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Introduction
We are designed to walk….That we are taught to walk is impossible. And pretty much the same is true of language. Nobody is taught language.
Noam Chomsky, The Human Language Series program 2, 1994
A normal human being can go through life even without
learning how to read or write. This has been proved by millions and
this same millions of people speak and understand and discuss
complex or even abstract ideas just as well as those who are
schooled. Learning a language and learning to read and write are
somehow different.
Children have the sensory and motor abilities to produce and
comprehend even in the period of life before language acquisition
occurs. Early exposure to a particular language produces a
"neural commitment" to the acoustic properties of that language
and that this neural commitment interferes with foreign language
processing, making it less efficient.
A string of studies conducted revealed a great deal about
language acquisition, about what a child does and does not do in
the process of acquiring a language. A child learns his words
through committing the sounds in his memory; and by constantly
hearing these sounds as they occur in different sentences.
All children acquire language in the same way, regardless of
what language they use or the number of languages they use.
Acquiring a language is like learning to play a game. Children must
learn the rules of the language game, for example how to articulate
words and how to put them together in ways that are acceptable to
the people around them. In order to understand child language
acquisition, we need to keep two very important things in mind:
First, children do not use language like adults, because
children are not adults. Acquiring language is a gradual, lengthy
process, and one that involves a lot of apparent 'errors'. But these
'errors' are in fact not errors at all, but a necessary part of the
process of language acquisition. That is, they should not be
corrected, because they will disappear in time.
Second, children will learn to speak the dialect(s) and
language(s) that are used around them. Children usually begin by
speaking like their parents or caregivers, but once they start to mix
with other children they start to speak like their friends of their age.
The way children speak cannot be controlled - they will develop
their own accents and they will learn the languages they think they
need. If you don't like the local accent, you'll either have to put up
with it or move to somewhere with an accent you like. On the other
hand, if you don't like your own accent, and prefer the local one,
you will be happy. A child will also learn the local grammar. It might
be judged wrong in school contexts (and all children will have to
learn the standard version in school) but if adults in the child's
community use them, they are not "wrong" in child language.
Like the rest of us, children are individuals. What makes
them different from adults, as a whole, is that children are reared in
adult worlds according to adult expectations. Children learn to
model their behavior on what goes on around them, be it dress
codes, body language, table manners or language uses, usually first
through their caregivers or parents and later through peers in their
family, neighborhood or school. That is, children are learning how to
function adequately in their environment, and much of this learning
takes place through language itself. We talk to children to tell them
about our adult world and they learn about the world from what we
tell them. But they also learn about our language, from how we use
it to tell them about other things and most commonly when we
answer their questions. This means that language learning is going
on whenever language is used around children.
Springing from the abovementioned contexts, this study will
present findings (though limited) of a 4 year old boy’s language
acquired. Implications will also be presented in an attempt to chain
the data on psycholinguistic principles.
Statement of the Problem
This study attempts to capture a description of language
acquired by a 4 year old boy. This description will be on the
ollowing:
1. Grammaticality,
2. Grammatical Categories or Syntactical Categories, and
3. Grammatical Morphemes.
Objectives of the Study
The general objective of the study is to capture a description
of the language acquired by the subject. Particularly, this study
should be able to describe:
a. grammaticality,
b. grammatical categories or syntactical categories, and
c. grammatical morphemes.
Methodology
The researcher based her study on a video recorded language
use of the subject. It was ensured that the recording was in such a
way that the language use was spontaneous while at play with
others about his age. Participant observation was also utilized.
Dialogs were transcribed or the purpose o description.
Data Presentation and Discussion
This part presents the data gathered backed with related
literature and studies in an attempt to capture a description of the
language acquired by the subject.
Leonard Bloomfield (in 1933) wrote that the acquisition of
language “is doubtless the greatest feat any one of us is ever
required to perform.” Despite the complexity of the aspects of
language – children, before the age of 5 already know most of the
intricate system we have been calling the grammar of a language.
Before they can add 2 + 2, children are conjoining sentences, asking
questions, selecting appropriate pronouns, negating sentences,
forming relative clauses, and using the syntactic, phonological,
morphological, and semantic rules of the grammar.
Indeed, children do not wake up one morning with a fully
formed grammar in their heads or with all the “rules” of social and
communicative intercourse. Linguistic knowledge develops by
stages. Each successive stage more closely approximates the
grammar of the adult language. Observations of children in
different language areas of the world reveal that the stages are
similar, possibly universal. Some of the stages last for a short time;
others remain longer. Some stages may overlap for a short period,
though the transition between stages is often sudden.
The Intellectual Feat Required
The First Sounds
The stages of language acquisition can be divided into pre-
linguistic and linguistic stages. Most scholars agree that the
earliest cries, whimpers, and cooing noises of the newborn, or
neonate, cannot be considered early language. Such noises are
completely stimulus-controlled; they are the child’s involuntary
responses to hunger, discomfort, the desire to be cuddled, or the
feeling of well-being. During the earliest period, the noises
produced by infants in all language communities sound the same.
Children who are born deaf also produce these same sounds, even
though they receive no auditory stimuli.
The Babbling Stage
Usually around the sixth month, the infant begins to babble.
The sounds produced in this period seem to include a large variety
of sounds, many of which do not occur in the language of the
household. Deaf children also babble similar to that of normal
children. Hearing children born of nonspeaking deaf parents also
babble. Therefore, babbling does not depend on the presence of
acoustic, auditory input. During this period, children learn to
maintain the “right” sounds and suppress the “wrong” ones. The
pitches, or intonation contours, of infants’ utterances begin to
resemble the intonation contours of sentences spoken by adults.
However, babbling does not seem to be a prerequisite for language
acquisition. This stage is therefore pre-linguistic.
The First Words
Varying from child to child and regardless of how intelligent
the child is, sometime after one year children begin to use the same
string of sounds repeatedly to “mean” the same thing. Most
children seem to go through the “one word = one sentence” stage.
These one-word “sentences” are called holophrastic sentences. At
this stage, the child uses only one word to express concepts or
predictions that will later be expressed by complex phrases and
sentences.
Many studies have shown that children in the holophrastic
stage can perceive or comprehend many more phonological
contrasts than they can produce themselves. At this stage
therefore, it is not possible to determine the extent of the grammar
of the child simply by observing speech production.
The Two-Word Stage
The production of two-word utterances occurs around the time
of the second birthday of children. At first these utterances appear
to be strings of two of the child’s earlier holophrastic utterances,
each word with its own single-pitch contour. Soon after this
juxtaposition, children begin to form actual two-word sentences
with clean semantic and syntactic relations. The intonation contour
of the two words extends over the whole utterance rather than
being separated by a pause between the two words. At this stage
there are no inflections for numbers, person, tense, and so on.
Pronouns are also rare. There is no three-word stage.
Supporting the stages of language acquisition are theories of
child language acquisition.
Theories of Child Language Acquisition
Do Children Learn by Imitation?
Various theories have been proposed to explain how children
manage to acquire the adult language. There are those who think
that children merely imitate what they hear. Imitation is involved to
some extent, of course, but the sentences produced by children
show that children are not imitating adult speech.
Even when children are deliberately trying to imitate what
they hear, they are unable to produce sentences that cannot be
generated by their grammar. Neither can the “imitation” theory
account for another important phenomenon. There are children who
are unable to speak for neurological or physiological reasons; yet
these children learn the language spoken to them and understand
what is said. When they overcome their speech impairment they
immediately use the language for speaking.
Do Children Learn by Reinforcement?
A theory of language acquisition suggests that children learn
to produce “correct” sentences because they are positively
reinforced when they say something right and negatively reinforced
when they say something wrong. This view assumes that children
are being constantly corrected for using “bad grammar” and
rewarded when they use “good grammar”. Studies report that
reinforcement seldom occurs, and when it does, it is usually
incorrect pronunciation or incorrect reporting of facts that is
corrected.
Attempts to “correct” a child’s language seem to be doomed
to fail. Children do not know what they are doing wrong and are
unable to make corrections even when they are pointed out.
The “imitation” and “reinforcement” theories fail. Neither is
unable to account for the nonrandom mistakes children make. It
appears that the child is equipped from birth with the neural
prerequisites for language and language use, just as birds are
biologically “prewired” to learn the songs of their species. Our
linguistic ability permits us to acquire any human language to which
we are exposed. So, children born of Zulu English-speaking
environment will learn English, and vice versa.
Related Studies
A study titled “Children and Primary Language Acquisition”
conducted by the University of Michigan, Department of Psychology
revealed that fathers tend to play physically with their boys but talk
and otherwise communicate socially and verbally with their girls,
which may contribute to age differences in language skills.
In another study, “Gender Differences in Child Language
Development” conducted by researchers from Northwestern
University and Haifa University it was shown that there are gender
differences in brain activity and proposed that distinctions may date
back to early human history. The evidence of early civilizations
indicates that men relied on a limited, immediate signal to make
instant fight-or-flight decisions while women used context and
abstract thinking in decision-making, skills that are still highly
relevant in contemporary culture.
In addition, the study reported that girls experience the
cognitive changes that affect language acquisition at age 14 to 20
months while boys exhibit changes later, between 20 and 24 months
of age. This can explain why girls often speak sooner than boys,
use larger vocabularies and speak in multiple-word sentences or
phrases.
From the Australian Council of TESOL Associations in an
International TESOL Conference, a paper titled “Understanding
Children’s Language Acquisition” was presented. This was
undertaken as a response to the lack of awareness about the
indigenous language situation in Queensland, Australia. Data were
videotaped and samples were transcribed. Semi-structured
interviews were also conducted. The videos show how children
spoke with other indigenous people (peers, staff or family members)
in addition to how they spoke with non-indigenous peers and staff.
It highlighted the differences in the ease of communication between
these interactive situations, as well as demonstrating that these
children are learners of Standard Australian English (SAE).
The interviews gleaned information about differing language
backgrounds and schooling experiences. Recurring themes
occurred, including – the complex history behind the current
language situation; children’s language learning needs not being
recognized – or catered for – at school; and the need for local
indigenous staff to assist staff who do not speak the same language
as the children. The study forwarded recommendations including:
provision of “language aware” services to young children in terms
of language acquisition, language situation, language structure; and
multilingualism; understanding, valuing and using children’s home
language/s in educational settings; and localized trainings for
educators and related stakeholders. It also forwarded three broad
goals, i.e. to utilize and develop their first language; to assist them
in learning Standard Australian English (SAE); and to engage them
with the traditional language/s of their cultural heritage.
Subject
Cyrus Gabriel Adlao Olmedo is a 4-year old boy. Three adults
keep him company during day time and seven adults at night time.
He is exposed to cartoons on television for an average of three
hours per day. The adults keeping him company speak either the
local dialect or Tagalog and intermittent English.
Cyrus started school at the age of three. At four, he is
enrolled in a nursery class using Tagalog as its medium of
instruction. He is physically active and talkative.
Data Presentation and Discussion
This part of the paper presents the data collected through
video recording (at play time) and observations made on the
subject. Dialogs in the video record were transcribed and presented
below:
Table 1. Data Gathered and Grammaticality
Dialogue Grammaticality
Grammatical/Syntactic Category
Grammatical MorphemeNoun/Pro- Verb
noun1. Sa Toy Kingdom adi... (This is rom the Toy
Kingdom…)C
Toy Kingdom
Adi
Number Inlection
2. Angry Bird yan na green…
(That is a green “angry bird”…)
C Angry Bird
Yan
Number Inlections
3. Waya na..isa yang..nagsasakay…nagsasakay..
(No more..only one..riding… riding…)
C Isa Nagsa
sakay Time
Inlection
4. One, two, three .. andito na…
(One, two, three.. it’s here…)
C One, Two, Three
andito
Number Inlection
5. Hindi naka-close…naka-open(It’s not closed.. it’s open)
C (naka)-close
(naka)-open
Derivative (?)
6. Ayaw ko…ayaw ko..(I don’t like.. I don’t like..)
C Ko Ayaw Person
Number
7. San ang yeyo angry bird ko?
(Where’s my yellow angry bird?)
C Angry Bird
Ko ‘San
Number
Person
8. Ano yon nahuyog? (What has allen?)
C Nahuyog
Time
9. Di ba may guitar ikaw? Don sa bahay?
(Is it not that you have a guitar? There in the house..)
Inc Guitar Ikaw Don Bahay
Number
Person
10. Sige na, hindi man ikaw nagmo-move(Come on, you’re not
moving..)
C Ikaw Nagmo-move
Number
Person
Time11. Mata ko ikaw next time.. Inc Ko/ Ikaw Mata Numb
(I’ll wake you up next time..) er Perso
n Time
12. Kasi stuff toy yang yan…di ba? Stuff toy yang yan… Yeyo sya ‘tas yeyo Sponge Bob
(Because it’s just a stu toy, isn’t it?..it’s a stu toy..it’s yellow and yellow stuu toy)
C
12. Uy, meron ako sig-sine(Hey, I have something like this..)
C
13. Sabi ko nga sayo kakareach ko yan….hindi ikaw kay kaka-reach ko ya Ha, ano?
(As I have told you, I can reach it.. not you because I
can reach it..ha, what?)
C
14. Uy, sa yabas yang ako mag-motor cross..
(Hey, I’ll play motor cross outside..)
C
15. 15. Uy, diba dayawa sa imo?…’tas dayawa sa akon?
(Hey, you have two, right.. and I have two also..)
C
16. Wag yan kasi hindi sya taga-dyan kay red
(Not there because he’s not rom there because he’s
red..)
C
17. Hindi, kasi hindi ikaw boys…girl ikaw
(No, because you’re not boys you’re a girl..)
C
18. Uy, sino nag-bite? Ayoko yan…
(Hey, who bit this? I don’t like that..)
C
19. Pag-naubos ko na adi… Inc
maghingi ikaw..(I I inish this.. you ask..)
20. Wag lang mga adi…kasi natutuyog
(Not these because they are sleeping..)
C
21. Waya pa sip-on…pag hiccups hindi mawara yan..
(No cold yet.. when you hiccups..it will not
disappear..)
Inc
No, ayoko!(No, I don’t like..)
C
Yehey! Sasakay sya. Uy, mga toys. I-park toy kay
sayi sira din…ah..haha…pa-backwards ganito yan!!!
(Yehey, he’s going to ride..Hey, toys..Park the toy because they are in also…
ah..haha..it should be backwards..like this..)
Inc
Ako si Mr. Pogi…ano man ikaw na gusto mo pa-
yayk (like)..(I am Mr. Pogi..what about
you..what do you like..)
Inc
I-picture mo na..kaiha man…i-picture mo na kami…tapos mag picture video na agad…
(You take the picture..it’s taking long to take the picture o us..ater the
picture ..take the video immediately..)
C
Patay na yong monster…pag-punta sa akin ng monster
ma-roar ako..rooaarrr!(The monster is dead..i the monster comes to me I’ll
roar.. rooaarr!)
C
Anong movie yan? Bakit may heart man?
(What movie is that? Why does it have a heart?)
C Movie Yan Heart
Number
Ako na win…ako na win…!!!(I win.. I win..!!)
Inc Ako Na-win NumberPersonTime
From the transcribed dialogues, it is shown that the 4-year old
subject utilizes six general functions of language and these are the:
instrumental, regulatory, representational, interactional, personal
and heuristic functions.
It also appears that with the mean length of utterances (MLU) not lesser than five (5)
morphemes on average – the subject is at the stage of grammar acquisition. It is observed
however, that connectors are still missing in several of the string of utterances (25, 26, 27, 28,
31 and 33). But basically, word order is acceptable.
Declarative sentences are well in order (e.g. 1, 2, 6, 9 and 18) and so are the
interrogative ones (9, 11, 12, 22, 25 and 34).
Ninorte-Samarnon utterances were limited to dialogues: 1 – adi (this), 3 - nagsasakay,
(riding) 4 - nagsasakay (riding), 13 – man (emphatic expression), nagmo-move (moving), 16 -
sig-sine (like this), 22 - imo (yours), 25 – nag-bite (bit), 26 – adi (this), 27 – adi (this), 28 – sip-
on (cold), 30 – sira (they), and 31 – man (emphatic expression) or particularly only the
demonstrative: “this” singular near the speaker, pronouns : “yours” (possessive) and “they”
3rd person plural, “sip-on” noun; verbs: “riding” and “moving” – progressive; the emphatic
expression “man”; and the prefix “nag” in verbs. The subject is poor in his native tongue (L1);
and conversant in Tagalog (L2).
The occurrence of English words is more numerous than the native tongue. These are
found in dialogues: 1 – Toy Kingdom (proper noun), 2 - Angry Bird (proper noun) & green
(noun), 5 - one, two, three (nouns), 7 - close and open (used as modifiers), 9 - Angry Bird
(Proper noun), 11 – guitar (noun), 13 - move (verb), 14 – next time (temporal signal), 15 -
stuff toy (noun) and Sponge Bob (proper noun), 17 - reach (verb), 23 – motor cross (noun), 24
– boys and girl (nouns), 25 – bite (verb), 28 – hiccups (noun), 30 – toys (noun), (i)-park (verb),
(pa)-backwards (adverb), 31 – like (verb), 32 – (i)-picture and (i)-video (verbs), 33 – monster
(noun) and (ma)-roar (verb), and 35 - (na)-win (verb). Most of the words are nouns and
verbs.
On estimate, most of the utterances are Tagalog (L2), next are utterances in English
(Target Language) and last are utterances in the native tongue (L1)).
Indeed, children learn to construct sentences, most of which they have never
produced before. Children learn to understand sentences they have never heard before; they
construct the rules that permit them to use the language creatively and no one teaches them
these rules. Their parents are no more aware of the phonological, syntactic, and semantic
rules than are children.
Conclusions
The following are conclusions:
1. The subject is at the stage of grammar acquisition. This is evidenced by the declarative
and interrogative dialogues where word order is correct. This may be considered an advance
feature in the language acquisition stage of a 4-year old boy.
2. Six general functions of language were evidenced. These are: instrumental,
representational, regulatory, interactional, heuristic and personal functions.
3. Connectives were found missing in few dialogues; and is therefore a deficit.
4. Inflections (number and tense) are not yet established. This is also a deficit.
5. The subject is conversant in Tagalog (L2) which is the medium of instruction.
Implications to Teaching Language in Pre-School
Implications include:
1. The non utilization and development of the first language in educational settings may
hamper the learning capability of the pupils as they progress to higher grades with the
implementation of K2 – 12 program of the Department of Education.
2. The conclusions forwarded imply the valuing and engaging of children’s home language in
the classroom situation.
References
Language Acquisition, Chapter 10. Introduction to Language
Gender Differences in Child Language Development.http://www.ehow.com/list 6122997
Children and Primary Language Acquisition.http://www.ehow.com/list html1#ixzz29F6HK9Q
Australian Council of TESOL Associations – International TESOL Conference:Understanding Children’s Language Acquisition. July 10, 2012 Goid Coast Queensland.Denise Angelo, Sophie McIntosh and Nina Carter (Central, South and North Queensland Schooling Support Unit DET (Qld)
Applied Linguistics for Communication Arts. Tayao, Ma. Lourdes et al., 1997. UP-OU.