First Language Acquisition: Principles and Theories of Language Acquisition and Learning, Slides of Literature

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FIRST LANGUAGE

ACQUISITION

BSEE23 Principles and Theories of Language Acquisition and Learning

Language

Acquisition

Language acquisition has basic

requirements such as

interaction with language users,

cultural transmission, and

hearing and speaking capability.

Language

Acquisition

Mother: Look!

Child: (touches pictures)

Mother: What are those?

Child: (vocalizes a babble string and smiles)

Mother: Yes, there are rabbits.

Child: (vocalizes, smiles, looks up at

Mother)

Mother: (laughs) Yes, rabbit.

Child: (vocalizes, smiles)

Mother: Yes. (laughs)

ACQUISITION

SCHEDULE

Acquisition

Schedule

“The language acquisition schedule of a child is tied very much to the maturation of his or her brain.”

CAUTION !!!

Child language researchers are very careful to point out that

there is considerable variation among children in terms of

the age at which particular features of linguistic development

occur. So, statements concerning development stages must

always be approximated and subject to variation in individual

children.

Cooing and Babbling

• (^) Between six and eight months, babies produce different vowels and consonants, as well as combinations ( ba-ba-ba, gu-gu-gu) described as babbling.
• (^) Around nine to ten months, babies are able to produce recognizable intonation patterns, and variations in the former combinations ( ba-ba-da, gu-gu-ga-ga).

Cooing and Babbling

• (^) In this late babbling stage, 10 to 11 months, babies learn to vocalize to express emotions and emphasis. It is characterized by more complex combinations ( ma-ba-ga-da), a lot of sound plays, and attempted imitations.

Two-word Stage

• (^) At eighteen to twenty months (1 year and 6-8 months), a child’s vocabulary moves beyond fifty words.
• (^) Children now have combinations such as “baby chair” and “mommy eat.” Adults then have different interpretations tied to the context of what their children uttered.

Two-word Stage

• (^) By the age of two, the child is able to produce 200 to 300 distinct words and is capable of understanding five times as many.
• (^) The child can now be treated as an entertaining conversational partner by the principal caregiver.

Telegraphi c Stage

• (^) Telegraphic speech, characterized by a string of words, is a term used in this stage to describe a child’s ability to build a sentence such as “ this shoe all wet ” or “ cat drink milk .”
• (^) By three, a child’s pronunciation comes closer to the form of adult language.

THE ACQUISITION

PROCESS

Noah: (Picking up a toy dog) This is Woodstock. (He bobs the toy in Adam’s face) Adam: Hey Woodstock, don’t do that! (Noah persists) Adam: I’m going home so you won’t woodstock me.

• (^) It is also unlikely that adult “corrections” are a very effective determiner of how a child speaks. Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Mother: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? Child: Yes. Mother: What did you say she did? Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Mother: Did you say she held them tightly? Child: No, she holded them loosely.