Language Acquisition

By Samira Bakeer

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What is Language?

a system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate

a symbolic code used in communication

the systematic, meaningful arrangement of symbols

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What is Language Acquisition?

The process of attaining a specific variant of human language.

The process of learning a native or a second language.

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Language Acquisition

By itself, language acquisition refers to first language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language, whereas second language acquisition deals with acquisition of additional languages in both children and adults.

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Language Acquisition

First language acqusition

Second language acqusition

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First language acquisition

Individual’s potential for acquiring any lauguage

Competence (Chomsky) Irrelevant to cultural diffierences,nor race

differences A spontaneous process From babyhood

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babyhoodStages of language aqusition

Pre-language stages （ 3 － 10 months ） The one-word or holophrastic stage (12 － 18months)

The two-word stage （ 18 － 20months ） Multiple-word stage ( 2 － 3 months)

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Follow milestonesFollow milestones

In spite of different backgrounds, different locations, and different upbringings, most children follow the very same milestones in acquiring language.

Is this criterion met?

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Pre-language stages

Cooing:3months old the first recognizalble sounds with velar consonants such as [k] [g] as well as high vowels such as [i] [u] Babbling:6months old fricatives,nasals,syllabletype sounds 9months old recognizable intonation patterns,combination 10-11months old use vocalizations to express emotions and

emphasis

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The one-word or holophrastic stage

Characterized by speech in which single terms are uttered for everyday objects

Already extending their use Most verbs and nouns,

infrequent function words Tend to use informative words

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First words: one-word stage.

Infants as young as 9 months can recognise individual words from a string of speech, but the first word is not produced until between 12-18 months. The first word often sounds like babble, although it is consistently used to refer to one thing.

This stage is also referred to as holophrastic because each word conveys as much meaning as an entire phrase. "Milk" can refer to the milk, to spilling it, drinking it, etc.

Milk

I want milk ….

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extending their use

Mama

Mama is coming !

I saw Mama’s socks !

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Early word use: Under- and over-extension

During the early one-word stage the child will both underextend and overextend the meaning of words.

underextension is when the child learns the word birdie in reference to the family budgie, and does not use it to refer to other birds.

overextension of word meanings, where the child extends a word like doggie to refer to all four-legged animals. Overextension is more common and appears to be limited to production.

The two-word stage

Begin Around 18 to 20 months, As child’s vocabulary moves beyond 50

distinct words Combinations: Mama book. Toy mine. Baby chair. Sock pretty

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Mama book

A)possession: This is Mama’s book.

b)request :  Mama gave me the book.

(c)statement ： Mama is reading the book.

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Multiple-word stage

Between 2-3 years old Producing a large number of utterances Telegraphic speech: strings of lexical

morphemes in phrases Develop some sentence-building capacity Can order some forms correctly A number of grammatical inflections begin to

appear

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Telegraphic speech

Cathy build house. Cat stand up table. Daddy like this book. Chair all broken. I good boy today.

What that? What her name? No sit there. Mummy no play. Me put it back. Baby no eat apple

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Preliminaries:

Do children learn their L1 only through imitation? Give examples to support your point.

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Childish creativity

Despite the obvious impact the environment has on the

choice and general direction of mother-tongue learning,

children are prone to come up with all kinds of words

and expressions which they have never heard in their

environment. Daughter: Somebody’s at the door. Mother: There is nobody at the door. Daughter: There is yesbody at the door.

  Theories in L1A

1.  behaviourist learning theory

(popular in the 1950s and 60s)

2. the nativist approach

3. the cognitive approach

4. the functional approach

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1)Behaviourist Learning Theory (popular in

the 1950s and 60s)

1.  B.F. Skinner

2. Viewpoint: LL is a kind of behaviour similar

to other human behaviour. Language is learnt

in much the same way as anything else is learnt.

stimulus → organism → response

↓ ↓ ↓

input the learner imitation

e.g. ‘This is a pencil → ‘This is a pencil’.22 01/04/2013

Is Language Behaviour?

• B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)claimed that language isjust another form of behaviour. It is a response to stimuli in theenvironment. And it is learned.• Children’s creativity withlanguage is a problem forthis theory.

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  Four steps for a child to acquire his/her L1

imitation→reinforcement→repetition→habituation

positive negative good habit bad habit

positive reinforcement: praise or reward

negative reinforcement: corrections

good habit: correct performance

bad habit: errors 24 01/04/2013

Imitation : Children memorize words and sentences they hear from a language.

X Pros

Language symbols are arbitrary and not logically connected to the things they represent

Children only learn the language people around them speak

Cons

Children use forms of words

that adults never say The mistakes children make

are consistent between children and between language groups

Children produce words and sentences they have never heard.

Children undertand words and sentences they have never heard.

Consensus says “Cons” Win !

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Reinforcement: Children learn to speak by being praised or corrected by adults.

Pros

???????

Cons

Corrections are rare when total number of speech events is considered.

Praise is rare when the total number of speech events is considered.

Even without ANY praise or corrections children acquire language

Praise or corrections frequently don’t change child language.

Consensus says “Cons” Win !

X

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Input/Experience : Children figure out and learn grammatical patterns from hearing adult language patterns

Pros

Children make systematic mistakes in grammar by “over regularizing” forms

Cons

The speed with which children acquire all of the grammatical patterns of a language is so rapid that is is difficult to see how they can figure out all grammar from experience in so short a time

A Tie?

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Over Regularized Forms

Verb Forms

Children learn such past tense patterns as e.g. walked, hugged, wanted, then apply the rules to irregular verbs

e.g.“bringed”, “eated”, “runned”Nouns

Given nonsense nouns like “wug” children make them plural by adding “s” and Children regularize plurals of irregular nouns e.g. womans, mans

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  Criticisms of behaviourist learning theory

   

① overemphasize the external factors

    ② ignore the internal factor, i.e. the role of

learner himself

    ③ overemphasize the role of imitation

relations with FLT (Audio-lingual Method)

pattern drills

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2)  The nativist approach

1.  viewpoint: Children’s ability to learn a language is innate.

2. innate hypothesis: ↑

3. Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

characteristics of LAD:

      Universal grammar (UG): Chomsky’s term for

the abstract principles that comprise a child’s innate knowledge of language and that guide LA

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Noam Chomsky’s L-A-D

Chomsky’s theory of the LAD (Language Acquisition Device) states that every human is born with innate principles of language.

Children learn language spontaneously and speak creatively.

The “poverty of the stimulus theory” states that what children hear is incomplete and often ungrammatical, and cannot account for the creativity of their utterances.

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Language UniversalsLanguage Universals

What evidence is there for innate knowledge of certain basic language features present in all human languages? LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALS > UNIVERSAL GRAMMARLINGUISTIC UNIVERSALS > UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR All languages have:

A grammar Basic word order (in terms of SOV, etc.) Nouns and verbs Subjects and objects Consonants and vowels Absolute and implicational tendencies

E.g., If a language has VO order, then modifiers tend to follow the head)

““Universal Grammar”Universal Grammar”

Humans then learn to specialize this “universal grammar” (UG) for the particulars of their language.

Word order, syntactic rule preferencesWord order, syntactic rule preferences Phonetic and phonological constraintsPhonetic and phonological constraints LexiconLexicon Semantic interpretationsSemantic interpretations Pragmatic ways to conversePragmatic ways to converse

Behaviourist learning theory (A) vs. The nativist approach (B)

①  A holds the view that LL is similar to the

learning of other things; B holds the view that LL

is different from the learning of other things;

We’re born with a kind of faculty which is

unique to LL.

   ②  A attaches great importance to the role

of language input; B holds that input is needed,

but only to ‘trigger’ the operation of the LAD34 01/04/2013

Weakness of the nativist approach:

hard to find out the nature of LAD

difficult to observe LAD

Contributions of the nativist approach:

It regards children’s language as a

reasonable system rather than something full

of errors.

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Team Discussion: nature vs. nurture

Much debate has taken place concerning the importance of nature (what is innate) and nurture (environmental factors) in the acquisition of language.

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Team Discussion: nature vs. nurture

Now consider what you believe the relative importance of nature and nurture to be in the acquisition of language, given the finding that the human genome contains only about 26,000 to 30,000 genes, less than the number of genes in some plants. – nature (innate factors) is more important – nurture (environmental and learning factors) is more

important – other (explain)

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3) The cognitive approach

1.  viewpoint:

Children’s language development relies on

their understanding of the world or cognition.

2. Cognitive research is concerned with the mental processes involved in language acquisition, and how they can explain the nature of learners' language knowledge.

3. the computational model38 01/04/2013

4) The functional approach

1. to probe LA not from the angle of

language structure, but from the angle of

language communication.

2. viewpoint:

Children can learn a language successfully for

the reason that they realize language could help

do things.

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