The Competition Model is a psycholinguistic theory of language acquisition and sentence processing developed by Elizabeth Bates and Brian MacWhinney. The Competition Model posits that the meaning of language is interpreted by comparing a number of linguistic cues within a sentence, and that language is learned through the competition of basic cognitive mechanisms in the presence of a rich linguistic environment. It is an emergentist theory of language acquisition and processing, serving as an alternative to strict nativist and empiricist theories. According to the Competition Model, competitive cognitive processes operate on a phylogenetic scale, an ontogenetic scale, and a synchronic scale, allowing language acquisition to take place across a wide variety of chronological periods.
Famous quotes containing the words competition and/or model:
“So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die.”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
“AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent. It seems the very model of all the catastrophes privileged populations feel await them.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)