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Social interactionist theory consists of a number of hypotheses on language acquisition. These hypotheses deal with written, spoken, or visual social tools which consist of complex systems of symbols and rules on language acquisition and development. The “interactionist” approach is the compromise between “nature” and “nurture”. For years, psychologists and researchers have been asking the same two questions. They want to know what the language behaviors are that nature provides innately and what the behaviors are that are realized by environmental exposure, which is nurture.

Emergentist theories, such as MacWhinney's competition model, suggest that language acquisition is a cognitive process that emerges from the interaction of biological pressures and the environment. According to these theories, neither nature nor nurture alone is sufficient to trigger language learning. Both of these influences must work together in order to allow children to acquire a language. The proponents of these theories argue that general cognitive processes sub serve language acquisition. They also argue that the end result of these processes is a language-specific phenomena, such as word learning and grammar acquisition. The findings of many empirical studies support the predictions of these theories, suggesting that language acquisition is a more complex process than many believe.

Eric Lenneberg was born in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1921. Before Lenneberg and his family could be brought under Nazi persecution due to their Jewish heritage, they fled to Brazil and eventually the United States. It was in the United States that Lenneberg became famous for his thoughts on language acquisition and cognitive psychology. After graduating from the University of Chicago and Harvard as a linguist and neurologist, he began teaching at Harvard, Cornell and the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. During his time as a Professor, Lenneberg worked with multiple professors including Noam Chomsky, to understand how first language acquisition is acquired. It is here that Lenneburg popularized the Critical Period Hypothesis, which was originally proposed by neurologist, Wilder Penfield. A critical period in general is a limited time in which a particular skill can be learned, resulting in some kind of transformation. If the area in the brain where the skill is set to be is not used, that area will adapt and transform for another skill to be acquired making the original skill very difficult or impossible to be acquired. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period) In Lenneberg’s hypothesis, he states that there is a critical period of time (between the age of 2 and 5) that humans can readily develop language due to our innateness. After this period of time, the likelihood of language acquisition becomes substantially lower and, may not be able to be acquired at all. This theory is widely debated by opposing psycholinguists and cognitive science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period) who say that there is not a critical period, but instead a “sensitive” or optimal” period. Some say that language acquisition is attained by physical maturation or cognitive factors and there are many time spans that could be had for acquisition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period). In 1964, Lenneberg published a paper called, “The Capacity of Language Acquisition”, in which he states the four arguments for biological innateness to psychological capacity. These arguments are parallel to arguments in biology for innateness of physical traits. -Universal appearance of a trait at a single time across a species -Universal appearance across time for a group. Not just an artifact of cultural history. “Species typical diagnostic feature” -No learning of the trait is possible -Individual development of a trait rigidly follows a given schedule regardless of the particular experience of the organism. (http://www.neohumanism.org/e/er/eric_lenneberg.html) One of the most critical studies done on these theories was that of a 13 year old girl named Genie. (Scientists gave Genie her name because of the fact that when a genie comes out of a bottle, it emerges into society void of any sort of interaction). Genie had been locked in a room at only 20 months old when her father, who was very depressed, deemed that she was mentally retarded and needed to be kept safe from the world. Day after day Genie would be tied to a potty chair where she would silently remain. Her father forbid her mother or her other siblings to speak above a whisper. When Genie would make noise, her father would bark or hiss at her in response. In 1970, Genie’s nearly blind mother took Genie and fled to another city in California where she walked into a welfare office to seek benefits for the blind. To the social worker, Genie looked like a young child of 5 or 6 who may be autistic. Upon finding out Genie was actually 13 years old, the Los Angeles Police Department was notified and Genie was immediately taken. Shortly after, authorities found her fathers body after he had committed suicide. Scientist jumped at the chance to understand through Genie, if there is a critical period at which language can be acquired. After having no social interaction and hearing no words for such a long period of time, Genie’s vocabulary consisted of roughly 20 words. She could not form sentences but had adapted many nonverbal communication skills. After spending time in the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, Genie was moved around to live with multiple psychologists and foster families. By 1971, Genie was noted to have the capacity to form attachments, and could repeat up to 100 words. She left the children’s hospital and was moved around foster homes and the homes of psychologists working on her case to be studied. However, in 1974, after being tested and sometimes abused, when little progress was being made, the testing on Genie was stopped due to lack of funding. While she had made some improvement, Lenneberg’s theory could not be proven nor disregarded. Lenneberg himself said that Genie’s personal history was so disastrous it would not be clear why she had been unable to make more progress. She had been so emotionally damaged that all learning process’ could be interfered with. (http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures?L3_ExtremeCircs.htm) Even though this experiment could not credit Lenneberg’s theory, it is still widely supported.