18. What is interactionism?

Lightbown and Spada (2013, p. 24) raised a third theoretical perspective: interactionist that takes into account both nurture and nature.

It is important to be aware that an interactionist stance on learning is not something featuring a black and white solution, but an approach that can be viewed from several perspectives. (Another appropriate label is constructivism).

At its simplest, interactionist approaches to L1 learning essentially focus on the role of the linguistic environment in interaction with the capacities of the child in determining language development, suggesting that both elements (environmental stimuli and innate ability) are important. Interactionist positions suggest that language proficiency develops as a result of the complex interplay between the environment to which the child is exposed and the uniquely human characteristics of the child.

One interactionist claim would be that language that is adapted to fit the capability of the learner is a crucial element in the language acquisition process. As a consequence, some interactionists have emphasized so-called child-directed speech (CDS), the language which is not only addressed to children but is adjusted in ways that make it easier for them to understand. Its purpose would be to foster social interaction between parent and child, that is, “shared attention … in adult-child discourse” (Saxton, 2009, p. 64), and “negotiation between caregiver(s) and infant” (Matychuk, 2005, p. 301). In one form or another, repetition and recasts of simplified language (i.e., repeating an error back to the speaker, but in a corrected form) would be components of CDS, and would support infants’ early attempts to communicate.

References: 

East, M. (2021). Foundational principles of task-based language teaching (p. 214). Taylor & Francis.

Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. (2013). How languages are learned (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Matychuk, P. (2005). The role of child-directed speech in language acquisition: A case study. Language Sciences, 27(3), 301–379.

Saxton, M. (2009). The inevitability of child directed speech. In S. Foster-Cohen (Ed.), Language acquisition (pp. 62–86). Palgrave Macmillan.