Talk:Psycholinguistics/Theories and Models of Language Acquisition

Peer Review by Jayme Segal

Research

One of the major guidelines for writing the chapters for this class was to refrain from citing the course textbook, The Psychology of Language. While you did cite the text, fortunately, it was only cited minimally. I suggest replacing these citations with original research. Aside from using the textbook, you made very good use of many different research sources that were informative and enabled the reflection of different views and theories of language acquisition. I also noticed that some of the references in the reference list are listed more than once. I’m sure this was just a Wikiversity formatting error that can be fixed by looking at the instructions in the “tool” section of the site.

I really enjoyed the photos and diagram use throughout the chapter.

A

Structure

Overall, the structure of this chapter is pretty good. The introduction states that the purpose of the chapter is to discuss different theories of language acquisition and the body of the chapter flows logically from this point. The use of definitions of key terms in the introduction is also helpful to the reader.

While I understand that this is a textbook chapter, and therefore it mustn’t flow like an essay, I do think you should somehow gear the end of each section in a way that enables a smooth transition into the next. For instance, instead of concluding the cognitive theory section with a stage from Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, why not add a sentence or two comparing it to the way social interactionists have theorized the development of language? It is essential to the structure of the chapter that the body paragraphs are well integrated, connected, and have a consistent flow. It is also fundamental to the body of the chapter that you add a conclusion to tie together the main points of the work.

A-

Logic/Organization

The way you moved from historic theories of language acquisition to more modern theories towards the end of the chapter enabled for a good insight on the evolution of the subject. In the introduction however, your thesis maintains that “most of the modern theories we have today have incorporated aspects of [past theories] into their various findings”, which is not backed up by the research in the chapter in the modern theory sections. I think a helpful suggestion would be to explain which historic theories the modern theories are related to and how they are related. This could be a good thing to touch on in the body paragraphs and potentially in the conclusion. Also, I think adding a timeline with dates to show when different theories became firmly established would add to the flow of the chapter. You mentioned dates for some of the theories but not all.

The central theme of language acquisition is evident throughout the chapter. However, as I discussed in the critique of the structure of the chapter, there is a lack in transitions between sections and ideas.

B+

Answers Questions, Makes Argument

I think you did a good job at discussing the different theories of language acquisition from history to more modern times. The theories are discussed thoroughly and are easily differentiable. Throughout my review of your work, I have mentioned that I think it is really important to compare and contrast the theories to each other. I think this would add substance to your chapter as well as allow the reader a more full understanding of the differences between the theories. Drawing these distinctions will also further enable the delivery of your thesis in which you explain that the modern theories incorporate aspects of previous theories.

A

Writing Style

As for the writing style of the chapter, I have edited the chapter to the best of my ability. I did not feel comfortable making direct changes to your work on Wikiversity so I have posted on the course discussion board to obtain their e-mail address to send them my suggested corrections. The spelling/grammar mistakes are small but definitely noticeable when reading through the chapter. When editing the chapter, I noticed a few sentences that were awkwardly worded such as: “Noam Chomsky's innateness or nativist theory proposes that children have an inborn or innate faculty for language acquisition and that the process is biologically determined”. In the document where I edited the chapter, I made suggestions for rephrasing awkward sentences such as this. For example, I suggested rewording this sentence to “…children have an inborn or innate faculty for language acquisition that is biologically determined”.

B

Jy951950 20:05, 6 March 2011 (UTC)