A Critical Examination of the Beliefs about Learning a Foreign Language at Primary School

successful first language development, like any other complex human
behaviour, is likely to be dependent on both innate and environmental factors.
Chomsky himself accepted both innate and experiential components in
language acquisition and argued that language resulted 'from the interaction
between an organism's experience and the organism's method of dealing with
the experience' (Chomsky, 1980).

2.2.3.1 Interactionist Dimensions

An interactionist perspective of language development recognises that children
are born into a social world and making sense of this world occurs through
interaction with other people. Language develops as a result of a complex
interplay between innate factors and the child's social environment where
language data activate and unfold the genetic programme. Bruner (1967,1981)
claimed that the LAD needed the support of a Language Acquisition Support
System (LASS) and that the child needed to interact with other people for
language development to proceed.

Locke (1993) emphasised the social-interactional aspect as well as the role of
affect and attachment in first language development. He argued that affective
relationships between child and caretaker were the major driving force and that
'attachment was a powerful enabling construct that conspires with other factors
to set language development in motion' (Locke, 1993:107). For Locke
communication is maintained through emotional ties and affective and social
relationships are 'the context for communication and thus the context within

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