brown also noted that children’s language development is marked by increasing complexity as they grow older. They begin with simple utterances and gradually move towards more complex sentences with more advanced syntactic structures. Thus, the development of rule-based language production is a crucial feature of early childhood language acquisition.