Child language acquisition
Chapter 4
Child L1 acquisition
Child L1 acquisition

Why talk about L1 acquisition in a class about L2 acquisition?
– SLA depends in large part on L1 research – Share many of the same questions:
– Content words – Mommy cry

Telegraphic speech Syntactic development in children is measure in MLU (# morphemes/100 utterances) Child syntax development is predictable and follows marked stages
Communication stages

6-12 months: babbling
– Beginning of more language like sounds – Usually CV sequences, repeated

Codas are rare at this stage
– Babies play with intonation as well as consonant-vowel sequences – These sounds may resemble our „words‟ but usually do not carry any significance for the child
– Substitutions – Deletions (sounds, syllables)

Syntax

Initial stage = one word stage Word combinations (around 24 mos.)
– dog / allgone / damnelephants

Child L2 acquisition
Child SLA
Far less studied that child L1 or adult SLA Studies on child SLA do not take into account simultaneous acquisition of 2+ languages

– Bilingual acquisition entails different routes and rates as well as different intervening factors
Child SLA

Studies claim that there are similarities between adult and child SLA:
– Language is not a set of habits but rather a set of structured rules – Rules actively formulated based on exposure and innate principles – not imitation – Evidence that imitation is not relevant
Child L1 acquisition

Why talk about L1 acquisition in a class about L2 acquisition?
– Of course, there are some crucial differences too…

Ravem L1 – when does language begin? L1 – relation between language and cognitive development?
– But children occasionally use L1 in L2
– i.e., immersion – greater social context for TL allows child to view the L2 as its own system rather than recur to L1 structures

Claims that in child SLA there is no interference from the L1 unless learners are isolated from peers of the target language


Regression hypothesis: child uses langauge skills used in FLA with L2 data but at a rudimentary level Recapitulation hypothesis: child recapitulates the learning process of a native speaker of the L2
– Language transfer strategies – Simplification strategies – Overgeneralization of target language rules – Quality of input is essential
McLaughlin (1978)

Factors contributing to order:
– Salience? Syllabicity? Lack of exception?
Theories of learning

1960s>
– Challenges to behaviorist theories

Chomsky‟s 1959 attack on Skinner
Communication stages

Birth – 6 months
– Crying – Smiling – Cooing

Usually just vowel sounds
– Infants are aware of sounds and that they have potential significance – Cooing sounds become their way of playing with language and variety in the sounds they hear

mamama / dadadada / nananana
பைடு நூலகம்ommunication stages

12+ months: word development
– At about 1 yr. babies begin to develop words – At about 18-24 months, they start to understand the idea of language relating to objects (sign-signifier)
– Most research puts the development of words/language later than the studies cited in the book…
Words

For children words fill a number of functions:
– Refer to objects – Indicate grammatical functions (i.e., commands) – Indicate social functions (i.e., greetings)
Sounds & pronunciation

An infant is capable of producing all human sounds S/he reacts to the input to determine which sounds exist and which don‟t Some sounds are easier than others and children make many sound „errors‟ in the first years: These differences can be due to motor skill development problems or perception problems, or both.
– Bare minimum – Aaron go home


Morphology

Morpheme acquisition proceeds in approximately the same order for all same-L1 acquisition
– Age of acquisition can vary – Order of acquisition does not reflect input
Words

Children‟s words are not always the adult version of the words
– Combination: combine two words as one chunk (i.e., “allgone”) – Overextension: use one word to refer to a variety of meanings (i.e., “bunny” > doll, hen, shoe, car, giraffe, cow, chair, etc.) – Underextension: associate more restricted meanings (i.e., “tree” as seen in summer, but not winter)