PATTERN OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF AN IGALA CHILD

This study, entitled 'Patterns of language acquisition of an Igala child' was designed to find out how an Igala child acquire language (ie Igala). The theoretical framework adopted for the study is Behaviourism as propounded by Jean Piaget. There are many theories or models that explain how children learn language. But, hitherto, no single theory has been able to explain satisfactorily this wonderful phenomenon of the pre-school child. This becomes one of the reasons we have to study some language learning theories that can effectively aid the Igala child in language learning tasks. As discovered, the Igala child first learn the Igala language as mother tongue (MT) and second as language of his immediate environment which is purely a matter of imitation model through the help of adults who shape sounds that children make during babbling stage to words. The child is reinforced by parents and siblings to produce more of acceptable words, expressions and sounds, and to develop a rule test via cognitivism. The patterns of language acquision of an Igala child, according to this study, are imitation, practice and reinforcement. The main stay of this paper, therefore, is the development of Igala child language acquisition patterns based on the prescription of the theory of behaviourism