First Language Acquisition

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Laily Trynabe Faith

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What is language acquisition?Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate.

first-language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language

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Language acquisition has some basic

requirements;Children require interaction with

language-usersParticular language-using environmentPhysical capability of

sending&receiving sound signals.

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The acquisition schedule

All normal children develop language roughly at the same time.

The language acquisition schedule has the same basis as the development of motor skills.

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Stages in first language acquisition: Pre-speech:

• Infants learn to pay attention to speech,  intonation and the rhythm of speech long before they begin to speak.• Respond to speech more keenly than to other sounds. • Children learn to recognize the distinctive sounds, the phonemes of the language they hear from birth long before they are able to pronounce them. 

Babbling stage: • Begins at several months of age.  • Many native speech sounds may be absent.  Very few consonant clusters and repeated syllables are common.

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Prelinguistic Sounds (goo-goo-gaa-gaa)

Cooing Stage 0-1 month (sleep, eat, cry) 1-4 months

Intonational patterns

Babbling Stage 5-12 months

Sounds – enviorementInternal behaviour – not a

response6-9 months

different – select – sounds - enviorement

Stages in first language acquisition:

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Stages in first language acquisition:

One-word Stage (holophrastic)

1 year emergence of first wordSounds relate to meanings

(functions) own action or desire action to convey emotionsNaming function

single word – a whole sentences – meaning

‘Fis’ phenomenon perception of phonemes ocurrs

earlier than the ability to produce those phonemes.

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Two-word Stage2 years Two words, different combination of word order

Three possible interpretationsSubject-verb ‘Mary go.’Verb-modifier ‘Push truck.’Possessor-possesed ‘Mommy sock’

Words lack morphological and syntactic markers – there is a word order

Stages in first language acquisition:

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Telegraphic Stage 2 years

2-5 words with little extra morphology

Morphological overgeneralization Easier, more productive morphemes first

Inflectional morphemes appear Use of simple prepositions Pronunciation is closer to adult one

Stages in first language acquisition:

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The Acquisition Process

Roughly 4 year old childRepeat what they heard in a

different versionsAdopt lots of vocabulary from the

speech they hearDo not correct the child

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2,5 years old – telegraphic speech forms Inflectional morphemes First – ing form Next – plural s (overgeneralization) Possessive inflection –’s Different forms of the verb ‘to be’ First regular past tense forms Later irregular past tense forms The regular –s marker on third person

singular present tense verbs

Developing Morphology

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In the formation of questions and the use of negatives,

There are three stages 1. stage ( 18-26 months) 2. stage ( 22-30 months) 3. stage ( 24-40 months)

Developing Syntax

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The child’s first stage has two procedures. Simply add Wh form ( Where, Who) Rise in intonation In the second stage,more complex expressions In the third stage , the required movement of auxiliary (Can I have..)

Forming Question ..

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Stage 1 Where Momy ? Where horse go ? Sit chair ?Stage 2 Why you smiling ? See my doggie?Stage 3 Can I have ? Why kitty can’t ( It doesn’t spread to all

Wh questions automatically)

Example,,

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Stage 1 : putting no or not at the beginning (No sit here , no teddy bear) In the second stage , the additional negative forms don’t and can’t appear ,with no or not( He no bite you I don’t want it) Third stage : incorporation of other auxiliary forms ( didn’t , won’t )Children operate their own rules by forming

negatives. Adult correction is useless.

Forming Negative ..

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Over extension Followed by a gradual process of

narrowing down the application of each term as more words are learned.

Lexical relations ( animal-dog-poodle)Antonymous relations are acquired

quite late.

Developing Semantics

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The Important things is not to stop questioning. (Albert

E.)

That’s All ..

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