LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & LANGUAGE LEARNING

Language Acquisition

is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with speech or manual as in sign.

usually refers to first language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language, rather than second language acquisition, which deals with acquisition (in both children and adults) of additional languages. The capacity to acquire and use language is a key aspect that distinguishes humans from other organisms. While many forms of animal communication exist, they have a limited range of non-syntactically structured vocabulary tokens that lack cross cultural variation between groups.

A major concern in understanding language acquisition is how these capacities are picked up by infants from what appears to be very little input. A range of theories of language acquisition has been created in order to explain this apparent problem including innatism in which a child is born prepared in some manner with these capacities, as opposed to the other theories in which language is simply learned.

First Language Acquisition

Unexplainable mysteries Parents provide very little in the way of language instruction to the child Parents do not teach their children to speak. Children go through varying degrees of stages along the way to their full mastery. Children do not produce adult-like utterances from the very beginning of their multi-word speech.

There are three main theoretical approaches to child language acquisition; all of them have merit but none can fully explain the phenomenon of child language acquisition. Cognitive Behaviourist Nativist Functional

1. Cognitive theory Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

Views lang. acq. within the context of the child's broader intellectual development. 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

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 acquisiton

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 colour, but bees never develop any communication signals based on shades of colour.

2. Behaviourist - 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 behaviourist 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.)

3. Nativist

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. 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 pre-programmed, hard-wired, to acquire such things. Children are born, then, with the Universal Grammar wired into their brains. This grammar offers a certain limited number of possibilities - for example, over the word order of a typical sentence. e.g. some languages have a basic SVO structure

Language Acquisition Device

When the child begins to listen to his parents, he will unconsciously recognise which kind of a language he is dealing with - and he will set his grammar to the correct one - this is known as 'setting the parameters'. It is as if the child were offered at birth a certain number of hypotheses, which he or she then matches with what is happening around him. He knows intuitively that there are some words that behave like verbs, and others like nouns, and that there is a limited set of possibilities as to their ordering within the phrase. This is not information that he is taught directly by the adults that surround him, but information that is given.

This set of language learning tools, provided at birth, is referred to by Chomsky as the Language Acquisition Device. (Notice that he uses the term "acquisition" rather than learning). Chomsky, then, sees the child as essentially autonomous in the creation of language. She is programmed to learn, and will learn so long as minimal social and economic conditions are realised.

4. Functionalist

Functionalists maintain that the communicative situation motivates, constrains, or otherwise determines grammatical structure..
(Nichols, J. (1984, p 97). Functional theories of grammar. Annual Review of Anthropology, 13, 97-117.)

The functional approach is a model of performance. It is concerned with meaning, function, and language in use. It is an important tool for interpreting texts.

According to Halliday (1985), the functional approach has the following three characteristic features: 1) It is based on systemic theory: Systemic theory is a theory of meaning as choice. It means starting with the most general features and proceeding step by step so as to become even more specific. 2) It is functional in three distincts: First, it is concerned with the way language is organized to fulfil communicative functions. Second, it aims to account for three basic kinds of meaning, the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual. Third, each element in a language is explained by reference to its function in the total linguistic system.

3) It is discourse approach. It aims to provide two levels of discourse analysis: The first is the understanding of the text. The second is the evaluation of the text.

From 1970 onwards, Halliday worked on the functional aspect of grammar. He mentioned the language as a form of doing rather than a form of knowing. He believes that language is what it is because it has to serve certain functions. In other words, social demands on language have helped to shape its structure.

Language Acquisition
We are not born speaking! We have a language instinct, but we must learn our language nonetheless. If we think of all that is entailed in knowing a language, it seems a challenge.

Yet all normally raised human beings learn language to some degree or other...

Language instinct

Our language instinct does not tell us what specific language to learn or particular structures to memorize. It does provide us with an innate knowledge of basic language features, present in all human languages.
LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALS > UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR

Humans then learn to specialize this universal grammar for the particulars of their language.

Innateness of language
How do we really know this is an innate ability? The biologist Eric Lenneberg defined a list of characteristics that are typical of innate behaviours in animals.

Compare, for example, walking and talking to swimming and playing the piano. If we can show that language displays these characteristics, we have proof for our claim.

Innate behaviours . . .

emerge before they are necessary. do not appear as the result of a conscious decision. do not appear due to a trigger from external events. are relatively unaffected by direct teaching and intensive practice. follow a regular sequence of milestones in their development. generally observe a critical period for their acquisition

1. Emerge before necessary

When is language necessary?

To take care of ourselves, provide ourselves with the necessities of life. This usually occurs in adulthood, or around puberty at the earliest.

When do children usually begin speaking/using language coherently?

Normally between 12-24 months

Is this criterion met?

YES

2. Are not conscious

Does a child decide to consciously pursue certain skills?

Yes
to play an instrument or a sport, for example

Do babies make a conscious decision to start learning a language?

No, it just happens.

Is this criterion met?

YES

3. Are not triggered

What would prompt a child to take up soccer?

Seeing her/his friends play If her/his parents play Watching on TV
Etc.

What would prompt a child to begin speaking?

Nothing. Weve said its not necessary. It just happens.

Is this criterion met?

YES

4. Cannot be taught

We CAN teach grammar, and prescriptive rules of language. But were not talking about that here. We correct childrens errors sometimes. Does it help?
No. They go on saying the same thing.

In fact, coaching seems to hurt rather than help language ability in children.

Is this criterion met?

YES

5. Follow milestones

In spite of different backgrounds, different locations, and different upbringings, most children follow the very same milestones in acquiring language.
For example, around 12 months mamma and dadda begin to emerge. Around 24 months, the child has a vocabulary of approximately 50 words. By 30 months, two and three word utterances common.

Is this criterion met?

YES

6. Observe a critical period

What is a critical period?

owing to lateralization of brain function and other development a period of time during which a certain behaviour must be acquired if not, the window is closed and it is not possible to acquire such behaviour

For first language acquisition, there seems to be a critical period of the first two years, during which children must be exposed to rich input. There is also a period, from about 10-16 years, when acquisition is possible, but not native-like. For SLA, the issue is more complicated More later.

Is this criterion met?

YES

Innateness of language

We have shown, then, that language is indeed an innate ability. We must now turn to questions relating to this ability: What are theories of language acquisition? How are first languages acquired? How are first and second language acquisition different? How are second languages acquired?

Theories of language acquisition

In the 1950s, behaviourism was the prevailing school of thought in psychology. Behaviourism focussed on peoples behaviours rather than on the mental systems beneath. Language was viewed as a verbal behaviour that children learn:
Learning through imitation Learning through reinforcement Learning through analogy Learning through structured input

Do children learn through imitation?

1.CHILD: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we petted them. 2.ADULT: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? 3.CHILD: Yes. 4.ADULT: What did you say she did? 5.CHILD: She holded the baby rabbits. 6.ADULT: Did you say she held them tightly? 7.CHILD: No, she holded them loosely.

Do children learn through imitation?

Children do imitate to some extent, of course. BUT, imitation does not play as large a role as you might think. Early words and sentences that children produce show that they are not simply imitating adult speech, because they contain words and structures that are never present in adult speech.
holded tooths Cat stand up table. What the boy hit? Mommy get it my ladder.

Do children learn through reinforcement?

CHILD : Nobody dont like me. MOTHER: No, say Nobody likes me. CHILD : Nobody dont like me. (dialogue repeated 8 times) MOTHER: Now, listen carefully, say Nobody likes me. CHILD : Oh, nobody dont likes me.

Do children learn through reinforcement?

Some assume that children learn correct sentences through positive reinforcement if they say something right and negative reinforcement if they say something wrong. In reality, parents rarely provide reinforcement to their children.
If it does occur, it is usually regarding incorrect pronunciation or incorrect reporting of the facts, but rarely structural (morphological or syntactical) information.

Even if they do, it is rarely heeded by the children, as they fail to see what they are doing wrong.

Do children learn through analogy?

Recently, a computer model of language representation and acquisition called connectionism has been proposed. In this model, no grammatical rules are stored anywhere. Rather, information is represented by a set of connections between different phonological forms. Analogy to known forms helps produce new forms.
dance~danced > prance~pranced drink~drank > sink~sank

Do children learn through analogy?

This is a potentially powerful theory, but more applicable to language USE than to language acquisition. The model assumes certain characteristics of the input data the children receive, although studies fail to show that these are present in the actual input.
He flies a kite. He flew a kite. *The batter flew out.

There are also things a child couldnt learn by analogy alone.

I painted a red barn. I painted a barn red. I saw a red barn. *I saw a barn red.

Do children learn through structured input?

Another suggestion is that children are able to learn languages because adults speak to them in a special language.
This is often known as motherese or child directed speech (CDS) - also, informally, baby talk.

This theory of acquisition emphasizes the role of the environment in facilitating language acquisition. Motherese, although slower and clearer, is not simpler. It includes a variety of sentence types:
questions embedded sentences - imperatives - negatives + tag questions

Do children learn through structured input?

Studies show that infants prefer to listen to motherese over normal adult speech.
The exaggerated intonation (etc.) of motherese may help attract and hold a childs attention.

BUT, studies also show that this kind of speech does not affect the childs language development. Many cultures do not use this special register to talk to children, and some cultures rarely speak to children. Nonetheless, speech develops normally in these cultures as well.

How do children learn?

That question is of course difficult to answer. We know that imitation, reinforcement, analogy and structured input are insufficient to provide the answer. We also know that children are born with a language instinct, and that this instinct enables them to construct grammars.

L1 acquisition

Sound production/babbling Phonological acquisition Morphological/Syntactical acquisition Milestones in L1 development

Acquisition of phonology

Babies begin playing with sounds after a couple of weeks. Their abilities are constrained by physiological limitations. By 4 months, they can distinguish between [a] and [i], so their perception skills are good. By about 4-6 months, children babble, putting together vowels and consonants. This is not a conscious process! At about 7-10 months starts repeated babbling. By 10-12 months, children produce a variety of speech sounds.

The acquisition of morphosyntax

At about 12 months, children begin producing words consistently. One-word stage:

Name people, objects, etc. Also incorporate adult phrases as one word

Two-word stage:
Approximately 18-24 months Use consistent set of word orders, with structure determined by semantic relationships
agent+action (baby sleep) possessor+possession (Mommy book)

Morphosyntax (contd.)

Later stages
Once children can combine two words, they begin using three- and four-(+) word sequences Still telegraphic speech in that it contains only morphemes and words that carry semantic content.

What about second languages?

Is second language acquisition the same as first language acquisition, or is it inherently different? L2 acquisition is indeed different, in many crucial ways. Fundamental Difference Hypothesis
Does not meet the Lenneberg criteria Requires conscious effort Very few adult L2ers achieve native-like proficiency Extensive variation across L2ers, compared to fairly uniform L1 acquisition process

What about second languages?

SLA, though, does share some characteristics with L1 acquisition.

Progression through stages Learners construct grammars that represent the continuum between L1 and L2, known as Interlanguage grammars. The errors L2 learners make are systematic and rule-governed, although they differ from the systematic errors and L1 learners makes

L2 acquisition

What are the factors that could potentially influence the acquisition of a second language?
First language transfer and interference
Positive, negative and null interference Can affect syntax, morphology, phonology

Overgeneralization
of rules from L1 or from L2, extended to too many cases

Instruction
Can explicit training in L2 benefit?

Immersion
Is immersion in the L2 the only way to truly learn L2?

L2 acquisition

Is there a critical period for L2? There is some debate as to whether there is a CRITICAL period or not, or if theres a SENSITIVE period. Either way, success in L2 is dependent to some degree on the age of acquisition.
All areas are affected, but one seems to be most affected PHONOLOGY