First Language Acquisition

Chapter 14

First Language Acquisition Every language is complex. Before the age of 5, the child knows

most of the intricate system of grammar. Use the syntactic, phonological,

morphological and semantic rules of the language

Join sentences Ask questions Use appropriate pronouns Negate sentences Form relative clauses

Theories of language acquisition

Behaviorism (1950s) Children learn language through imitation

Adult: He’s going out. Child: He go out. Though reinforcement

Correction Nobody don’t like me

Through analogy Hear a sample and extend it to all cases

I painted a red barn Motherese

Child direct speech

Issues in first language acquisition

How do children acquire such a complex system so quickly and effortlessly?

Does a child decide to consciously pursue certain skills? (e.g., walking)

Do babies make a conscious decision to start learning a language?

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

We correct children’s errors sometimes. Does it help? ‘‘Nobody donNobody don’’t like met like me’’

Theories of language acquisition

Cannot account for language development because they are based on the assumption that what the child requires is based on a set of sentences rather than rules.

Innateness hypothesis Children are equipped with an innate template

for language (Universal Grammar) Evidence: we end up knowing more about

language than what we hear around us. The same stages in all cultures and languages.

Basic requirements Environment and interaction to

bring this capacity into operation- E.g. Genie – cultural transmission

The child must be physically capable (being able to hear)

Interaction. All these requirements are related.

The acquisition schedule

All normal children develop language at roughly the same time, along the same schedule.

The biological schedule is related to the maturation of the infant’s brain to cope with the linguistic input

Young children acquire the language by identifying the regularities in what is heard and applying those regularities in what they say

Caretaker Speech Caretaker Speech (motherese)(motherese)

A type of simplified speech adopts by someone who spends time with the child characterized by: Frequent use of questions Simplified lexicon Phonological reduction Higher pitch- extra loudness Stressed intonation Simple sentences A lot of repetition

Oh, goody! Now Daddy will push choo choo!

Caretaker Speech Caretaker Speech (motherese)(motherese) Assign interactive roles to young children MOTHER: Look! CHILD: (touches picture) MOTHER: what are those? CHILD: (vocalizes a babble string and smiles) MOTHER: yes, there are rabbits CHILD: Vocalizes and smiles MOTHER: (laughs) yes, rabbit

L1 acquisitionStageTypical

age description

cooing3-5 months

Vowel-like sounds

babbling6-10 months

Repetitive CV patterns

One-word stage 12-18 months

Single open-class words or word stems

Two-word stage18-20 months

"mini-sentences" with simple semantic relations

Telegraphic stage 24-30 months

sentence structures of lexical words no functional or grammatical morphemes

Later multiword stage30+ months

Grammatical or functional structures emerge

Cooing Few weeks: cooing and gurgling, playing with

sounds. Their abilities are constrained by physiological limitations

they seem to be discovering phonemes at this point.

Producing sequences of vowel-like sounds- high vowels [i] and [u].

4 months- sounds similar to velar consonants [k] & [g]

5 months: distinguish between [a] and [i] and the syllables [ba] and [ga], so their perception skills are good.

Babbling Different vowel and consonants ba-ba-ba and

ga-ga-ga 9-10 months intonation patterns and

combination of ba-ba-ba-da-da Nasal sounds also appear ma-ma-ma 10-11-- use of vocalization to express emotions Late stage- complex syllable combination (ma-

da-ga-ba) Even deaf children babble The most common cross-linguistic sounds and

patterns babbled the most, but later on they babble less common sounds

The word stage (holophrastic) Single terms are uttered for

everyday objects ‘milk’, ‘cookie’, ‘cat’

Produce utterance such as ‘Sara bed’ but not yet capable of producing a phrase.

Two-word stage

Vocabulary moves beyond 50 words

By 2 years old produce utterances ‘baby chair’, ‘mommy eat’

Interpretation depends on context Adults behave as if communication

is taking place.

Telegraphic stage By 2 years & a half, they produce

multiple-word speech. Developing sentence building

capacity. E.g. ‘this shoe all wet’, ‘cat drink milk’, ‘daddy go bye-bye’

Vocabulary continues to grow Better pronunciation

The acquisition process The child does not acquire the language by

imitating adults- trying out constructions and testing them.

CHILD: my teacher holded the baby rabbit and we patted themMOTHER: did you say your teacher held the baby rabbit?CHILD: yes. she holded the baby rabbit and we patted themMOTHER: Did you say she held them tightly?CHILD: no, she holded them loosely

Developing Morphology

By 2-and-a-half years old- use of some inflectional morphemes to indicate the grammatical function of nouns and verbs.

The first inflection to appear is –ing after it comes the –s for plural.

Overgeneralization: the child applies –s to words like ‘foots’ ‘mans’ and later ‘feets’ ‘mens’

Developing Morphology The use of possessive ‘s’ appears

‘mommy’s bag’ Forms of verb to be appear ‘is’ and ‘are’ The –ed for past tense appears and it is

also overgeneralized as in ‘goed’ or holded’

Finally –s marker for 3rd person singular preset tense appear with full verbs first then with auxiliaries (does-has)

Developing syntax A child was asked to say the owl

who eats candy runs fast and she said the owl eat candy and he run fast.

The development of two syntactic structures- three stages Forming questions Forming negatives

Forming questions

1st stage: Insert where and who to the beginning of

an expression with rising intonationE.g. sit chair? Where horse go?

2nd stage: More complex expression

E.g. why you smiling? You want eat? 3rd stage:

Inversion of subject and verbE.g. will you help me? What did I do?

Forming negative

Stage 1: Putting not and no at the beginning

e.g. not teddy bear, no sit here Stage 2:

Don’t and can’t appear but still use no and not before VERBSe.g. he no bite you, I don’t want it

Stage 3: didn’t and won’t appear

e.g. I didn’t caught it, she won’t go

Developing Semantics

During the two-word stage children use their limited vocabulary to refer to a large number of unrelated objects.

Overextension: overextend the meaning of a word on the basis of similarities of shape, sound, and size.e.g. use ball to refer to an apple, and egg, a grape and a ball.

This is followed by a gradual process of narrowing down.

Developing Semantics

Antonymous relations are acquired late

The distinction between more/less, before/after seem to be later acquisition.