6.1 Some Theories Concerning Child Language Acquisition Acquiring a first language ● children learn by imitation ● children are innately endowed to learn a language due to the “Universal Grammar” ● children learn because they are smarter than other animals ● ● ● ● children understand that language is a consists of distinct sounds children are aware of the order of morphemes and words children are able to understand the relationship between expression and content children seem to learn language automatically The biological predisposition ● innatists or nativists believe that learning is innate ● one subscriber of this theory, Noam Chomsky believes that children are programmed to learn language ● he believes humans are born with a “Language Acquisition Device” and it holds all the “Universal Grammar” principles A critical period for first language acquisition ● children who have been deprived of language from birth to six have difficulty forming ● grammatically correct sentences ● the way adults modify language is essential to the way children acquire language ● Nelsons categories of speech ○ specific nominals ○ general ○ action words ○ modifiers ○ personal ○ function Baby talk ● ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ the characteristics of baby talk slower speed higher pitch exaggerated tone and stress longer pauses small vocabulary more immediate references shorter sentences more commands and questions more repetition sounds or special words that are reduplicative and/or diminutive Language learning and intellectual development ● this theory suggests that a child learns language within the context of its intellectual development (they have to be capable of having a particular thought before voicing it) How deaf children learn to communicate ● deaf children learn sign language the same way that other children learn to spoken language ● this supports the theory of biological predisposition Langquiz p.72 1. The difference between nature and nurture is: nature is what you were born with, and nurture is the influence of the influence of your environment 2. A LAD is: something inside the brain which holds all of the shared principals of language. 3. Chomsky believed that language ability was innate. 4. Reinforcement is the positive or negative consequences of an action. 5. Parentese is a variation on a language that some adults speak to babies. 6. A critical period in language acquisition is the period of time that it is most important that a child has contact with language. Langquiz p.78 Langquiz p.83 1. Bilabial sounds are made by pressing the lips together; alveolar sounds are made by touching the tongue to the top of the mouth; glottal sounds are made when the vocal chords are apart; labiodental sounds are made with the upper teeth and the lower lip. 2. Already completed in summary. Langquiz p.87 1. L1 id first language and L2 is second language. 2. Already completed in summary. 3. Over generalisation. 4. The more contact we have with a language in areas that we use everyday and are familiar with the better and faster the learning will be. 6.2 How children use language How children use language ● practical purposes – to obtain their everyday needs such as food and toys and then as they grow older to negotiate permission to stay up later of go to the movies. ● Social purposes – to relate with one another and to become aware of their own feelings and attitudes ● learning purposes – to build up their own ideas through the realm of their imagination. They create stories, plan for the future and develop sympathy with other people’s points of view. Leaning skills to acquire a language ● in order to speak a word a child must have a mental picture of what that object looks like ● the child must know that language is a tool by which they can acquire things that they want ● they also need to know that language is a combination of sounds ● and that it has appropriate social contexts Finding out about language ● two main methods of finding out how children learn language are the naturalistic method and the experimental method ● in the naturalistic method researchers observe children’s natural speech ● in the experimental method researchers conduct a series of tests The stages in language acquisition ● babbling ○ time frame: from one month to twelve months ○ what’s happening: the baby is trying out different sounds and how they are made ● holophrastic (one word) ○ time frame: from twelve months to eighteen months ○ what’s happening: the baby is using one word to represent a whole sentence, usually nouns or verbs ● two words ○ time frame: from eighteen months to twenty months ○ what’s happening: the baby is using two words to represent a whole sentence, usually one noun and one verb ● telegraphic ○ time frame: from twenty months to two years ○ what’s happening: the child is forming simple sentences that have the correct order for the subject verb and object. The child has a vocabulary of over 50 words, over the next few months this grows by ten or twelve words a day. By age six most children have a vocabulary of over 13 000 words. Order of speech sounds ● vowels are usually acquired before consonants ● the consonants p, b, m, t, d, n, k, and g are acquired before others ● children will often simplify words by deleting one or more sounds ● children will often omit final consonants ● children will substitute a sound with one they find easier to pronounce ● children will modify a consonant because it is similar to another ● children can differentiate between sounds that they cannot even pronounce themselves ● children have trouble with irregular forms of plurals such as man > men Understanding meaning ● children use contextual cues, cues from the meanings of words that they know already ● children may over generalise ● children may under-generalise Halliday’s seven types of language function ● I want ● do as I tell you ● you and me ● here I come ● I've got something to tell you ● tell me why ● let’s pretend 6.3 How a baby learns to speak How sounds are produced Analysing children’s speech 6.4 Commonalities between first and second language acquisition Learning a second language ● to learn a second language you need motivation, instrumental motivation (you have a practical reason) or integrative motivation (you are interested in the culture of the people who speak the language). Learning versus acquisition ● audio-lingual: based on repetition, imitation, and reinforcement ● grammar-translation: memorising lists of words and translating pieces of text ● communicative-tasks: everyday tasks are presented in the second language The best way of learning a second language ● conversation with its speakers ● opportunities to practice outside class ● media access ● formal classes ● student motivation ● reading ● grammar/drills ● listening ● pronunciation ● vocabulary Similarities between first and second language acquisition ● interlanguage is the rules of a language between the first and second language that constantly evolve as the learner receives input.
