Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
Applied Linguistics
Study Notes: Language Acquisition
1. What is Language?
A language is a system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers
to so-called "natural languages“.
Although some other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, and these are
sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all of the
properties that linguists use to define language in the strict sense.
In Western Philosophy for example, language has long been closely associated with reason, which is also
a uniquely human way of using symbols. In Ancient Greek philosophical terminology, the same word,
logos, was used as a term for both language or speech and reason, and the philosopher
The arbitrariness even applies to words with an onomatopoetic dimension (i.e. words that to some extent
simulate the sound of the token referred to). For example, several animal names (e.g. cuckoo, whip-poorwill, katydid) are derived from sounds the respective animal makes, but these forms did not have to be
chosen for these meanings. Non-onomatopoetic words can stand just as easily for the same meaning. For
instance, the katydid is called a "bush cricket" in British English, a term that bears no relation to the
sound the animal makes. In time, onomatopoetic words can also change in form, losing their mimetic
status. Onomatopoetic words may have an inherent relation to their referent, but this meaning is not
inherent, thus they do not violate arbitrariness.
The origin of language is of great interest to philosophers because language is such an essential
characteristic of human life. In classical Greek philosophy such inquiry was approached by considering
the nature of things, in this case human nature. Aristotle, for example, treated humans as creatures with
reason and language by their intrinsic nature, related to their natural propensities to be "political," and
dwell in city-state communities (Greek: poleis)
Darwin's theory of evolution, claimed that there had once been humans who had no language or reason
and who developed language first--rather than reason--the development of which he explicitly described
as a mixed blessing, with many negative characteristics.
2. Language Universals
Nearly five thousand languages are spoken in the world today. They seem to be quite different, but still,
many of them show similar principles, such as word order. For example, in languages such as English,
French, and Italian, the words of the clause take the order of first the subject, then the verb, and then the
direct object. There even exist basic patterns or principles that are shared by all languages. These patterns
are called universals. When the same principles are shared by several languages, we speak of language
types. There are several examples for universals.
a.
Semantic Universals (Semantics: The study of meanings of words and phrases)
A few examples of semantic universals:
Prof. Dr. Prudent Injeeli
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
i. One semantic universal regards our notion of color. There exist eleven basic colors:
black, white, red, green, blue, yellow, brown, purple, pink, orange, and grey.
The pattern that all languages universally abide by, is that they do not entertain a notion of a color
term outside of that range. Not all languages have all basic color terms. Some have two, some
three, and some four. Others have five, six, or seven, and some have eight to eleven. Those with
two color terms always have black and white, those with three black, white, and red, and those
with more have additional basic color terms according to the order in the list given above. This is
a universal pattern. The languages which have the same basic color terms in common belong to
the same language type. Hence, we find seven classes of languages according to this scheme.
(ii)
Another semantic universal is the case of pronouns. Think of what it is you do when you talk
to someone about yourself. There is always the "I", representing you as the speaker, and the "you",
meaning the addressee. You could not possibly do without that, and neither could a speaker of any
other language on earth. Again, we find a universal pattern here. Whenever you do not talk about
yourself as a person, but as a member of a group, you use the plural "we". English is restricted to
these two classes of pronouns: singular and plural, each in the first, second, and third person. All
languages that.
b. Phonological Universals
Different languages may have very different sets of vowels. If you are familiar with a few foreign
languages, you may find it difficult to believe there are universal rules governing the distribution of
vowels, but they do exist. Remember our example of basic color terms: A similar pattern could be drawn
on the basis of the vowel system. Languages with few vowels always have the same set of vowel types.
And if a language has more vowels, it is always the same type of vowel that is added to the set. These
vowels may not always sound exactly the same, but they are always created at the same location in our
vocal apparatus.
c. Syntactic Universals
Remember the word order of English I mentioned above. Hmhm, you say: that cannot be a universal rule,
since you know other sentences from English and possibly from other languages which do not follow this
order. You are right, but the order subject, verb, object (SVO) may be defined as the basic order of
English sentences. In other languages there are different "basic" orders, such as Japanese (SOV) or
Tongan (VSO), a Polynesian language. After an extensive study, one can define two different sets of
basic orders that languages follow:
First , SVO, VSO, SOV
and second, VOS, OVS, OSV.
What is the difference? In the first set the subject precedes the object, in the second set it follows the
object. Since the first set is the one which applies to the basic structures of far more languages than the
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
second one does, the universal rule is that there is an overwhelming tendency for the subject of a sentence
to precede the direct object among the languages of the world.
d. Absolute universals - universal tendencies; implicational
Most languages have not even been the subject of extensive research as of yet. However, some rules
appear without exception in the languages which have been studied so far. We call these absolute
universals. If there are minor exceptions to the rule, we speak of universal tendencies or relative
universals. In saying this, we take for granted that exceptions may be found in future surveys among
languages which have remained unexplored up to the present day.
Sometimes a universal holds only if a particular condition of the language structure is fulfilled. These
universals are called implicational. Universals which can be stated without a condition are called
nonimplicational. In other words, whenever a rule "If ... then ..." is valid, the universal appears in the
structure of the respective language.
3. Animal Communication
The term "animal languages" is often used for non-human systems of communication. Linguists do not
consider these to be "language", but describe them as animal communication, because the interaction
between animals in such communication is fundamentally different in its underlying principles from
human language.
In several publicized instances, non-human animals have been taught to understand certain features of
human language. Chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans have been taught hand signs based on American
Sign Language. The African Grey Parrot, which possesses the ability to mimic human speech with a high
degree of accuracy, is suspected of having sufficient intelligence to comprehend some of the speech it
mimics. Most species of parrot, despite expert mimicry, are believed to have no linguistic comprehension
at all.
While proponents of animal communication systems have debated levels of semantics, these systems
have not been found to have anything approaching human language syntax.
1.
Origin of Language
The origin of language, also known as glottogony, is a topic that has attracted considerable attention
throughout human history. The use of language is one of the most conspicuous traits that distinguishes
Homo sapiens from other species. Unlike writing, spoken language leaves no explicit concrete evidence
of its nature or even its existence. Therefore scientists must resort to indirect methods in trying to
determine the origins of language.
A major debate surrounding the emergence of language is whether language evolved slowly as these
capabilities were acquired, resulting in a period of semi-language, or whether it emerged suddenly once
all these capabilities were available.
Concerning the origin of the first language, there are two main hypotheses, or beliefs. Neither can be
proven or disproved given present knowledge.
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
1.1 Belief in Divine Creation.
Many societies throughout history believed that language is the gift of the gods to humans. The most
familiar is found in Genesis 2:20, which tells us that Adam gave names to all living creatures. This belief
predicates that humans were created from the start with an innate capacity to use language.
Genesis 11 (English-KJV)
1 " And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech."
" Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the
earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."
According to Hindu mythology, Brahma, the chief god made the world, whereas, his wife,
Sarsawthi blessed human beings with the gift of language.
1.2 The origin of different languages: The bible tells us clearly that languages did not evolve separately
in different places around the world. In fact Linguistic research supports the Biblical account (The Tower
of Babel account affirmed by linguistics by K.J. Duursma, TJ 16(3), 2002). The work of Dr McIntosh
also reveals that the Chinese language tells us much about Babel (Genesis, Babel & the Chinese
Language.
1.3 Natural Evolution Theory: At some point in their evolutionary development humans acquired a
more sophisticated brain which made language invention and learning possible. In other words, at some
point in time humans evolved a language acquisition device, whatever this may be in real physical
terms. The simple vocalizations and gestures inherited from our primate ancestors then quickly gave way
to a creative system of language--perhaps within a single generation or two. /Mention the hypothesis
about rewiring the visual cortex of the brain into a language area./ According to the natural evolution
hypothesis, as soon as humans developed the biological, or neurological, capacity for creative language,
the cultural development of some specific system of forms with meanings would have been an inevitable
next step.
This hypothesis cannot be proven either. Archeological evidence unearthed thus far, seems to indicate
that modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged within the last 150,000 years. By 30,000, BC all other
species of humanoids seem to have been supplanted by Homo sapiens. Could the success of our species
vis-a-vis other hominids be explained by its possession of superior communicative skills? Speaking
people could teach, plan, organize, and convey more sophisticated information. This would have given
them unparalleled advantage over hominid groups without creative language. Of course, no one knows
whether other species of humanoids--Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalis -- used creative
language. Perhaps they also did. In any case, Homo sapiens, "the wise human," should perhaps really be
called Homo loquens, "the speaking human" because language and humans are everywhere found
together, whereas wisdom among humans is much more selectively distributed.
1.4 Invention Theory: There are several hypotheses as to how language might have been consciously
invented by humans based on a more primitive system of hominid communication. The imitation
hypotheses that hold that language began through some sort of human mimicry of naturally occurring
sounds or movements.
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
1.5 The "Ding-Dong" Theory: Language began when humans started naming objects, actions and
phenomena after a recognizable sound associated with it in real life. This hypothesis holds that the first
human words were a type of verbal icon, a sign whose form is an exact image of its meaning: crash
became the word for thunder, boom for explosion. Some words in language obviously did derive from
imitation of natural sounds associated with some object: Chinook Indian word for heart--tun-tun, Basque
word for knife: ai-ai (literally ouch-ouch). Each of these iconic words would derive from an index, a
sign whose form is naturally associatied with its meaning in real space and time.
1.6 The "Pooh-Pooh" Theory: holds that the first words came from involuntary exclamations of
dislike, hunger, pain, or pleasure, eventually leading to the expression of more developed ideas and
emotions. In this case the first word would have been an involuntary ha-ha-ha, wa-wa-wa These began
to be used to name the actions which caused these sounds.
1.7 The "Bow-Wow" Theory: (the most famous and therefore the most ridiculed hypothesis) holds that
vocabulary developed from imitations of animal noises, such as: Moo, bark, hiss, meow, quackquack. But the human interpretation of animal sounds is dependent upon the individual language, and it
seems unlikely than entire vocabularies derived from them.
1.8 Ta-Ta Theory: A somewhat different hypothesis is the "ta-ta" hypothesis. Charles Darwin
hypothesized (though he himself was skeptical about his own hypothesis) that speech may have
developed as a sort of mouth pantomime: the organs of speech were used to imitate the gestures of the
hand. In other words, language developed from gestures that began to be imitated by the organs of
speech--the first words were lip icons of hand gestures.
1.9 Warning Theory:Language may have evolved from warning signals such as those used by
animals. Perhaps language started with a warning to others, such as Look out, Run, or Help to alert
members of the tribe when some lumbering beast was approaching. Other first words could have been
hunting instructions or instructions connected with other work. In other words, the first words were
indexes used during everyday activities and situations.
1.10 The "Yo-He-Ho" Theory: Language developed on the basis of human cooperative efforts.The
earliest language was chanting to simulate collective effort, whether moving great stones to block off
cave entrances from roving carnivores or repeating warlike phrases to inflame the fighting spirit. Plato
also believed that language developed out of sheer practical necessity. And Modern English has the
saying: Necessity is the mother of invention. Speech and right hand coordination are both controlled in
the left hemisphere of the brain. Could this be a possible clue that manual dexterity and the need to
communicate developed in unison?
1.11 Lying Theory: A more colorful idea is the lying hypothesis. E. H. proposed that the need to
deceive and lie--to use language in contrast to reality for selfish ends-- was the social prompting that got
language started.
2. Theories regarding Language Diversity: There are about 5,000 languages spoken on Earth
today. We know that there were even more spoken in the past, when most people lived in small bands or
tribes rather than in large states. The following are the age-old beliefs regarding the origin or the world's
present linguistic diversity.
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
2.1 A Single Origin: The oldest belief is that there was a single, original language. The idea of a
single ancestor tongue is known today as monogenesis. In Judeo-Christian tradition, the original
language was confused by divine intervention, as described in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis.
Also, the story of Toltecs of pre-Columbian Mexico, the building of the great pyramid at Cholula, and the
dispersal of the builders by an angry god.
3. Speech vs. Language:
Many scientists make a distinction between speech and language. For instance, talking birds are able to
imitate human speech with varying ability. However, this ability to mimic human sounds is very different
from the acquisition of syntax. Likewise, the production of speech sounds is not necessary for language
use, as evidenced by modern sign languages, which use manual gestures as a basis for language rather
than speech.
The distinction between communication and language is also important. For instance, the communicative
systems of vervet monkeys has been studied extensively. They are known to make up to ten different
vocalizations. Many of these are used to warn other members of the group about approaching predators.
They include a "leopard call", a "snake call", and an "eagle call", and each call triggers a different
defensive strategy.
4. Universal Grammar: Since children are largely responsible for creolization of a pidgin, scholars such as
Derek Bickerton and Noam Chomsky concluded that humans are born with a universal grammar hardwired into
their brains. This universal grammar consists of a wide range of grammatical models that include all the
grammatical systems of the world's languages.
4.1 The Sound System: of a language is composed of a finite set of simple phonological items. Under
the specific phonotactic rules of a given language, these items can be recombined and concatenated,
giving rise to morphology and the open-ended lexicon. A key feature of language is that a simple, finite
set of phonological items gives rise to an infinite lexical system wherein rules determine the form of each
item, and meaning is inextricably linked with form. Phonological syntax, then, is a simple combination of
pre-existing phonological units. Related to this is another essential feature of human language: lexical
syntax, wherein pre-existing units are combined, giving rise to semantically new or distinct lexical items.
4.2 Pidgins and Creoles: Pidgins are significantly simplified languages with only rudimentary grammar and a
restricted vocabulary. In their early stage pidgins mainly consist of nouns, verbs, and adjectives with few or no
articles, prepositions, conjunctions or auxiliary verbs. Often the grammar has no fixed word order and the words
have no inflection. At a latter sate, it develops into a creole language, which becomes fixed and acquires a
more complex grammar, with fixed phonology, syntax, morphology, and syntactic embedding. The syntax
and morphology of such languages may often have local innovations not obviously derived from any of the
parent languages.
4.3 Linguistic Monogenesis is the hypothesis that there was a single proto-language, sometimes called
Proto-Human, from which all other languages spoken by humans descend. All human populations
possess language.
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
4.4 Gestural Theory: The gestural theory states that human language developed from gestures that were used
for simple communication. There are two types of evidence support this theory.
a. Gestural language and vocal language depend on similar neural systems. The regions on the cortex that are
responsible for mouth and hand movements border each other.
b. Nonhuman primates can use gestures or symbols for at least primitive communication, and some of their
gestures resemble those of humans, such as the "begging posture", with the hands stretched out, which
humans share with chimpanzees. But, the important question for gestural theories is, why there was a shift
to vocalization.
There are three likely explanations:
1. Our ancestors started to use more and more tools, meaning that their hands were occupied and could
not be used for gesturing.
2. Gesturing requires that the communicating individuals can see each other. There are many situations
in which individuals need to communicate even without visual contact, for instance when a predator
is closing in on somebody who is up in a tree picking fruit.
3. The need to co-operate effectively with others in order to survive. A command issued by a tribal
leader to 'find' 'stones' to 'repel' attacking 'wolves' would create teamwork and a much more
powerful, co-ordinated response.
Humans still use hand and facial gestures when they speak, especially when people meet who have no
language in common. Deaf people also use languages composed entirely of signs.
5. Language Families: All languages change with time. A comparison of Chaucer's English, Shakespeare’s
English and Modern English shows how a language can change over several hundred years. Modern English
spoken in Britain, North America and Australia uses different words and grammar.
If two groups of people speaking the same language are separated, in time their languages will change
along different paths. First they develop different accents; next some of the vocabulary will change
(either due to influences of other languages or by natural processes). When this happens a different
dialect is created; the two groups can still understand each other. If the dialects continue to diverge there
will come a time when they are mutually unintelligible. At this stage the people are speaking different
languages. The Sanskrit spoken in North India changed into the modern languages of the region: Hindi,
Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali and others. Ancient Persian has evolved into Farsi, Kurdish and Pashto.
In time, with enough migrations, a single language can evolve into an entire family of languages. Each language
family described below is a group of related languages with a common ancestor. Languages in the same branch
are sister languages that diverged within the last 1000 to 2000 years (Latin, for example, gave rise to the Latin
Branch languages in the Indo-European Family).
Languages in different branches of the same family can be referred to as cousin languages. For most
families these languages would have diverged more than 2000 years ago. The exact times scales vary for
each family.
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
The main language of Iraq and Morocco are both called Arabic but they differ greatly. The Mandarin
speaking government of China considers China's other languages (like Cantonese and Wu) to be
dialects whereas they are often very different.
5.1 Ten Language Families
i The Indo-European Family: The most widely studied family of languages and the family with the
largest number of speakers. Languages include English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian,
Russian, Greek, Hindi, Bengali; and the classical languages of Latin, Sanskrit, and Persian.
ii The Uralic Family: A family found in Europe (Hungarian, Finnish) and Siberia (Mordvin) with
complex noun structures.
iii The Altaic Family: A family spread from Europe (Turkish) through Central Asia (Uzbek), Mongolia
(Mongolian), to the Far East (Korean, Japanese). These languages have the interesting property of vowel
harmony.
iv The Sino-Tibetan Family: An important Asian family of languages that includes the world's most
spoken language, Mandarin. These languages are monosyllabic and tonal.
v. The Malayo-Polynesian Family: A family consisting of over 1000 languages spread throughout
the Indian and Pacific Oceans as well South East Asia. Languages include Malay, Indonesian, Maori
and Hawaiian.
vi. The Afro-Asiatic Family: This family contains languages of northern Africa and the Middle
East. Main languages are Arabic and Hebrew.
vii. The Caucasian Family
A family based around the Caucas Mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Georgian and
Chechen are the main languages. They are known for their large number of consonants.
viii. The Dravidian Family: The languages of southern India (in contrast to the Indo-European
languages of northern India). Tamil is the best known of these languages.
ix. Austro-Asiatic Family:This family are a scattered group of languages in Asia. They are found
from eastern India to Vietnam. Languages include Vietnamese and Khmer.
x. Niger-Congo Family:This family features the many languages of Africa south of the Sahara.
The large number of languages include Swahili, Shona, Xhosa and Zulu.
xi. Other Language Families: There are over 100 language families in the world. This section looks
at some of them including Nilo-Saharan, Koisan, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, Uto-Aztecan, Mayan, and
Independent languages which are unrelated to others.
7. Functions of Language:
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
7.1 General Functions:
1. Informative language function: essentially, the communication of information.
2. Expressive language function: reports feelings or attitudes of the writer (or speaker), or of the
subject, or evokes feelings in the reader (or listener)
a. Poetry and literature are among the best examples, but much of, perhaps most of, ordinary language
discourse is the expression of emotions, feelings or attitudes.
b. Two main aspects of this function are generally noted:
(1) Evoking certain feelings and (2) Expressing feelings
3. Directive language function: used for the purpose of causing (or preventing) obvious action.
a. The directive function is most commonly found in commands and requests.
b. Directive language is not normally considered true or false (although various logics of commands have
been developed).
c. Example of this function: "Close the windows." The sentence "You're smoking in a nonsmoking
area," although declarative, can be used to mean "Do not smoke in this area."
2. Performative Utterances: Language which performs the action it reports. For example, "I do" in
the marriage ceremony and the use of performative verbs such as "accept," "apologize," "congratulate,"
and "promise." These words denote an action which is performed by using the verb in the first person—
nothing more need be done to accomplish the action.
7.2 Micro and Macro: Using a language as a primary means of communicating our thoughts is so
natural for many people that it is often difficult to realize what in fact are language functions. Some of the
roles of language are so mundane that they are hardly ever noticed, others are very elevated, or even
abstract. Due to their diversity the functions of language might be divided into two categories: micro
functions which refer to specific individual uses, and macro functions which serve more overall aims.
A. MICRO FUNCTIONS:
1, Physiological function (releasing physical and nervous energy) although it might be striking this use of
language is fairly common. It is easily recognizable when devoted fans of sports are observed while watching their
favourite discipline on TV. Such fans often shout instructions, express support, or disappointment and while as a
means of communicating with sportsmen they are useless, such cheers are to release repressed energy. Similarly
curse words are used to serve this purpose, as they rarely convey any meaning and are only to make the speaker
feel better.
2, Phatic Function (for sociability) The use of such phrases as ‘nice day today’, or ‘how do you do’ is
characterized by lack of any informative content and is intended to link people and make the coexistence peaceful
and pleasant. The phatic use of language is characteristic mainly of speech, however, in certain types of writing it
can also be noticed, as in letters for example, where the beginning Dear Sir/Madam and ending Yours faithfully
also serve that purpose.
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
"Elevator talk" and street-corner conversations accomplishing a social task. Note the subtle transition
from vocal behavior to body language from saying for example, "Hi" or "How are your?" to a nod or a
wave of the hand.
3. Recording Function: Recording function denotes using language to make a durable record of things
that ought to be remembered. In this regard, writing is probably the most significant function of language.
There is evidence that the first writing system was developed in the Middle East as early as 4000 BC. At
the beginning writing systems took forms of pictures representing the things they referred to, gradually
developing into the alphabets in their present forms.
4. Identifying Function: Language is used also to identify the objects and events in the world we live
in. Without this function language would be almost useless, as it is thanks to the names of things that we
know what is talked about. Many primitive societies unable to write believe that names hold great power.
Before giving a name to a newborn child parents consider the choice deeply. We use names to classify
different types of things, whether we call a car anautomobile, a lorry, a van or a truck makes a big
difference. (*what’s in a name? Shakespeare)
5. Reasoning Function (instrument of thought) In most cases it is extremely difficult to think about
anything without any use of words. In fact is it also difficult not to think for a longer period of time as
human brains work all the time processing information, thus providing us with concepts formulated by
means of language.
6. Communicating Function: This function would probably be pointed at by most language users
without major consideration. Indeed it is in all likelihood most commonly used language function by
majority of speakers. Requesting, apologizing, informing, ordering as well as promising and refusing are
all reasons for communicating our ideas.
7. Pleasure Functions: The fact that language often gives pleasure both to the speakers and listeners is
not only supported by the frequent use of assonance, alliteration and onomatopoeia in poetry, often
used by skillful writers.
B. MACRO FUNCTIONS:
1. Ideational Function: Ideational function refers to the conceptualizing process involved in our mental
activities. Thanks to language we are able to understand what happens around us.
2. Interpersonal Function: Interpersonal function emphasizes that language is mainly a social
phenomenon, but apart from enabling communication with other people it enables to project the speaker
in the desired way and to represent the speaker.
3. Poetic Function: Here, the word poetic does not refer to the ability to write poetry, but the ability to
manipulate language in a creative way. With the use of jokes and metaphors we can play with words and
meanings simply for sheer pleasure.
4. Textual Function: Textual competence refers to our ability to create long utterances or pieces of
writing which are both cohesive and coherent. Unlike animals people, by use of certain linguistic devices,
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Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
are able to produce long sentences and text, and not only simple phrases. These functions are only one
point of view on language. Most certainly there are many other functions that natural languages fulfill,
yet depending on approach to this issue the number of functions and their names might vary.
3. Theories of Child Language Acquisition:
a. Cognitive theory-- Jean Piaget (1896-1980) A child first becomes aware of a concept, such as
relative size, and only afterward do they acquire the words and patterns to convey that concept. Simple
ideas are expressed earlier than more complex ones even if they are grammatically more complicated-Conditional mood is one of the last.
There is a consistent order of mastery of the most common function morphemes in a language. Example
from English: first-- -ing, then in and on, then the plural -s, last are the forms of the verb to be. Seems
to be conditioned by logical complexity: plural is simple, while forms of the verb to be require
sensitivity to both number and tense.
Pros and cons-- clearly there is some link between cognitive development and language acquisition;
Piaget's theory helps explain the order in which certain aspects of language are acquired. But his theory
does not explain why language emerges in the first place. Apes also develop cognitively in much the
same way as young children in the first few years of life, but language acquisition doesn't follow
naturally from their development. Bees develop the cognitive ability to respond to many shades of color,
but bees never develop any communication signals based on shades of color.
b. Imitation and Positive Reinforcement: Children learn by imitating and repeating what they
hear. Positive reinforcement and corrections also play a major role in Language acquisition. Children do
imitate adults. Repetition of new words and phrases is a basic feature of children's speech. This is the
behaviorist view popular in the 40's and 50's, but challenged, since imitation alone cannot possibly
account for all language acquisition.
Cons: 1) Children often make grammatical mistakes that they couldn't possibly have heard: Cookies
are gooder than bread. Bill taked the toy. We goed to the store, Don't giggle me.
2) This hypothesis would not account for the many instances when adults do not coach their children in
language skills. Positive reinforcement doesn't seem to speed up the language acquisition
process. Children do not respond to or produce metalanguage until 3 or 4, after the main portion of the
grammar has been mastered. (Children don't comprehend discussions about language structure.) Story
about Tyler, Kornei Chukovsky: yabloka, tibloka)
c. Innate Linguistic Features: The final theory we will discuss involves the belief in the innateness of
certain linguistic features. This theory is connected with the writings of Noam Chomsky, although the
theory has been around for hundreds of years. Children are born with an innate capacity for learning
human language. Humans are destined to speak. Children discover the grammar of their language based
on their own inborn grammar. Certain aspects of language structure seem to be preordained by the
cognitive structure of the human mind. This accounts for certain very basic universal features of language
structure: every language has nouns/verbs, consonants and vowels. It is assumed that children are preprogrammed, hard-wired, to acquire such things. (The "gavagai" experiment.)
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
Yet no one has been able to explain how quickly and perfectly all children acquire their native
language. Every language is extremely complex, full of subtle distinctions that speakers are not even
aware of. Nevertheless, children master their native language in 5 or 6 years regardless of their other
talents and general intellectual ability. Acquisition must certainly be more than mere imitation; it also
doesn't seem to depend on levels of general intelligence, since even a severely retarded child will acquire
a native language without special training. Some innate feature of the mind must be responsible for the
universally rapid and natural acquisition of language by any young child exposed to speech.
No one has been able to explain just what this mysterious language acquisition device, or LAD, is. Some
language acquisition must certainly be due to simple repetition: greetings, swear words; much of it is
not. A three year old child generally can recall and use a new word heard once even months afterward.
Chomsky originally believes that the LAD is a series of syntactic universals, structural properties
universally found in all languages. These syntactic structures are inborn. Only the words are
learned. Allows us infinite creativity based on a limited number of patterns. Children thus generate
sentences based on learned words and innate syntactic patterns. This is why children make grammatical
mistakes that they could not be repeating.
And yet, so far, no properties have been discovered that are truly universal in all languages. It seems that
the syntactic structures differ from language to language and couldn't be innate. All attempts to construct
a universal grammar that would underlie all structures in all languages have come to failure, Chomsky's
theory of transformational grammar being a case in point.
More recent studies show that language spoken around child is not as full of random errors, not as
fragmented or randomly pidginized as one might believe. It has been found that mothers use a special
register of language, dubbed motherese, to talk to their children. *(motherse, fatheres, otherese)
2. Stages in Child Language Acquisition—Universal: [Stages of Infant Development: 7 – 12 Months]
2.1 Pre-speech: Infants learn to pay attention to speech, pays attention to intonation and the rhythm of
speech long before they begin to speak. Infants respond to speech more keenly than to other
sounds. Speech elicits greater electrical activity in the left side of the 2 month old infant's brain than do
other sounds. Experiment with microphone and nipple showed that infants suck more vigorously if the
action triggers a human voice as opposed to music or other sounds.
A child learns to recognize the distinctive sounds, the phonemes of the language they hear from birth
long before they are able to pronounce them. Infants can distinguish between /p/ and /b/ at three or four
months (in an experiment with /ba/ played vs. /pa/, a two month infant showed awareness of the change).
But children do not learn how to use these sounds until much later-- around the second year or later--as
shown by the experiment with /pok/ and /bok/. The same is true for rising vs. falling intonation, which
only becomes systematically funtional much later. Infants know the difference between one language
and another by recognition of phonological patterns (Story of the Russian fairy tale book.)
2.2 Babbling Stage. Begins at several months of age. Characterized by indiscriminate utterance of
speech sounds-- many of which may not be used in the given language but are found in other languages-clicks. Many native speech sounds may be absent-- some are naturally harder to pronounce-- /r/
/th/. Very few consonant clusters and repeated syllables are common.
Prof. Dr. Prudent Injeeli
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
2.3 One word (Holophrastic) Stage. Infants may utter their first word as early as nine months: usually
mama, dada (these words resemble babbling). Deaf babies whose parents use sign language begin
making their first word/gestures around eight months. This stage is characterized by the production of
actual speech signs. Often the words are simplified: "du" for duck, "ba" for bottle. When the child has
acquired about 50 words he develops regular pronunciation patterns. This may even distort certain words- turtle becomes "kurka". Incorrect pronunciations are systematic at this time: all words with /r/ are
pronounced as /w/. sick--thick, thick--fick. Children tend to perceive more phonemic contrasts than they
are able to produce themselves. The first 50 words tend to be names of important persons, greetings,
foods, highlights of the daily routine such as baths, ability to change their environment-give, take, go, up,
down, open. The meaning of words may not correspond to that of adult language:
2.4 Two-Word Stage: 2 words = 1 sentence. “Dada go”, may mean, Dada has gone, or Dada is going.
2.5 Telegraphic Stage (from here to infinity) “Dada go out,” may mean, Dada, let’s go out, or Dada has
gone out. Telegraphic stage (like a telegraph message has the most important words of a complete
sentence, just like words are used in composing a telegraphic message, or in modern times, a text
message.(SMS) A telegraphic message mainly makes use of the content words (nouns, main verbs,
adverbs and adjectives), leaving out the function words. (helping verbs, conjunctions, prepositions,
articles and even punctuations.
2.6 Overextension-- dog may mean any four legged creature. Apple may mean any round object, bird
may mean any flying object. Child can still distinguish between the differences, simply hasn't learned
that they are linguistically meaningful.
2.7 Two patterns in child word learning:
a. Referential: names of objects. b. Expressive: personal desires, social interactions: bye-bye, hi, good,
This is a continuum. Child's place on this continuum partly due to parent's style: naming vs. pointing.
The extra-linguistic context provides much of the speech info. Rising and falling intonation may or may
not be used to distinguish questions from statements at the one-word stage. Words left out if the context
makes them obvious. At this stage, utterances show no internal grammatical structure (much like the
sentence yes in adult speech, which can't be broken down into subject, predicate, etc.)
2.8 Combining words-- 18 month - 2 years. By two and a half years most children speak in sentences of
several words--but their grammar is far from complete. This stage rapidly progresses into what has been
termed a fifth and final stage of language acquisition, the all hell breaks loose stage. By six the child's
grammar approximates that of adults. Children learning any language seem to encode the same
limited set of meanings in their first sentences:
2.9 Ownership-- Daddy's shoes; describing events-- Me fall; labeling-- That dog; locational relations-toy in box.
2.10 Two-word Sentences-- Children can repeat more complex sentences spoken by adults but cannot
create them until later (called prefabricated routines) not indicative of the child's grammar.
Prof. Dr. Prudent Injeeli
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
2.12 Conclusion. All three theories--the imitation theory, the innateness theory, and the cognitive
theory--are probably correct to a degree; each describes particular facets of a complex phenomenon.
3. Cognition and Learning [Cognitive development]
1) Cognitive development is an essential prerequisite for linguistic development. But language
acquisition doesn't occur spontaneously because of cognitive development, as seems to be the case in
animal systems of communication.
2) Repetition, imitation, structured input are all a part of language acquisition. Greater exposure to
language might speed language acquisition up but is not essential.
3) Innate learning device. All children exposed to language, regardless of environmental factors and
differences in intelligence, are able to acquire very complex grammars at a very early age. Something
innate to the child--the LAD--allows for such rapid and successful language acquisition by children.
3.2 Universal Facts: All of the above studies have revealed a few universally accepted facts about child
language acquisition.
1) Child Language acquisition is a natural consequence of human society. All children exposed to
language acquire it naturally without deliberate efforts of teaching or learning.
2) The outcome of first language acquisition will be the same regardless of individual differences in
intelligence. Two children with quite different intellectual abilities will both acquire a highly complex
native language by age six.
3) Although the basic ability to acquire language is innate to the child, no specific structural property of
language has yet been proven to be innate. Therefore, any infant is equally capable of acquiring any
language. Infants born of different racial stocks will acquire the same form of language if raised in the
same linguistic environment. There is no such a thing as a Russian language gene or a Swahili language
gene. An infant born of Russian parents and adopted into an American family will acquire the same form
of English as his stepbrothers and sisters. The phenomenon of child language acquisition is just as much
a mystery to us as it was to Pharoah Psammeticus.
Prof. Dr. Prudent Injeeli
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Study Notes
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
Sign Language
Prof. Dr. Prudent Injeeli
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Study Notes
Prof. Dr. Prudent Injeeli
Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
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