First Language Acquisition
Transcript of First Language Acquisition
FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
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1) “First language” (L1):
2) “Second language” (L2):
3) “Foreign language” (FL)
4) “Target language” (TL)
DEFINITIONS
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
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.
First Words
• Around 12 months (“one-word” stage): – one or two recognizable words (esp. content
word); – Single-word sentences.
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”
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.
– basic structures of the language– less frequent and more complex linguistic
structures.– use of the language in a widening social
environment.
• Development of Metalinguistic Awareness
• Development of Vocabulary
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
1) BEHAVIORISM: SAY WHAT I SAY
Skinner: language behavior is the production of correct responses to stimuli through reinforcement.
Language learning is the result of:
imitation (word-for-word repetition), practice (repetitive manipulation of form), feedback on success (positive
reinforcement) habit formation.
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.
Children’s imitations are not random
• Their imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning.
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.
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:
– 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.
Children are biologically
programmed for language
Language develops in the child
In the same way of other biological
functions
language
acquisition
learning to walk.
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).
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
children need access only to
samples of a natural language
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.
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).
–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.
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.
–Children acquire grammatical rules
without getting explicit instruction.
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
Two versions
STRONG
ONLY BY PUBERTY
WEAK
AFTER PUBERTY IT WILL BE MORE DIFFICULT AND INCOMPLETE
• 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)
• 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
3) INTERACTIONIST/DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES:
LEARNING FROM INSIDE AND OUT
Problems of Innatism:
Too much emphasis on
the “final state”
but not enough on the developmental aspects of
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
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.
the innate learning ability of children
the environment in which they develop
LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT
CRUCIAL ELEMENT in language acquisition process
MODIFIED SPEECH
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
Developmental psychologists
attribute more importance to the environment
But they recognize a powerful learning mechanism in the human brain.
PIAGET
“Children’s cognitive development determines their language
development.”
The interaction between the child
things which can be
observed,
touched, and
manipulated
Is built on
the developing cognitive
understanding
Language
rather than a separate module of the mind.
VYGOTSKY
Sociocultural theory of human mental processing.
He argued that language develops primarily
from social interaction.
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.
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.
THOUGHT
ESSENTIALLY INTERANALIZED SPEECH
SPEECH
EMERGED IN SOCIAL
INTERACTION