A-Level English Language - Advanced Concepts and Critical Perspectives

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Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

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Chomsky's innatist theory proposing that humans are biologically pre-programmed with a universal grammar mechanism. The LAD enables children to deduce linguistic rules from limited input, explaining the poverty of the stimulus argument. Critical evaluation: underestimates environmental and social factors in language development.

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Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)

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Bruner's social-interactionist counter to Chomsky, emphasising the role of caregivers in structuring linguistic input through routines, scaffolding, and reciprocal interaction. LASS argues that language develops through meaningful social contexts rather than innate mechanisms alone. Bridges nativism and behaviourism.

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Crib speech vs caretaker speech

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Crib speech refers to children's self-directed verbal practice during solitary play, demonstrating hypothesis-testing about language rules. Caretaker speech (motherese/parentese) is the modified register adults use with children, featuring exaggerated prosody, simplified vocabulary, and repetitive structures. Both illuminate acquisition processes.

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Holophrastic stage (12-18 months)

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The developmental phase where children produce single-word utterances that convey complex propositional meaning (e.g., 'milk' meaning 'I want milk'). Also called the one-word stage. Preceded by the babbling stage (4-10 months) and followed by the two-word stage around 18-24 months.

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Telegraphic stage (24-30 months)

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A period in child language acquisition characterised by multi-word utterances that omit function words and grammatical morphemes (e.g., 'daddy go car'). Content words dominate while articles, auxiliary verbs, and prepositions are typically absent. Demonstrates early syntactic awareness and semantic prioritisation.