First Language Acquisition – Comprehensive Study Notes

Historical Background and Importance of First Language Acquisition

• Human capacity to master native language within first years has intrigued scholars since at least the 18th century
• Dietrich Tiedemann (late 1700s) produced first diary-style observations of his son’s linguistic growth
• Little systematic advance for 150 years; mid-20th century explosion of research driven by generative & cognitive models
• Findings inspired language-teaching profession to draw analogies between L1 and L2 learning; provided rationale for many teaching methods
• Caution: direct L1–L2 comparisons are risky due to cognitive & affective contrasts between adults and children
• Chapter’s purpose: supply an L1 foundation for theories of second-language acquisition (SLA)

Observable Developmental Milestones

• Infancy: babbling, cooing, crying—rich pre-linguistic communication
• ≈ 12 months: imitation of ambient speech; emergence of first words
• ≈ 18 months: rapid lexical growth; two–three-word “telegraphic” combinations (e.g., “allgone milk,” “gimme toy”)
• By 3 years: comprehension soars, nonstop verbal output, complex syntax, pragmatic competence begins
• School age: continual lexical expansion, syntactic refinement, social appropriateness (what to say / not say)

Two Polar Positions & A Continuum

• Extreme Behaviorism: child = tabula rasa; language shaped solely via environmental stimuli & reinforcement
• Extreme Constructivism: children come biologically pre-equipped with knowledge, predispositions, timetables; language emerges chiefly through interaction
• Most modern positions fall between—three key paradigms detailed below

1. Behavioristic Approaches

• Language = subset of total human behavior; focus on publicly observable stimuli–response chains
• Key mechanism: $\text{operant conditioning}$ → correct responses reinforced → habits
• B.F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior (1957)
  • Child says “want milk” → receives milk → utterance strengthened
• Critiques
  • Novelty issue: humans generate infinite new sentences, unaccounted for by habit theory
  • Chomsky (1959) landmark review; MacCorquodale (1970) defense
• Modifications
  • Mediation Theory (Osgood): covert “representational mediation process” handles meaning—borderline mentalistic
  • Jenkins & Palermo (1964): linear frames + imitation; still failed on creativity & interaction

2. Nativist Approaches

• Core claim: language acquisition is innately determined; presence of genetic “language-specific” capacity
• Eric Lenneberg (1967): language is “species-specific” behavior
• Chomsky (1965): innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
  • McNeill (1966) delineates four LAD properties:
  – Discriminate speech sounds
  – Organize data into classes
  – Expect only certain linguistic systems
  – Continuously evaluate hypotheses to seek simplest system
• Universal Grammar (UG)
  • Expansion of LAD into universal principles & parameters shared by all humans
  • Empirical focus: question formation, negation, word order, subject deletion, etc.
• Creative Construction & Systematicity
  • Child language at every stage is a legitimate, rule-governed system; not merely a set of errors
  • Berko’s (1958) “wug test” demonstrated productive rule use for plurals, tenses, possessives
• Generative Descriptions & Pivot Grammar
  • Early two-word utterances show Pivot + Open classes (“My cap,” “That horsie”) ⇒ rule $\text{Sentence} \to \text{Pivot} + \text{Open}$
• Parallel Distributed Processing (Connectionism)
  • PDP posits simultaneous neural networks (100 billion neurons × up to 10 000 connections) rather than serial rule application
  • Language performance arises from activation patterns, analogous to an orchestra playing multi-part symphony
• Nativist Contributions
  • Freedom to explore abstract structures
  • Detailed rule-or PDP-based descriptions of child grammar
  • Hypotheses on UG properties & parameters (e.g., head-first vs head-last languages)

3. Functional / Constructivist Approaches

• Emphasis shift toward language as integral part of cognitive, affective, social functioning
• Lois Bloom (1971): context changes meaning of identical surface strings (“Mommy sock”) ⇒ children learn deep relations, not mere word order
• Piaget: language growth tied to sensorimotor & cognitive schemas developed through environmental interaction
• Slobin’s Operating Principles (1971, 1986)
  • Development paced by:
  – Conceptual/communicative growth (function)
  – Perceptual/information-processing capacity (form)
• Social Interactionism
  • Holzman (1984): reciprocal system between child and competent interlocutor
  • Research into discourse skills, pragmatic functions, gender roles, conversational cues (pauses, hesitations, back-channels)
  • Performance factors—once discarded—now integral data

Summary Diagram of Theories (Fig 2.1 paraphrased)

• Behaviorist → Mediation → Nativist (LAD/UG, creative construction, PDP) → Functional (social interaction, cognition, discourse)

Key Research Issues in First-Language Acquisition

Competence vs Performance

• Competence = underlying knowledge; Performance = observable use
• Chomsky’s idealized speaker-hearer contrasts with messy real-world data (memory limits, slips)
• Tarone’s “heterogeneous competence”: performance errors reflect systems still forming

Comprehension vs Production

• Common finding: comprehension generally precedes production, yet reverse patterns occasionally occur (Gathercole 1988; Rice 1980)
• Need to posit separate competencies for listening/reading vs speaking/writing

Nature vs Nurture Debate

• Innateness provides explanation for speed/complexity, but environment undeniably shapes success
• Derek Bickerton’s “bio-program”: human developmental stages akin to flowering timetable

Linguistic Universals

• Ongoing cross-linguistic studies (Slobin, Greenberg) identify common categories: word order, morphology, tone, agreement, negation, question formation, etc.
• UG framed as Principles (structure dependency, etc.) + Parameters (head-directionality, pro-drop, etc.)

Systematicity & Variability

• Regular developmental pathways (e.g., past-tense acquisition: item learning → over-regularization → class differentiation)
• Simultaneous considerable variability; modern research seeks systematic sources behind apparent randomness

Language & Thought

• Piaget: cognition → language; Vygotsky: social language → cognition (zone of proximal development)
• Sapir–Whorf: language shapes worldview; contemporary consensus sees bidirectional interdependence

Imitation

• Surface-structure imitation (phonological echoing) vs deep-structure imitation (semantic mapping)
• Children prioritize meaning; parental correction of form often ineffective unless coupled with truth-value relevance

Practice & Frequency Effects

• Children “play” with language; bedtime monologues (Weir 1962) show self-initiated rehearsal
• Frequency of meaningful input predicts order of emergence (Brown & Hanlon 1970), though exceptions exist (telegraphic omissions; Japanese ga/wa)

Input Quality

• Earlier claims of chaotic adult speech disproved; parental speech to children is grammatical, slower, clearer
• Children ignore form-focused corrections but eventually internalize models through meaningful contexts

Discourse & Conversational Skill Acquisition

• Successful L1 learning requires interaction, not mere exposure (Berko-Gleason 1982)
• Sinclair & Coulthard: conversations analyzed as Initiation–Response–Feedback; children learn pragmatic distinctions (requests, challenges, indirect refusals)
• Discourse competence one of hardest areas for L2 learners—insight for pedagogy

Classroom Vignette: Gouin & Berlitz – Precursors to Reform

François Gouin (1880)

• Personal failure learning German via rote grammar & vocabulary (memorized 248 irregular verbs, 30 000 words; still couldn’t understand speech)
• Observed nephew’s effortless L1 acquisition ⇒ concluded language = transformation of perceptions into conceptions
• Developed Series Method: direct, conceptual, connected sentence chains (e.g., 15-sentence door-opening sequence) emphasizing meaning over explicit grammar

Charles Berlitz & The Direct Method

• Core Principles (Richards & Rodgers):
  1. Instruction exclusively in TL
  2. Everyday vocabulary
  3. Q-A oral interaction
  4. Inductive grammar
  5. Oral introduction of new points
  6. Demonstration / visuals for concrete lexicon
  7. Listening & speaking focus
  8. Pronunciation & accuracy emphasized
• Popular in private language schools; limited uptake in public education due to resource constraints
• Laid groundwork for Audiolingual Method post-WW II

Practical & Philosophical Implications for SLA

• Understanding L1 acquisition informs design of L2 pedagogy (sequencing, input quality, interaction, focus on form vs function)
• Highlights complexity: biological endowment, cognitive growth, social context all interplay; SLA must therefore integrate multiple viewpoints