7. Language acquisition

1.Introduction

Definitions

Language acquisition

• concerned with acquisition of both first and second languages by monolingual/bilingual speakers and speakers showing both typical and atypical pathways of acquisition

• how all aspects of language are acquired (sound segments, word choice, grammatical structures, interpreting implied meanings, constructing narratives)

First language acquisition (FLA)

• acquisition of one’s native language(s) during first 6/7 years of life

Second language acquisition (SLA)

• any language(s) acquired after first language

  
  

  
  

2.Approaches to language acquisition

Observational and logical

→ 2 basic approaches: observational and logical

• Observational approach (social constructionist/emergentist research)

  • focus on what we can observe about how children learn language

  • theories based on observations

  • emerging models of language that children construct through social interaction → how they learn to interpret language around them

  • beyond sounds/words/grammar, also

    • Inference and circumstance-based language use

  • “Nurture”-based → What happens when we progress?

  • Questions like: What happens in language acquisition? Order? Variants? Intentions of variants? How successful?

• Logical approach

  • seeks to understand language acquisition from the perspective of adult language (seen as destination) → focus on endpoint

  • Assumes that children are born with

    • an innate capacity to acquire any language → Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

    • innate knowledge about the structure of language, i.e. a set of rules for language associated with a corresponding set of linguistic categories → Universal Grammar

    • Generativist approach

  • what is possible in particular languages or language in a more general sense

  • “Nature”-based

  • questions like: What can people say? How varying betw. language? patterns matched/missed in children’s speech? When/How mistakes?

    
    

→fundamentally opposed, some say are complementary: explain different aspects of language

→ today: both ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ play a role →“nature through nurture” (only happens in interaction but brain/body makeup faciliates language development)

3.Language acquisition pathways

Dynamic process of language acquisition

• closely associated with brain development

  • Birth human’s brain is about 25% of the adult size, increasing to 80% during childhood

  • 1/3 neural connections present lost by adulthood

  • brain creates new, more complicated connections

• is highly dynamic

  • age is important factor, noted by the year, followed by a semicolon and the month

  • everything learned changes the context in which they will learn the next thing

• best understood pathways is analytical

  • build up of sound repertoire → then words→then more complex combinations of words

Input

→ refers to language that babies/childre hear around them

• especially “Child-directed speech” (CDS) (problematic, too fragmentary, need internal support? bc how access adult language through baby talk?)

• modifications made in CDS generally skilfully attuned to needs of children →scaffolding

Recasts and expansions

• Adults often use “recasts” to support acquisition by e.g. rephrasing with correct form

• often occurs with an “expansion”, opportunity to elaborate further on what has been said

Segmentation

• children need to learn how to segment words and phrases out of larger structures

• can involve longer strings used in routinised ways

• have to develop knowledge and skills to break down all types of input, including conventionalised units, into parts and recombine them in creative ways

Critical Period Hypothesis

• claims that the extent to which we can acquire/learn a language is linked to brain development →Window of opportunity (a critical period) during childhood during which language must be acquired (~2-13 years)

• evidence based on findings like

  • Full recovery of language skills becomes rarer if brain damage occurs after puberty

  • Socially isolated (abused) children found in their teens could not fully acquire language

  • Children with slower language development rates who do not acquire full fluency by puberty rarely acquire fully normal linguistic skills

  • Second language learners who begin after childhood, regardless of the exposure they receive, rarely sound like natives

4.Acquisition of phonology

The first year

• 0;0-0;3: Crying, cooing, smiling in response to sounds/voices

• 0;4-0;6: 1. vowel-like sounds, babbling

• 0;7-0;9: increasing variety sounds/syllables

• 0;10-1;0: 1. words, acquired speech patterns/intonations

The second year

• extreme reduction of consonant clusters

• Simplification of /tʃ/ to plosive

• Intonation patterns

• Retraction of /s/

• Reduction of /bl-/ cluster

• Deletion of /v/

The third year

• Consonants now additionally include /p/, /ŋ/, /j/, /ʒ/, /f/

• Consonant clusters are in evidence though not always consistent with adult forms

• Frequent use of [w] in place of [ɹ] in second position

• Vowel system approximately complete and pronounced accurately around 3;0

• Increasingly complex syllable shapes

• Monosyllabic words contain V, CV, VC, CVC, CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC, CCVCCC and CCCVC syllables

• Polysyllabic words contain V, CV, VC, CVC and CCVC syllables

3;0+

• 3-4: liquids ma not be acquired until 5;0, lisps common until 7;0, uther than that consonant inventory acquired

• 4-5: awareness of syllable segmentation/rhyme

• 5-6: phonological awareness: syllable segmentation, rhyme, alltiteration, phoneme isolation, beginning letter knowledge

The ‘fis phenomenon’

→ children’s production lags behind their perception → fis phenomenon

• can hear and mentally represent differences in sound sequences before they can produce them

5.Acquistion of vocabulary

Recognising words and phrases

• Children recognise words and phrases from around 6 months (recognising name)

• By 1;6 can point to body parts in response to questions like ‘Where’s your nose?’

• Though: children typically understand many more words than they actively use and words they do use may not map clearly onto identifiable adult words

Ages and stages in vocabulary acquistion

Extensions

• tendency to overextend the meanings of words, especially when their vocabulary is limited e.g. swimming bird → duck

• based on shape, function, or other kinds of semantic relations

• also examples of underextensions (word referring to only one specific aspect)

6.Acquistion of grammar

Typical order

Analogy - importance of the wug

• Jean Berko Gleason in 1958 wanted to test how children learn the plural forms of English (speaking not writing)→ Mophophonology {s} realised differently depending on final sound

• Children know “Bug” → apply rule they acquired analogously: bug:bugs = wug:wugs

• also works for other morphological patterns e.g. verb tense suffixes

7.Foundations of SLA

More detailed definition

• refers both to the study of individuals and groups who are learning a language subsequent to learning their first one as young children, and to the process of learning that language

→ additional languages either reffered tp as second (L2), third (L3), … language or more broadly “target language”

• how target language acquired can differ strongly

  • informal L2 learning → naturalistic context

  • Formal L2 learning → language taught in institutionalised setting

• SLA highly interdisciplinary field (linguistics, psychology, pedagogy)

Different meanings of L2

8.FLA vs. SLA

Initial state

→L1

• children born with innate capacity to acquire language

→L2

• no consent whether there is innate capacity to learn 2. language+

• prior knowledge of L1 major component of L2 learning

• Real-world knowledge

• General interactional functions

Intermediate state - Process

→ L1

• largely systematic: predictable sequence of phenomena

• Child grammar: relation cognitive abilities

→ L2

• largely systematic

• Interlanguage (IL, also learner language): Cognitive maturity has been achieved, can’t be good explanation

• cross-linguistic influence (transfer) of L1 on L2

• Positive transfer: L1 structure used in L2 utterance and is correct → faciliates learning

Intermediate state - Necessary conditions

→ L1

• language input necessary

• requires direct, reciprocal interaction with people

→ L2

• language input necessary

• face-to-face social interaction faciliates SLA, but not necessary

Intermediate state - Faciliating conditions

→ L1

• language input necessary

• requires direct, reciprocal interaction with people

→ L2

• level of development can be faciliated/inhibited by social/individual factors

  • feedback

  • Aptitude (memory capacity, analytic ability)

  • Motivation/need and desire to learn

  • Instruction/explicit teaching

Final state

→ L1

• native linguistic competence

• basic phonological, grammatical and lexical and interactionsl skills acquisition completed by 6

• Acquisition more complex features proceed into adulthood

→ L2

• never totally native linguistic competence

• maybe near-native competence

• most learner’s progress ceases at some point

  • Fossilisation: L2 includes instances of L1 interference or “creative structures different from any that would be produced by a native speaker of the L2”

9.SLA Frameworks

How different schools approached sla

Linguistic

→Internal focus

• Chomsky and followers

• Focus on competence (underlying knowledge of language)

• Generative Grammar

  • Answer to behaviorism

• Principles/Paramteters/Minimalist Program → Extension GG but more abstract

• Linguistic interferences

  • some parts more problematic for L2 learners → maybe development delays

→ External focus

• functionalism back to 1920s Prague School

• Focus on performance (language as system of communication)

• Functional typology

  • similarities L1 L2 ease learning, differences complicate

• Function-to-form mapping

  • Grammaticalisation

  • Construction grammar (don’t learn things in isolation)

• Functional approaches dominate in Europe

Psychological

→Languages and the brain

• neurolinguistics → interface biology, psychology and linguistics

• critical period with neurolinguistic basis

→Learning processes

• not used in learner’s ommediate context

• relevant for travel/business

• curricular

• no direct practical application

→Learner differences

• Why some more succesful?

• Emotional involvement

  • Attitude, motivation, anxiety

• Biological differences

  • Age, sex

Social

→Microsocial

• SLA in immediate social context

• Variation in learner language (sociolinguistics)

• Accomodation theory

  • native speakers may change speech when addressing L2 learner

• Input and interaction: Comprehensible input, foreigner talk, scaffolding

→Macrosocial

• Ethnography of communication

• Social psychology

• Status of L1 and L2

• Circumstances of learning: informal vs. formal, naturalistic vs. instructed

10. Interlanguage

• Def.: intermediate states/interim grammars of learner language as it moves toward target L2

• Introduced by Larry Selinker 1972 IL as 3. language

• Characteristics IL

  • Systematic: learner follows internalised rules

  • dynamic: system changes

  • Variable: differs depending on context/patterns of langauge use

  • reduced system: form: less complex grammar structures; function: smaller range communicative needs

Typical processes and differences to FLA

• Language transfer (positive/negative)

• Strategies of 2. language learning

• Strategies of 2. language communication

• Overgeneralization of target language linguistic material

• Fossilization (the older the earlier)

11. Functional approaches

Functional typology

→ applied in accounting for development stages

Markedness

• feature unmarked if occuring more frequentlx than contrasting element in same category, if it’s less complex structurally/conceptually, or if it’s more normal/Expected

• Examples:

  • Phonology: Syllables CV most common → complex syllables e.g. street are marked

  • Syntax: word order SVO in most languages → OSV (Haitian Creole) would be marked

  • Discourse: Different answer than fine after how are you marked

Markedness differential hypothesis

Usage-based approaches (construction grammar)

Tomasello, Wulff/Ellis: 3 assumptions

1. linguistic input learners receive is primary source for L2 learning

2. cognitive meachanisms learner employ in language learning not exclusive to language learning but general mechanisms

3. langauge is formulaic and based on constructions (form-function mappins)

→Construction on different levels

• Morphology, Words, Idioms, syntactic frames

Construction grammar

→Constructions stored in multiple forms, differing in level of

• Complexity

• Abstraction (schematization) (depending on how lexicalised)