First language acquisition LING 400 Winter 2010. Overview Characteristics of L1 Theories of L1 L1...
-
Upload
leo-gregory -
Category
Documents
-
view
220 -
download
2
Transcript of First language acquisition LING 400 Winter 2010. Overview Characteristics of L1 Theories of L1 L1...
First language acquisition
LING 400
Winter 2010
Overview
• Characteristics of L1
• Theories of L1
• L1 and innateness
• Critical period
• L1 and ASL
Please turn off your cell phone.
For further learning: LING/PSYCH 347
Some questions about L1• How is it that by age 5 children (basically)
know their language?
• What they do along the way?
Characteristics of L1
• Regular stages (milestones)– Babbling– One-word stage– Two-word stage
Babbling • “Precanonical babbling”
– 0-1 months: crying, coughing – 2-3 months: “cooing and gooing” (velar Cs)
• “Canonical babbling”– 4-6 months: greater variety of sounds, more like language – 7-9 months: CV syllables, often reduplicated ([tata])
• “Advanced forms”– 12 months: long sequences of gibberish, possibly with
intonation– 18-20 months: babbling ceases
• Examples of babbling at different stages (http://www.vocaldevelopment.com/)
One-word stage • 12-18 months (overlaps with
babbling)
• Characteristics – words used as sentences– simple phonology: CV syllables;
CVCV words – typical communicative functions
• naming
• child’s action or desire for action
• child’s emotion
Words produced by Eve at 15
months
• Mommy• Daddy• go• go?• gimme• baba ‘grandma’• dollie• cup• what?• wawa ‘water’• nana ‘blanket’
2-word stage (±24
months
• Eve at 18 months– short “sentences”
• eating • open toybox • no celery • more grape juice
– limited inflection• What doing, Mommy? • Mommy_ soup • Mommy_ head?
– limited function words• write a paper • Oh! Horsie _ stuck
– pronouns rare• my pencil • _ drink juice
Beyond 2-word stage
• Eve at 27 months– Pronouns and other pro-forms
• You make a blue one for me.• Put in you coffee
– Embedding• I put them in the refrigerator to freeze.
– Determiners and auxiliaries• What is that on the table? • How ‘bout another eggnog instead of _ cheese sandwich?
– Omission of be• See, this one _ better but this _ not better.
– Wrong verb forms• That why Jacky comed.
Production lags behind comprehension• Sounds recognized before produced
– ‘One of us...spoke to a child who called his inflated plastic fish a fis. In imitation of the child’s pronunciation, the observer said: “This is your fis?” “No,” said the child, “my fis”. He continued to reject the adult’s imitation until he was told, “That is your fish.” “Yes,” he said, “my fis.”’
• Word order understood before long sentences produced– Clip from Acquiring Language (bigbird.mov, 0:44-2:31)
Some theories of L1• Reinforcement hypothesis
– Children learn from corrections.
• Imitation hypothesis– Children imitate only what they hear.
• Active construction of grammar hypothesis– Children construct, refine grammatical rules.
• Children don’t get a lot of corrections – some lexical/content corrections – not many grammatical
• Children don’t absorb corrections– Child: Nobody don’t like me.
– Mother: No. Say ‘nobody likes me’.
– Child: Nobody don’t like me.
– ...
– Mother: Now listen carefully. Say ‘nobody LIKES me’.
– Child: Oh...Nobody don’t LIKES me.
Corrections
Imitation• Children imitate lg of environment to a large
extent• But also produce forms not heard
– ‘other one spoon’ – novel verbs
• ‘Why you didn’t jam my bread?’ – novel forms of verbs
• Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.• Adult: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?• Child: Yes.• Adult: What did you say she did?• Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.• Adult: Did you say she held them tightly?• Child: No, she holded them loosely.
Grammar construction hypothesis• Children’s deviations from adult grammar are
systematic, not random
• Regularization of morphology– Plurals
• gooses
– Past tense forms of verbs• I tooked it smaller
– Comparative forms • He hitted me. He’s a puncher he is. He’s being badder and
badder.
Systematic deviation from adult phonology
• A 2-year-old’s English consonant inventory
• No C clusters– “[gu] here” (glue)
• Syll-final Cs are stops– “mummy [gb]” (give)
• No syllabic consonants– “me [ll]” (little)
• Cs must be all oral or all nasal– “take [mnæn]” (banana)
p b t d k g
f s h
m n
w
l
Systematic semantic errors• Hyponyms
– car (first referent: only family Pontiac)
– dish (child’s dish only)
– mow-mow (family cat only)
• Hypernyms– fly (first referent, housefly; later, specks of dirt, dust,
all small insects, child’s own toes, crumbs, small toad)
– koko (first, rooster crowing; later, piano, phonograph, tunes played on violin, accordian, all music, merry-go-round)
L1 and innateness
• Innateness Hypothesis– Humans genetically programmed for language
– Universal Grammar constrains possible form of human language
– Actual form of language determined by environment
• Syntactic errors may resemble well-formed sentences in other languages– A clip from Acquiring the human language,
childerror1.mov (1:47-3:56)
L1 as an innate behavior• Emerges before ‘needed’
– L1 complete age 5
• No conscious decision to learn – L1: immersion in lgc environment sufficient
• Not triggered by external events – L1 ‘poverty of stimulus’: motherese, adult performance
• Not affected by explicit instruction– Correction has no effect on L1
• Normal stages of achievement– L1: Independent of other cognitive skills, cross-linguistic
regularities, uniformity of resulting grammars
• ‘Critical age’ for learning the behavior
L1 as a critical age skill• Critical Age Hypothesis
– Critical age for learning behavior/skill in order for complete mastery
– L1: approximately puberty• Some differences between L1, L2
– Instruction• L1: none• L2: usually overt and necessary
– Speed of learning• L1: relatively fast• L2: relatively slow
– Resulting grammar• L1: more uniform• L2: more idiosyncracy
– Stages in learning• L1: regular stages resulting in complete mastery• L2: no such stages, incomplete mastery
Cases of isolated children
• Victor, Genie (1970), Chelsea, Maria Noname, etc.
• Documentary about Genie
ASL and L1• Lance Forshay: “Fourth of
five Deaf generations.”– In right environment, same
milestones as hearing children
• But 90%+ deaf children born to hearing parents
• “signers are the only large population that undergoes delayed exposure to a primary language” (Meier 1991)
Washington School for the Deaf, Vancouver WA
Acquisition summary
• L1 proceeds in regular stages
• L1 learners construct, refine grammar as they go
• L1 appears to be an innate behavior
Question
• Paul at age 2. How does Paul’s pronunciation systematically differ from adult pronunciation?
Paul:– sun [sʌn]
– see [si]
– spoon [pun]
– snake [neɪk]
– sky [kɑɪ]– stop [tɑp]