Innate behaviors . . .
1. Maturationally controlled, emerging before they are critically needed 2. Do not appear as the result of a conscious decision. 3. Are relatively unaffected by direct teaching and intensive practice. 4. Follow a regular sequence of “milestones” in their development. 5. Generally observe a critical period for their acquisition
“Universal Grammar”
Humans then learn to specialize this “universal grammar” (UG) for the particulars of their language.
Wቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱrd order, syntactic rule preferences Phonetic and phonological constraints Lexicon Semantic interpretations Pragmatic ways to converse
Chapter 10 Language Acquisition
Brain-storming We are not born speaking! Language must be acquired. If we think of all that is entailed in knowing a language, it seems quite a challenge.



Cognitive factors in child language development
1) Language development is dependent on both the concepts children form about the world and what they feel stimulated to communicate at the early and later stages of their language development. (the acquisition of perfect tense and the concept of present relevance) 2) The cognitive factors determine how the child makes sense of the linguistic system himself instead of what meanings the child perceives and expresses. (the acquisition of negative form)
An innatist view of language acquisition
According to the innatist view of language acquisition, human beings are biologically programmed for language and that the language develops in the child just as other biological functions such as walking. LAD: language acquisition device Black box: contain principles that are universal to all human languages. UG: universal grammar; P & P theory.
Theories of child language acquisition
A behaviorist view of language acquisition (Skinners) An innatist view of language acquisition (Chomsky) An interactionist view of language acquisition Cognitive factors in child language development
For instance
A my fish and chips Three child Mommy see me on chair What the boy hurt? Cowboy did hitting me.

C: Want other one apple, Daddy. D: You mean, you want “the other apple”. C: Yes, I want other one apple, please, Daddy. D: Can you say “the other apple”? C: Other….one…apple D: Say…”other” C: Other D: Apple C: Apple D: Other apple. C: Other….apple. Now give me other one apple.
Language Learning VS. Language Acquisition
Language acquisition
The scientific study of language acquisition began around the same time as the birth of cognitive science, in the late 1950's. Language acquisition----refers to the child’s acquisition of his mother tongue, i.e. how the child comes to understand and speak the language of his community.
Motherese (亲情语言)
Parents and caretakers in most parts of the world modify their speech when talking to young children, one example of how people in general use several “registers” in different social settings. Speech to children is slower, shorter, in some ways (but not all) simpler, higher-pitched, more exaggerated in intonation, less fluent and grammatically well-formed, and more directed in content to the present situation, compared to speech among adults (Snow & Ferguson, 1977). Many parents also expand their children's utterances into full sentences, or offer sequences of paraphrases of a given sentence.
Logical problem
The logic problem means the fact that children come to know more about the structure of their language than they could reasonably be expected to learn from the language samples they hear.
(in terms of SOV, etc.) Nouns and verbs Subjects and objects; modifiers tend to follow the head Consonants and vowels Absolute and implicational tendencies E.g., If a language has VO order, All sentences have this order. A grammar
A behaviorist view of language acquisition
Traditional behaviorists view language as behavior and believe that language learning is simply a matter of imitation and habit formation. Imitation Recognition Reinforcement The inadequacy of behaviorist view lies in explaining how children acquire complex language system. (See examples on P142)
examples *Where can he go somewhere?
*Where he can go? *Where did he can go? He can go somewhere. Where can he go? *Where went he? *Where did he went? *Where he went? *He did go WHERE? He went somewhere. Where did he go? He went WHERE? He went home. *Why he went home? *How come did he go home? Why did he go home? How come he went home?