The issue of variation in FLA and
SLA/SLL
Variables influence
IN SLL/SLA rate final attainment
IN FLA rate

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Effect of situation
Inherited attributes
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Gender
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Intelligence
Personality and learning style
Social background
Experience of linguistic data
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Amount and type of conversation
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Qualitative differences in adult-child interaction

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Amount and type of motherese
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But not all communities use motherese!
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Activities, scenes of language use – functionalism!!
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Interaction with adults vs. children
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Roles of caretakers (carer, playmate, controller, etc.)

Gósy (1999): detrimental noise

Inherited attributes:
Gender
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Girls: advantage in rate (Gósy: at early childhood and at 6-7 years)
Reason: different expectations of and communication with them
Strengthens by adulthood: cooperation initiation

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Studies relating to
- size of vocabulary
- rate of acquisition of syntactic structures
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- acquiring spatial/temporal sequences
No significant result
- difficult to define intelligence
- many types: IQ vs. EQ!

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Extroversion/introversion: initiation
Sociability: speed and ease
„join and communicate”
„Referential” and
„noun lover” kids learn vocab. faster than „expressive” ones
Two-element combinations of SVO

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Points of disagreement:
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Nature and size of variation
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Resources or use of resources?
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Parameters to distinguish social grouping
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Mechanism responsible for the relationship betw. group membership and linguistic variation

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Berstein: clear advantage of middle-class children in
 rate of learning,
 linguistic proficiency,
 style (exploratory, explicit language use).
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Labov: legitimising dialects

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Bristol study:
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Full range of family backgrounds
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Naturally occurring speech samples
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No researcher present when recording
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Legitimising local dialects
No significant difference in
- the amount of speech
- types of contexts
- range of pragmatic functions
- rate: controversial

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Aspects:
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Self-maintaining
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Directives
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Interpretatives
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Projectives
High FB children did better

Experience of linguistic interaction:
Amount and type of conversation
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Significant relation betw. amount of speech and rate of progress
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Rate of development and joint enterprise
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As opposed to mothering and independent
Family status
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First-borns and kids with no siblings close in age progress faster
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Significance of parental attention

Qualitative differences in adult and child interaction
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Motherese – modification in
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Length
Complexity
Intonation
Range of sentence meaning relations
Vocabulary
Interpersonal functions
Discourse functions

Rate of development correlates with
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More finely-tuned talk (sensitive and responsive to kids’ reaction)
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Matching – referential - accepting parental behaviour
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Contingent speech
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Concern to facilitate conversation
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Vs. concern to control behaviour
(= expressive, unidirectional!)

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Variables mainly influence rate
Controversial influence:
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Gender
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Personality
Social class
Strongest influence:
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Quality and amount of caretaker talk
Interactive community is essential for FLA
Rehabilitation potential limited in time