Christy, Ashley and Rebekah

L1 Acquisition

Video Activity

Theories of First Language Acquisition

Behavioral

Nativist

Functional

B. F. SkinnerThe Behavioral Approach

The Behavioral Approach

Relationship between actions and reinforcement

B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior

Operant Conditioning

ABA

Criticisms of the Behavioral Approach

This approach did not consider the uniqueness of language.

Creativity and “playful” language were virtually ignored in this approach

Noam ChomskyLinguistic Rock Star

The Nativist Approach

Language is an innate skill

Chomsky!!!

Chomsky believed that native language learning must be an innate skill and that would explain why children could learn such abstract concepts in such a short period of time.

“Rules” are connected in a linear pattern.

Hey Arnold!!!

Language Acquisition Device

1. Distinguishes speech sounds from other sounds

2. Organizes data into specific classes-nouns, verbs, etc...

3. Discovers the type of acceptable linguistic system (word order)

4. Rechecks what you have received and reorganizes in simple terms.

Universal Grammar

The traits that ALL children share in first language acquisition

Systematic

Child receives information forms a hypothesis tests it out

What’s a Wug?

Jean Berko’s test to prove that children use a very “integrated” system when learning a language.

This test has been referenced and repeated many times.

Susan Selby used the Wug test to find the “ceiling” of language learning.

Disagreements?

A new way of thinking led to the belief that many different processes were occurring at one time at many different levels, and then were working together to produce language and discourse.

Parallel Distributed Processing

Connectionism

Emergentism

Functional Approaches

Prior to the Functional Approach, linguists were concerned with the forms, or rules, of language. The Functional Approach is concerned with the reasons behind the desire to achieve these forms. These linguists ask “What are the underlying structures that children are learning, not just the forms they are producing?”

Let’s Discuss

• Which L1 theory do you most agree with? Does one theory seem to stand out more than another?

Issues in L1 Acquisition

Competence and Performance

Comprehension and Production

Nature or Nurture

Universals

Systematicity and Variability

Language and Thought

Imitation

Practice and Frequency

Input

Discourse

Nature Vs. Nurture?

Or, should we say be Nature AND Nurture?

How far can we take innateness? The study by Stephen Crain suggests that a form found in all languages and produced by children without instruction would be an argument for Universal Grammar. However, the change of use of the form leads an argument for nurture.

Where do you stand on this debate? How effective is modeling the correct form, in your opinion?

Universals

All languages have:Word order, morphological marking tone, agreement, reduced reference of noun classes, verbs, predication, negation and question formation.

It is interesting to realize that within these principles, there are different parameters that learners must master.

Stage of L1 Acquisition

Babbling

Words

Sounds and Pronunciation

Syntax

Morphology

Discuss

An interesting article by Robert Vanderplank suggests that educators should study first language development in children ages five to nine, rather than the earlier years of development. What do you think?

Bilingual Acquisition

• Differing definitions

• Kovelman, I. & Petitto, L. A. (2002). Bilingual babies’ maturational and linguistic milestones as a function of their age of first exposure to two languages.

Works Cited

• Brown, D.H. (2007). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Pearson/Longman.

• Brown, R. (1975). A first language: the early stages. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.: Harvard Univ. Pr.

• Crain, S. (2008). The interpretation of disjunction in universal grammar. Language and Speech, 51(1/2), 151-169.

• Gass, S. & Selinker, L. (2007). Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

• Kovelman, I., & Petitto L. A. (2002, November). Bilingual babies' maturational and linguistic milestones as a function of their age of first exposure to two languages. Poster presented at the conference for the Society for Neuroscience, Orlando, FL.

• Selby, S. (1972). The development of morphological rules in children. The British Journal of Education Psychology, 42(3), 293-299.

• Vanderplank, R. (2008). The significance of first language development in five to nine year old children for second and foreign language learning. Applied Linguistics, 29(4), 712-722.