Lecture 12

Language Acquisition

Knowledge of language

A baby’s first language acquisition is a spontaneous process.

Babbling

Once a child produces meaningful words and starts pairing sounds with meaning, he will abruptly stop producing all kinds of non-native speech sounds. It is postulated that children babble because language development involves a process of biological maturation.

The baby’s ability to spontaneously decode adults’ utterance

宝宝乖。 嘿嘿！ 宝宝不乖。 哇！！！！！ 宝宝可乖了。 唔… 可乖了，宝宝。 唔… 可坏了，宝宝。 哇！！！！！

Prosodic bootstrapping

syntactic bootstrapping by Leila Gleitman, which means that semantics builds on top of syntax.

semantic bootstrapping by Steven Pinker ,

which means that syntax builds on top of semantics.

prosodic bootstrapping.

What a new baby perceives is neither words nor sentence structures but a string of sounds from an adult’s mouth – a string possibly with pausing, vowel lengthening, stressing, and a certain pattern of intonation. A baby is quite sensitive to such prosodic features. If a baby gets familiar with such features of an adult’s pronunciation of milk, next time when that adult says Want milk, he may infer that this string of sounds consists of two segments – Want and milk.

Error-marked creation

Language acquisition cannot be mere imitation but a creative, self-regularized process with predictable error types as landmarks.

Child L1 acquisition

A process better described as “growth” than “learning”.

Universally successful The knowledge acquired is largely of an

unconscious sort.

The poverty-of-the-stimulus argument

On the one hand there is the complexity of language knowledge, on the other there are the impoverished data available to the learner.

If the child’s mind could not create language knowledge from the data in the surrounding environment, the source must be within the mind itself.

input output

LAD/UG

What is exposed to:limited L1 data

What is acquired:a generative grammar

The logic problem ofL1 acquisition

Domain-specific cognitive facility

Internal mechanism of language

Computational procedure

lexicon

Cognitive competence

Vs

Pragmatic competence

When to combine sounds?

I’m gonna wriDa leDer.

I am going to write a letter.

In “normal, fast” speech

In clearer, more articulated speech

Knowledge of the L1 sound system

What are possible and what are not possible sounds in the language.

What are possible combinations of sounds what sounds are found in what parts of

words.

Garden path sentences

The train left at midnight crashed.

张三喜欢李四不喜欢王五。

Logical picture of the facts.

The woman wearing the pink blouse ran across the street to greet the gorilla that had just escaped from the zoo.

Knowledge of the L1 syntax

Knowing a language entails knowing a set of rules which we can produce an infinite set of sentences.

Lexicon knowledge

Mt. Everest is a high mountain. The Empire State Building is a high building.

一匹马 一头牛 一匹牛 一只羊 一匹羊

Though the meaning of a sentence can be affected by its structure, its meaning does not derive from the structure but the context.

Allan (1986)

A child does not acquire the meanings of words or expressions from the formal definition, but instead from the way they are used by the people around him, and through other people’s response to his own use of them

“On this evidence, there seems little doubt that meaning of a word is governed by its use.”

Wittgenstein’s viewpoints To know the meaning of a word, you have

to take the situation (context) and intention of its use.

The proper characterization of a linguistic expression must include an account of how it is used, what it is used for.

Knowledge of language a summary

Cognitive aspect of language:

computational procedure

lexicon: Saussurean arbitrariness

argument structure

etc. Pragmatic aspect of language

context

intention

encyclopedic knowledge

Then, how about these sentences:

Have him to call me back. That’s the man that I am taller than.

An authoritative textbook says:

For many speakers of English these are strange-sounding, for others they are perfectly acceptable.

Case-filter

*NP if NP has phonetic content and has no Case.

Case is a property of NP in general. If Case can be identified, a mal-structured

sentence may have the possibility to be comprehended.

That’s why we can guess the meaning of “sentences” like

*That woman beautiful is my mother. *I’ll happy if I can get your paper.

Cf. * Canceling what’s but general how then the two actually.

L1 growth: creative rather than trained

Illustration: From Cazden (P.99)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.

Features of the child language

No imitation Self-regularization Children do not just soak in what goes on

around them, but actively try to make sense of the language they are exposed to.

More examples

From McNeill (P.99)Child: Nobody don’t like me.

Mother: No, say “nobody likes me.”

Child: Nobody don’t like me.

(Eight repetitions of this dialogue)

Mother: No, now listen carefully’ say “nobody

likes me.”

Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me.

More examples

Child: Mommy, Dolly hitted me.

Mother: Dolly HIT me.

Child: You too? Boy, she’s in trouble!

More examples

From McNeill (P.99)Child: Nobody don’t like me.

Mother: No, say “nobody likes me.”

Child: Nobody don’t like me.

(Eight repetitions of this dialogue)

Mother: No, now listen carefully’ say “nobody

likes me.”

Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me.

Features of the child language

They construct grammars. In doing so they make generalizations, they test those generalizations or hypotheses, and they alter or reformulate them when necessary – or abandon them in favor of some other generalization.

S0 S1

Cook’s Driving Analogy

Human beings can learn how to drive. This capacity is species-specific.

A principle: drivers have to keep consistently to one side of the road.

A parameter: deciding which side of the road people should drive on.

The parameter has two values or “settings” – left or right.

A universal principle and a variable parameter together sum up the essence of driving.

The essence of driving

Universal rules – principles

Variable rules -- parameters

The essence of language

Universal Grammar – innate

The UG theory explains the uniformly successful and speedy acquisition of language by children in spite of insufficient input.

Parameter setting to a particular language.

General nativism vs. special nativism

The former: There are general principles of learning that

are not particular to language learning but may be employed in other types of learning.

The latter: there are unique principles for language

learning but not for other cognitive endeavors.

Longitudinal studies

e.g.

Virginia Yip ( 叶采燕 ):

Early syntactic development in Cantonese-English bilingual children

粤英双语儿童早期语法发展

儿童如何在早期同时习得两个语言？研究方法：记观察日记建立 /查询纵向语料库

香港双语儿童语料库http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ils/home/bilingual.htm

假说

儿童具有双语本能 如果双语儿童显示出与单语

儿童同样的句法发展速度，就能证明语言的发展过程是通过选择或触发，而不是学习而来的。

儿童语法发展中的跨语言互动

空宾语 (null object) ：You get, I eat…

假被动式（ pseudo-passive):

Schoolbag put here, put at the door.

疑问词不移位（ wh-in-situ ） :

I know,I know, I know, I know, I know it’s where.

语音并行习得

粤语 sapl 湿 satl 失 sakl 塞

英语 lap sat sak

双语儿童与成人第二语言习得者的比较unlearning

习失

fossilization

僵化

启发与尝试观察儿童是如何习得母语的，长期做笔记。

如有可能，观察同时习得两种语言的儿童。

在特定语境下，儿童习惯于如何表达与交流，与成年人有什么不一样？

可以侧重观察几个方面。

Critical periodCritical period Eric Lenneberg said that the ability to lEric Lenneberg said that the ability to l

earn a native language develops within earn a native language develops within a fixed period, from birth to puberty. Dura fixed period, from birth to puberty. During this period, language acquisition proing this period, language acquisition proceeds easily, swiftly, and without externceeds easily, swiftly, and without external intervention. After this period, the acqal intervention. After this period, the acquisition of grammar is difficult and for souisition of grammar is difficult and for some individuals never fully achieved. me individuals never fully achieved.

ExampleExample A girl called Genie was found in 1970 when she was A girl called Genie was found in 1970 when she was

nearly fourteen years old. She had been abused and isnearly fourteen years old. She had been abused and isolated since the age of twenty months. When first discolated since the age of twenty months. When first discovered, Genie was completely silent. Thereafter her laovered, Genie was completely silent. Thereafter her language development was extremely slow, and althougnguage development was extremely slow, and although she did learn to speak, her speech was quite abnormh she did learn to speak, her speech was quite abnormal. Below are some al. Below are some whwh-questions made by the girl.-questions made by the girl.

**Where is tomorrow Mrs L.?Where is tomorrow Mrs L.? **Where is May I have ten pennies?Where is May I have ten pennies? * * When is stop spitting? When is stop spitting?

These “ill-formed” These “ill-formed” whwh-questions serve as -questions serve as evidence that grammatical structures are not levidence that grammatical structures are not learned through imitation and memorization bearned through imitation and memorization but “preprogrammed” and triggered in childhut “preprogrammed” and triggered in childhood. Genie was not bad at imitation and she wood. Genie was not bad at imitation and she was an avid communicator with her teacher. Sinas an avid communicator with her teacher. Since she began to learn a language after the critice she began to learn a language after the critical age, however, she could not rely on UG to dcal age, however, she could not rely on UG to develop normal grammatical capability.evelop normal grammatical capability.

Support from zoologySupport from zoology

The notion of a critical period is The notion of a critical period is true of many species, whose innate true of many species, whose innate faculty should also be triggered faculty should also be triggered within a finite period of time after within a finite period of time after birth. birth.

ConclusionConclusion

Man has an instinctive Man has an instinctive tendency to speak. tendency to speak. Language is our species-Language is our species-specific endowment. specific endowment. Language acquisition is Language acquisition is spontaneous during human spontaneous during human childhood.childhood.

So LongSo Long