ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces three major theoretical pictures that have been painted of the language learning process and explore their strengths and weaknesses. The first picture, or model, is concerned with the role of the mother as a teacher. The second model is concerned with the child's inborn knowledge of language, and his inborn capacity to process speech and formulates linguistic rules. The third model focuses primarily on the child's developing understanding of his everyday world. The chapter discusses the models in the order mentioned, tracing how each has developed partly as a reaction against the limitations of the previous model. It points out which features of each approach should be retained, to contribute to a fuller picture of language learning, and which features should be discarded as simplifications that have outgrown their usefulness. The chapter suggests the character of an adequate theory of language development by exposing the simplifications that it needs to avoid.
