First Language Acquisition
First language acquisition: how a child develops its ability to speak and use the
language of its environment.
-Language Acquisition: Somehow absorbing a target language’s sound system
and structure without ever thinking explicitly about the language’s actual
structure. (Gaining language knowledge naturally)
-Language Learning: Actively learning about a language, its sound system, and
its structure. (Formally taught)
-Input: Language samples provided to language learners by other more
experienced speakers around them.
-Output: Language samples provided by language learners to other more
experienced speakers around them.
Acquisition : in order to speak a language, a child must be able to hear that
language being used.
basic requirements.
requires interaction with other language-users in order to bring the general
language capacity into contact with a particular language
The child must also be physically capable of sending and receiving sound
signals in a language
Input : from family (Adults such as mom, dad and the grandparents) using
“baby talk.”, Simple words (tummy, nana) or alternative forms with repeated
simple sounds and syllables (choo-choo, poo-poo, pee-pee, wa-wa).
“caregiver speech.” “motherese” or “child-directed speech,”: characterized by the
frequent use of questions, often using exaggerated intonation, extra loudness
and a slower tempo with longer pauses
caregiver speech: is a type of conversational structure that seems to assign an
interactive role to the young child even before he or she becomes a speaking
participant. It is how the mother reacts to the child’s actions and vocalizations
simple sentence structures
repetition and paraphrasing
The Acquisition Schedule
Cooing: earliest use of speech-like sounds that involves single-vowel sounds
such as “ooh” and “aah”.0-6 month
-Babbling: an early use of speech-like sounds that involves producing a number
of vowels and consonants as well as combinations such as “muh-muh” and
“bah-bah”. six and eight months
-The one-word stage: the stage when the child begins to produce recognizable
single-unit utterances. twelve and eighteen months
-The two-word stage: the stage when the child begins to produce recognizable
double-unit utterances like “cat bad” / “mommy car”. eighteen to twenty months
-Telegraphic speech: during and after the two-word stage, the chil has clearly
developed a sentence-building capacity, but the majority of those sentences are
grammatically incorrect such as “daddy go choo choo”, “cat drink milk” two
and two and a half years old
The Acquisition Process
Learning through imitation: when the child tries to imitate the words it hears.
(the input)
-Learning through correction: when the child makes a mistake and the adult
corrects it for them.
Developing Morphology
-ing form
prepositions in and on
-s form (plurals) overgeneralization (mans)(foot)
irregular past tense came and went
“to be,” such as is and are
possessive inflection -’s
articles a and the
regular past tense forms with -ed overgeneralization he goed
present tense -s
Developing Syntax
Forming Questions
Forming Questions
Developing Semantics
Second Language Acquisition/Learning Learning a second language after a first
language is already established.
acquisition describes the gradual development over time. without a teacher and
without much attention to the details of what is being acquired
learning : more conscious process in an institutional setting, with teachers.
(Mathematics, for example, is learned, not acquired.)
Acquisition barriers: factors that hinder a person’s process of learning a second
language such as the age factor and the affective factors.
Age factor: after the critical period for language acquisition (the ideal period –
from 2 years of age until puberty- for the brain to acquire its first language in a
linguistically rich environment) has passed, it becomes very difficult for the
person to acquire another language fully.
-Affective factors: factors such as the speaker’s fear of embarrassment, dull
textbooks, unpleasant classroom surroundings, exhausting schedules at
school/work, can create a barrier to second language acquisition.
Second language teaching methods:
The grammar-translation method: a method of learning any foreign language by
the practice of translating or converting the sentences of the native language into
the target language or vice versa.
-The Audio-lingual method: a method of learning any foreign language by the
practice of listening and speaking before writing and reading.
-Communicative approaches: approaches of teaching foreign language through
emphasis on the function of language rather than the forms of the language.
-Task-based learning: an approach to language where learners are given different
interactive tasks and activities to complete.
-Transfer: using sounds, expressions, or structures from the L1 when performing
the L2. Positive transfer refers to when L1 and L2 are similar in certain
characteristics like marking the plural on the ends of nouns.
Negative transfer refers to when L1 and L2 are not similar in said
characteristics.
-Interlanguage: a language or form of language having features of two others,
typically a version produced by a foreign learner.
-Motivation: it refers to the goal of learning a second language. Instrumental
motivation is when you learn another language for goals
