Language Acquisition

Order of phoneme acquisition

Vowels articulated before consonants

Stops are first consonants acquired, followed by labials —→ alveolars —→ velars —→ alveopalatals

Onsets acquired before codas

Syllable deletion

Stressed syllables more prominent than unstressed, unstressed syllables often deleted from output

Ex: [ru] for kangaroo

Syllable simplification

CV as best syllable shape, onsets and codas are avoided

Deletion

More sonorant elements is deleted

Ex: [taj] for ‘try’

Substitution

Stopping: Obstruent —→ stop ([ti] for ‘sea’)

Fronting: consonant —→ alveolar ( [doʊ] for ‘go’)

Gliding: liquid —→ glide ([weɪn] for ‘lane’)

Denasalization: consonant —→ oral ([spud] for ‘spoon]

Assimilation

Long distance place assimilation ([fɛlf] for ‘self’)

Whole object assumption

The word refers to the whole object

Type assumption

The word refers to a type of thing

Basic level assumption

The word refers to objects that are alike in basic ways

Overextension

The acquired meaning is more general than the intended one

Underextension

The acquired meaning is more specific than the intended meaning

U-shaped learning

Stage 1: words are memorized as a whole, no evidence of morphology

Stage 2: Inflectional morphology is overgeneralized, no irregular morphology yet

Stage 3: adult-like morphology

Wug test

Testing whether children have acquired morphology

Children around 3 can extend inflectional morphology to made up words (nonce words)

Children even younger can reproduce inflectional morphemes in real words but not fake ones

One-word stage

1-1.5 yo, one word is used to convey an entire utterance

Two-word stage

1.5-2 yo, limited number of sentential patterns, often noun & verb or noun & noun

Telegraphic stage

2-2.5 yo, longer sentences with some functional and inflectional morphology missing

Interlanguage grammar

System of mental representations influenced by first and second language and has features of both

L2 learners will substitute a sound from their L1 that shares some features with the target sound

Transfer

A feature or rule from L1 is carried over to the interlanguage grammar

Speech Learning Model (SLM)

Central idea: if the learner classified the L2 sound as equivalent to L1, no new category will be formed

When a sound is similar to one in our L1, we might not hear the difference which can lead to using the L1 sound by mistake, creating accents

L2 sound A and sound X are merged into one category in the interlanguage grammar, making it difficult to accurately learn sound A correctly

Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM-L2)

Central idea: when listening to a nonnative phone, naive listeners are likely to perceptually assimilate the nonnative phone to the most articulatory similar native phoneme

PAM: Single Category (SC)

Tow nonnative sounds are perceived as equally good/bad of the same native phoneme

PAM: Two Category

Two nonnative sounds are perceived as acceptable exemplars of two different native phonemes

PAM: Category Goodness

Two nonnative sounds are interpreted as different instances of a native phoneme, one being a better example of that phoneme than the other

Factors affecting SLA

age, Individual factors (instrumental: wanting to learn L2 for a specific goal, integrative: Wanting to learn L2 to learn more about a culture), cognitive factors (learning/communication strategies)