English Language - Child Language Acquisition

Basic Building Blocks of Language

Phonology (sounds), Lexical (words), Morphology and Syntax (grammar) and Semantics (meaning)

What does a child have to be able to do in 5 years? (6)

1) Be a competent and confident speaker

2) Use correct forms of negative and positive statements

3) Describe people and things

4) Use past, present and future tenses

5) Understand the meanings of at least 10,000 words

6) Pronounce words in their native language

What helps us to acquire language as children? (3)

1) Being able to interact with others, things around you and the world

2) Interaction with other language users

3) Being physically capable of sending and receiving langauge sounds

Why is English difficult to master? (Grammar - Examples)

-Irregularities

-Appropriacy

-Always being exceptions to rules (e.g. plurals, tenses, etc)

Why is English difficult to master? (Lexis/semantics - Examples)

-Pragmatic

-Double meanings and subtlety of meanings (context is key)

-Dialects

-Loan words

-Appropriacy

-Figurative language

-Idiomatic terms

Why is English difficult to master? (Phonology - Examples)

-Homophones

-Sounds + letters sometimes irregular → silent ‘h” , silent “k” (Knife)