First Language Acquisition

51
FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Transcript of First Language Acquisition

Page 1: First Language Acquisition

FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Page 2: First Language Acquisition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3CFWEbcPjA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDocL7AfIRo

Page 3: First Language Acquisition

• http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1982135556085&id=1324089565#!/raquel.roldan

Page 4: First Language Acquisition

1) “First language” (L1):

2) “Second language” (L2):

3) “Foreign language” (FL)

4) “Target language” (TL)

DEFINITIONS

Page 5: First Language Acquisition

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LANGUAGE OF CHILDREN:

• Their language development shows a high degree of similarity among children all over the world.

• PREDICTABILITY• LEARNING THROUGH IMITATION

• CREATIVITY

Page 6: First Language Acquisition

Before First Words -

• The earliest vocalizations– Involuntary crying– Cooing and gurgling – showing satisfaction or

happiness• “Babbling”

– Babies use sounds to reflect the characteristics of the different language they are learning.

Page 7: First Language Acquisition

First Words

• Around 12 months (“one-word” stage): – one or two recognizable words (esp. content

word); – Single-word sentences.

Page 8: First Language Acquisition

By the age of 2 (“two-word” stage):

1) at least 50 different words2) “telegraphic” sentences (no function

words and grammatical morphemes) e.g., “Mommy juice”, “baby fall down”

3) reflecting the order of the language. e.g., “kiss baby”, “baby kiss”

4) creatively combining words. e.g., “more outside”, “all gone cookie”

Page 9: First Language Acquisition

By the age of 4

– Most children are able to: ask questions, give commands, report real events, create stories about imaginary ones with

correct word order and grammatical markers most of the time.

Page 10: First Language Acquisition

– basic structures of the language– less frequent and more complex linguistic

structures.– use of the language in a widening social

environment.

Page 11: First Language Acquisition

• Development of Metalinguistic Awareness

• Development of Vocabulary

Page 12: First Language Acquisition

THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO L1 ACQUISITION

1) Behaviorism: Say what I say

2) Innatism: It’s all in your mind

3) Interactionist/Developmental perspectives:

Learning from inside and out

Page 13: First Language Acquisition

1) BEHAVIORISM: SAY WHAT I SAY

Skinner: language behavior is the production of correct responses to stimuli through reinforcement.

Page 14: First Language Acquisition

Language learning is the result of:

imitation (word-for-word repetition), practice (repetitive manipulation of form), feedback on success (positive

reinforcement) habit formation.

Page 15: First Language Acquisition

The quality and quantity of the language that

the child hears,

as well as the consistency of

the reinforcement offered by others in the environment,

would shape the child’s language behavior.

Page 16: First Language Acquisition

Children’s imitations are not random

• Their imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning.

Page 17: First Language Acquisition

Children’s practice of new language forms

– substitution drills. – It is selective and reflects what they would like

to learn. – They pick out patterns/rules and then

generalize or overgeneralize them to new contexts.

Page 18: First Language Acquisition

2) INNATISM: IT’S ALL IN YOUR MIND

Chomsky (1959) argues that behaviorism cannot provide sufficient explanations for

children’s language acquisition for the following reasons:

Page 19: First Language Acquisition

– Children come to know more about the structure of their language than they could be expected to learn on the basis of the samples of language they hear.

– The language children are exposed to includes false starts, incomplete sentences and slips of the tongue, and yet they learn to distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences.

– Children are by no means systematically corrected or instructed on language by parents.

Page 20: First Language Acquisition

Children are biologically

programmed for language

Language develops in the child

In the same way of other biological

functions

Page 21: First Language Acquisition

language

acquisition

learning to walk.

Page 22: First Language Acquisition

LAD: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE ( or BLACK BOX)

– It contains all and only the principles which are universal to all human languages

(i.e.. Universal Grammar – UG).

Page 23: First Language Acquisition

If children are pre-equipped with UG.

What they have to learn is

The ways in which their own language make use of those principles

Page 24: First Language Acquisition

children need access only to

samples of a natural language

Page 25: First Language Acquisition

CONCLUSION

• Children’s acquisition of grammatical rules is guided by principles of an innate UG

which could apply to all languages.

• Children “know” certain things of the language just by being exposed to a

limited number of samples.

Page 26: First Language Acquisition

Evidence used to support Chomsky’s innatist position:

Virtually all children

successfully learn their native language

at a time in life

when they would not be expected

to learn anything else so complicated

(i.e. biologically programmed).

Page 27: First Language Acquisition

–Language is separate from other aspects of cognitive developments

(e.g., creativity and social grace)

and may be located in a different “module" of the brain.

Page 28: First Language Acquisition

The language children are exposed to does not contain examples

of all the linguistic rules and patterns.

Animals cannot learn

to manipulate a symbol system

as complicated as

the natural language

of a 3- or 4-year-old child.

Page 29: First Language Acquisition

–Children acquire grammatical rules

without getting explicit instruction.

Page 30: First Language Acquisition

The biological basis for the innatist position:

The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) –Lenneberg: • There is a specific and limited time period (i.e.,

“critical period”) for the LAD to work successfully.

• Only when it stimulated at the right time

Page 31: First Language Acquisition

Two versions

STRONG

ONLY BY PUBERTY

WEAK

AFTER PUBERTY IT WILL BE MORE DIFFICULT AND INCOMPLETE

Page 32: First Language Acquisition

• Virtually every child learns language on a similar schedule in spite of different

environments.– Three case studies of abnormal language

development - evidence of the CPH • Victor – a boy of about 12 years old (1799)• Genie – a girl of 13 years old (1970)• Deaf signers (native signers, early learners, vs. late

learners)

Page 33: First Language Acquisition

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTFCiGI5wJA

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_OavglDkn0&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tchn_DXs4o&feature=related

Page 34: First Language Acquisition

3) INTERACTIONIST/DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES:

LEARNING FROM INSIDE AND OUT

Page 35: First Language Acquisition

Problems of Innatism:

Too much emphasis on

the “final state”

but not enough on the developmental aspects of

language acquisition.

Page 36: First Language Acquisition

• Language was

ONE manifestation

of the cognitive and affective ability

to deal with the world

• Innatists

dealt with FORMS of the language,

not with the FUNCTIONAL levels

of meaning constructed from

SOCIAL INTERACTION

Page 37: First Language Acquisition

INTERACTIONISM: Bruner

Language acquisition

is an example of children’s ability to learn from experience.

What children need to know

is essentially available

in the language

they are exposed to.

Page 38: First Language Acquisition

the innate learning ability of children

the environment in which they develop

LANGUAGE

DEVELOPMENT

Page 39: First Language Acquisition

CRUCIAL ELEMENT in language acquisition process

MODIFIED SPEECH

Page 40: First Language Acquisition

CARETAKER TALK• It is the way adults modify their speech

when communicating with kids.

• Slower rate of speech• Higher pitch

• More varied intonation• Shorter simpler sentence patterns

• Frequent repetition• Paraphrase

Page 41: First Language Acquisition
Page 42: First Language Acquisition

Developmental psychologists

attribute more importance to the environment

But they recognize a powerful learning mechanism in the human brain.

Page 43: First Language Acquisition

PIAGET

“Children’s cognitive development determines their language

development.”

Page 44: First Language Acquisition

The interaction between the child

things which can be

observed,

touched, and

manipulated

Is built on

the developing cognitive

understanding

Page 45: First Language Acquisition

Language

rather than a separate module of the mind.

Page 46: First Language Acquisition
Page 47: First Language Acquisition

VYGOTSKY

Sociocultural theory of human mental processing.

He argued that language develops primarily

from social interaction.

Page 48: First Language Acquisition

Zone of proximal development (ZPD):

• A level that a child is able to do when there is support from interaction with a more advanced

interlocutor. • A supportive interactive environment enables

children to advance to a higher level of knowledge and performance than s/he would be

able to do independently.

Page 49: First Language Acquisition
Page 50: First Language Acquisition

Vygotsky observed the importance of conversations which children have with adults and with other

children and saw in these conversations the origins of both

language and thought.

Page 51: First Language Acquisition

THOUGHT

ESSENTIALLY INTERANALIZED SPEECH

SPEECH

EMERGED IN SOCIAL

INTERACTION