Language Acquisition Linguistics October, 17th 2015 Licda. Milvia Rosales G.
Definition Language acquisition: It refers to the subconscious process of internalizing a language and its rules. Language Learning: is the type of conscious language development which often takes place in the foreign language classroom. Linguistic competence develops in stages, from babbling to one word to two word, then telegraphic speech. Babbling is now considered the earliest form of language acquisition because infants will produce sounds based on what language input they receive.
Stages of language acquisition in children Children's language development follows a predictable sequence. Stage Babbling
Typical age 6-8 months
Description Repetitive CV patterns
One-word stage 9-18 months Single open-class words or word stems (better one-morphemeor one-unit)
Two-word stage
"mini-sentences" with simple semantic 18-24 months relations
Telegraphic stage or early multiword stage (better multi-morpheme)
"Telegraphic" sentence structures o f 24-30 months lexical rather than functional or grammatical morphemes
Later multiword stage
30+ months
Grammatical or functional structures emerge
Theories of acquisition  Imitation does not work because children produce sentences never heard before, such as "cat stand up table." Even when they try to imitate adult speech, children cannot generate the same sentences because of their limited grammar.  Children who are unable to speak still learn and understand the language, so that when they overcome their speech impairment they immediately begin speaking the language.
Reinforcement also does not work because it actually seldomly occurs and when it does, the reinforcement is correcting pronunciation or truthfulness and not grammar.
A sentence such as "apples are purple" would be corrected more often because it is not true, as compared to a sentence such as "apples is red" regardless of the grammar.
Analogy involves the formation of sentences or phrases by using other sentences as samples. If a child hears the sentence, "I painted a red barn," he can say, by analogy, "I painted a blue barn." Yet if he hears the sentence, "I painted a barn red," he cannot say "I saw a barn red." The analogy did not work this time, and this is not a sentence of English.
Rate of vocabulary development Milestone
10 words 50 words Vocabulary at 24 months
Nelson 1973 (18 children) 15 months (range 13-19) 20 months (range 14-24) 186 words (range 28-436)
Fenson 1993 (1,789 children) 13 months (range 8-16) 17 months (range 10-24) 310 words (range 41-668)
Sex differences in vocabulary acquisition Against a background of enormous individual variation, girl babies tend to learn more words faster than boy babies do; but the difference disappears over time.
Infant Behavior and Development In a sample of 18-month-olds, boys' average vocabulary size was 41.8 words, while girls' average was 86.8. By 24 months, the difference had narrowed to a boys' mean of 196.8 vs. a girls' mean of 275.1. As time passes, the difference disappears entirely, and then emerges again in the opposite direction, with males showing larger average vocabularies during college years
Acquisition of grammatical elements and the corresponding structures At about the age of two, children first begin to use grammatical elements. Examples: Me'll have that - I having this. Over a year to a year and a half, sentences get longer, grammatical elements are less often omitted and less often inserted incorrectly.
Acquisitions Phonology: A child's error in pronunciation is not random, but rule-governed.
For example: spoon becomes poon, dog becomes dok, doggy becomes goggy, or big becomes gig.
Over-regularization: Children treat irregular verbs and nouns as regular. Go- goed because the regular verbs add an -ed ending to form the past tense. Like most other aspects of children's developing grammar, is typically resistant to correction. CHILD: My teacher holded the baby rabbits. ADULT: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits. CHILD: Yes. ADULT: What did you say she did? CHILD: She holded the baby rabbits . ADULT: Did you say she held them tightly? CHILD: No, she holded them loosely.
Second Language acquisition The "Critical Age Hypothesis" suggests that there is a critical age for language acquisition without the need for special teaching or learning. During this critical period, language learning proceeds quickly and easily. After this period, the acquisition of grammar is difficult, and for some people, never fully achieved.
Factors Age
Motivation Aptitude Personality Cognitive or learning style.
Chomsky Chomsky supports the existence of a universal grammar which pre-programmes the brain to make sense of the different rules of language. This brain function enables children to process and order the language that they are exposed to. The complex nature of language and its rules would be too difficult for us to acquire if our brains were not equipped with a language processor.
Sociocultural Theory Sociocultural theory is the notion that human mental function is from participating cultural mediation integrated into social activities.
Memory and second language acquisition One area of research is the role of memory. This suggests that individuals with less short-term memory capacity might have a limitation in performing cognitive processes for organization and use of linguistic knowledge
Second Language Acquisition Teaching Methods Direct method
Silent Way
Audio-lingual Suggestopedia
Natural Approach
Total Physical Response Community Language Learning Community Language Teaching
Bibliography and Egraphy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_secondlanguage_acquisition http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/ling001/acquisition.html http://www.ielanguages.com/linguistics.html Book: English for language and Linguistics In higher education studies. Garnet education.