Language Acquisition

Linguistics
May, 11th 2019
Licda. Milvia Rosales G.
 Definition
 Language acquisition: It refers to the subconscious process of
internalizing a language and its rules.
 Language Learning: is the type of conscious language development
which often takes place in the foreign language classroom.
 Linguistic competence develops in stages, from babbling to one
word to two word, then telegraphic speech.
 Babbling is now considered the earliest form of language
acquisition because infants will produce sounds based on what
language input they receive.
 Stages of language acquisition in children
Children's language development follows a predictable sequence.
Stage Typical age Description
Babbling 6-8 months Repetitive CV patterns
One-word stage
9-18 months Single open-class words or word stems
(better one-morphemeor one-unit)
"mini-sentences" with simple semantic
Two-word stage 18-24 months
relations
Telegraphic stage "Telegraphic" sentence structures o f
or early multiword stage 24-30 months lexical rather than functional or
(better multi-morpheme) grammatical morphemes
Grammatical or functional structures
Later multiword stage 30+ months
emerge
 Theories of acquisition
Imitation does not work because children produce sentences
never heard before, such as "cat stand up table." Even when
they try to imitate adult speech, children cannot generate
the same sentences because of their limited grammar.

Children who are unable to speak still learn and understand

the language, so that when they overcome their speech
impairment they immediately begin speaking the language.
Reinforcement also does not work because it actually
seldomly occurs and when it does, the reinforcement is
correcting pronunciation or truthfulness and not
grammar.
A sentence such as "apples are purple" would be
corrected more often because it is not true, as compared
to a sentence such as "apples is red" regardless of the
grammar.
Analogy involves the formation of sentences or
phrases by using other sentences as samples. If a
child hears the sentence, "I painted a red barn,"
he can say, by analogy, "I painted a blue barn."
Yet if he hears the sentence, "I painted a barn
red," he cannot say "I saw a barn red." The
analogy did not work this time, and this is not a
sentence of English.
Rate of vocabulary development

Nelson 1973 Fenson 1993

Milestone
(18 children) (1,789 children)
15 months 13 months
10 words
(range 13-19) (range 8-16)
20 months 17 months
50 words
(range 14-24) (range 10-24)
Vocabulary at 24 186 words 310 words
months (range 28-436) (range 41-668)
Sex differences in vocabulary acquisition

Against a background of enormous individual

variation, girl babies tend to learn more
words faster than boy babies do; but the
difference disappears over time.
 Infant Behavior and Development
In a sample of 18-month-olds, boys' average
vocabulary size was 41.8 words, while girls'
average was 86.8.
By 24 months, the difference had narrowed to a boys' mean of
196.8 vs. a girls' mean of 275.1.
As time passes, the difference disappears entirely, and then
emerges again in the opposite direction, with males showing
larger average vocabularies during college years
Acquisition of grammatical elements and the
corresponding structures
At about the age of two, children first begin to use
grammatical elements.
Examples: Me'll have that - I having this.

Over a year to a year and a half, sentences get longer,

grammatical elements are less often omitted and less
often inserted incorrectly.
Acquisitions

Phonology: A child's error in pronunciation is not

random, but rule-governed.

For example: spoon becomes poon, dog

becomes dok, doggy becomes goggy, or big
becomes gig.
Over-regularization:
Children treat irregular verbs and nouns as regular. Go- goed because the
regular verbs add an -ed ending to form the past tense. Like most other
aspects of children's developing grammar, is typically resistant to
correction.
CHILD: My teacher holded the baby rabbits.
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 .
ADULT: Did you say she held them tightly?
CHILD: No, she holded them loosely.
Second Language acquisition

The "Critical Age Hypothesis" suggests that there is a

critical age for language acquisition without the need for
special teaching or learning.

During this critical period, language learning proceeds

quickly and easily. After this period, the acquisition of
grammar is difficult, and for some people, never fully
achieved.
Factors

Age
Motivation
Aptitude
Personality
Cognitive or learning style.
 Chomsky
Chomsky supports the existence of a universal
grammar which pre-programmes the brain to make
sense of the different rules of language.
This brain function enables children to process and
order the language that they are exposed to.
The complex nature of language and its rules
would be too difficult for us to acquire if our brains
were not equipped with a language processor.
Sociocultural Theory

Sociocultural theory is the notion that

human mental function is from
participating cultural mediation integrated
into social activities.
Memory and second language acquisition

One area of research is the role of

memory. This suggests that individuals with
less short-term memory capacity might have a
limitation in performing cognitive processes
for organization and use of linguistic
knowledge
Second Language Acquisition Teaching Methods

Direct method Silent Way

Audio-lingual Natural Approach
Suggestopedia
Total Physical Response
Community Language Learning
Community Language Teaching
 Bibliography and Egraphy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_second-
language_acquisition
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/ling001/acquisition.html
http://www.ielanguages.com/linguistics.html

Book:
English for language and Linguistics
In higher education studies.
Garnet education.