FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

How do children learn language? Sem I 2012-2013

DNM

L1 Acquisition and Behaviorism

1.

Behaviorist ideas of language learning Before 1960s -- study of child language dominated by behaviorist approach to language learning. Proponent -- B.F. Skinner wrote Verbal Behavior (1957) According to behaviorists, language is not a mental phenomenon: it is behavior.

It is behavior, learned by a process called habit-formation in which the main components are:
Child imitates the patterns and sounds

heard in the environment. Childs attempts similar to adult models and reinforced through approvals or positive feedback. Child repeats sound and patterns, so that these become habits.

Continuation...

Childs verbal behavior is

conditioned or shaped until the habits become like adults. Childs own utterances seen as a faulty version of adult speech. Mistakes as results of imperfect learning.

2. Inadequacies of the Behaviorists Approach

1960s onwards -- The behaviorists

views ---- strongly opposed by Chomskys linguistic theories & cognitive psychology

Arguments against behaviorist theory of language learning:

Basic view of language as verbal behavior is unacceptable. Underlying the actual behavior -- a complex system of rules which enable speakers to create and understand an infinite number of sentences (mostly never encountered before).
1.

Arguments against...

2. What children learn is an abstract

knowledge of rules (or competence). (But not what theyre exposed to -exposed only to peoples speech or termed performance).
Process of extracting abstract knowledge from concrete examples cannot be explained by habit-formation.

Continuation...

3.

Rules are often reflected very indirectly in the actual surface structure of speech.

E.g Surface structure of sentence:

(I) John is easy to please

looks identical/same as that of

(ii) John is eager to please (i.e.Deep structure is different.)

Continuation...

(I)

the question of other people pleasing John. (ii) John himself who wants to do the pleasing. Such information about deep relationships cannot be acquired simply by observing & imitating verbal behavior.

Continuation...

Learning task is complex.

Yet occurs at a very early age and with

exceptional speed By the age of 3 1/2 and 5: normallyendowed children have internalized all the basic structures of their language (This cannot be explained by habitformation alone.)

Continuation...

Children are exposed to different actual

speech, but they arrive at the same underlying rules as other children in the community. They pass through similar stages or sequences in acquiring these rules. Children seem to be constructing their own rule systems.

Continuation...

Children generally adapt towards

the adult system. i.e. Childs language is not simply shaped by external forces. Rather, creatively constructed by the child as s/he interacts with those around her/him.

An innate language-learning capacity? The factors outlined led people to believe that children are born with an innate capacity for acquiring language. Termed Language Acquisition Device or LAD

Characteristics of LAD
Specific to human species (homosapiens).
Never fails to operate in normal human beings

-- from infancy up to age 11 (debatable). Provides children a means of processing the speech in the environment; so that they can construct its underlying system. To enable it to operate so quickly, it may already contain some of the universal

Continuation...

features which are found in all known languages. E.g. use of word order to signal meaning, or basic grammatical relationships such as between subject and object. LAD as a term has lost its currency. Few people would question the basic notion: children possess an innate ability to acquire language.

Continuation...

The main debate -- the extent to which there is a specific capacity earmarked for language alone. The other argument --- language acquisition can be explained in terms of same cognitive capacity used by children in making sense of other aspects of their world.

Continuation...

Eg. Childrens ability to discover relationships between subject and object in grammar may originate in their general ability to perceive the world in terms of agents and objects of action. If there is a special language learning capacity-and if the capacity declines at about the age of 12 or so, this is significant in explaining why second language learning (L2 learning) is often difficult or even unsuccessful.

Grammatical Development in Children

Main stages in a childs language development: 1.Telegraphic speech Lacks inflections and function words, e.g. articles and prepositions Earliest stage consists of one-word utterance.

Grammatical development of childrencontn

Examples: allgone sticky (after washing hands) allgone outside (after closing the door) more page (asking adult to continue reading) sweater chair (showing where the sweater is) Utterances are very reduced such that the situation plays an important role in conveying meaning.

Continuation...

Same two words may mean different things in different situations. E.g. mommy sock -- mothers socks
(possession) or when mother was dressing him (agent and object).

Even at this stage, language is used creatively (for they can never have heard
them before)

Continuation...

Like adults, the child is making use of an

ability to combine items from a limited set to communicate meanings. Researchers try to write the grammars of childrens speech. Two main classes of words: a restricted pivot class and a larger open class

Continuation...

Another approach: focus on the meanings of the two-words Lois Bloom (1970): sentences containing two nouns used to express 5 kinds of relationships: 1. Conjunction (cup glass -- cup and glass) 2. Description (party hat - a party hat) 3. Possession (daddy hat - daddys hat)

Continuation...

4.

Location (sweater chair - showing

where the sweater is)

5. Agent - Object (mommy book - mommy is

reading a book)

Dan Slobin (1979): studied communicative functions in children acquiring 6 different languages e.g.

Continuation...

1. Locating or naming (there book, buch da)

2. Demanding or desiring (more milk, mehr Milch) 3. Negating (not hungry, Kaffee nein) 4. Describing an event or situation (block fall,
puppe kommt)

5. Indicating possession (my shoe, Mamas Hut)

Continuation...

6. Describing
Milch Heiss)

a person or thing (pretty dress,

7. Questioning (where ball, wo Ball )

Development of inflections and function words

Telegraphic stage goes beyond the twoword stage. E.g. Even as processing capacity grows, the longer utterances are still telegraphic: Mamat want that. Cat stand up table.

Continuation...

Children are still trying to master

inflections ( s in want and stand ; articles such as a or the. (These are morphemes.)
Roger Brown (1973) -- studied 3

children acquiring 14 of these morphemes.

Continuation...

Children master each morpheme gradually.

Order of morphemes found:

1. Present progressive: -ing 2. Preposition: - on 3. Preposition: -in 4. Plural -s: two books 5. Irregular past forms: She went.

Continuation...

6. Possessive s ( daddys hat ) 7. Uncontractible copula ( is in Yes, she is . ) 8. Articles the and a 9. Regular past tense: -ed ( She walked.) 10. Regular third-person singular s (She runs.)

Continuation...

Brown found that the order of frequency

does not correlate with order of acquisition, and cannot relate to habitformation.
He further added the idea of the child as

an active contributor to the acquisition process (Browns study was a longitudinal

study).

Continuation...

Childrens acquisition of verb inflections --evidence of their active contribution to the learning process. e.g. Where it goed? (Go + ed) [Where did it go?] It comed off. (Come + ed) [It came off. ]

Development of transformations
Children also learn to carry out

transformations of basic sentences to more complex sentences. E.g. Acquisition of negatives: 1. First, the negative element is simply attached to the beginning or end. E.g. No singing song. No the sun shining.

Continuation...

2. Second

stage, the negative element is inserted into the sentence.

E.g. I no want envelope. He no bite you. He dont want it.

Continuation...

3. At this stage, child begins to produce the appropriate part of do, be or the modal verb. E.g. You dont want some supper. Paul didnt laugh. I am not a doctor.

Continuation...

In interrogatives, children first produce sentences in which the internal structure is not affected.

In Yes/No questions, children use intonation. E.g. See hole? You cant fix it?

Continuation...

For Wh-interrogatives, the question word is placed in front of the sentence: Where daddy going? Why you caught it? Where my spoon goed?
Later, the use of inversion with the auxiliary do as in an adult system.

Later development
As the child grows, the limitations on his

performance decreases. Distinctions or fine differences in sentence structure is acquired late.

E.g. John asked Bill to come. John promised Bill to come.

Cognitive Factors in First Language Acquisition

How is first language acquisition related to cognitive factors? Language and concepts -- language development depends on concepts children form about the world and meanings they wish to communicate. E.g. two-word utterances can be used for similar range of meanings

Continuation...

Perfect tense is acquired late.

i.e. after children have acquired the underlying concept of present relevance

Language-Learning Mechanism
The child has a number of operating

principles for making sense of data:

1. Avoid exceptions. 2. Underlying meaning-relationships should be marked clearly. -- This explains why the passive is more difficult than the active voice.

Continuation...

Use of grammatical markers should

make semantic sense. Children look for a system which is: (a) rule-governed in a consistent way, (b) the clues to meaning are clearly displayed, and (c) where each item or distinction has a definite function in communicating meaning.

Language Environment of the Child

Language used by adults serve as

models for the child. E.g. caretaker speech Characteristics of caretaker speech: 1. Generally spoken more slowly and distinctly. 2. Contains shorter sentences. 3. More grammatical, and with fewer broken sentences.

Continuation...

4. Contains

fewer complex sentences: less variety of tenses range of vocabulary is limited more repetition speech related to the here and now More repetitions Caretaker speech helps children learn.

Why Study L1 Acquisition ?

Why? Why? Why?

Because
important source of data to infer from in

studying how the second language or L2 is learned Information gleaned from L1 data e.g. errors, stages children go through, rules, structures, and words used; all provide rich information on how utterances are produced and understood evidence for HOW we learn language

Thats all for today!

THANK YOU

THATS ALL FOR TODAY!

Thank You!