First Language Acquisition Chapter 14 Basic Requirements •A language-using environment •Capable of sending and receiving sounds signals in a language •Able to interact with others via language Caregiver Speech •Frequent use of questions •Exaggerated intonation •Slow tempo •Long pauses •Simple sentences •A lot of repetition The Acquisition Schedule All normal children develop language at roughly the same time •COOING: the earliest speech-like sounds •First few months of life •Sequences of vowel-like sounds •5 months old •Able to hear the difference between vowels [i] and [a] and syllables [ba] and [pa] The Acquisition Schedule •Between 6 and 8 months •Ba-ba-ba and ga-ga-ga •Beginning of BABBLING stage •Around 9 to 10 months •Later babbling stage •Recognizable intonation patterns •Nasal sounds [ma] •10-11 months •Late babbling stage; used to express emotions and emphasis •More complex syllable combinations (ma-da-ga-ba) •Provides the child with some experience of the social role of speech (because adults tend to react to this type of sound production) One-Word Stage •Between 12 and 18 months •ONE-WORD STAGE •Single-unit utterance •EXAMPLES: milk, cookie, cup •HOLOPHRASTIC •Single form functioning as an entire phrase or sentence Two-Word Stage •18-20 months •TWO-WORD STAGE •Used with a vocabulary of 50+ words •EXAMPLES: baby chair, light off, cat bad •Interpretation is solely related to context Telegraphic Speech •Between 2 and 2 ½ •Produces 200-300 distinct words •Understands 1000-1500 words •TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH •Strings of words in phrases and sentences (like a telegraph) •EXAMPLES: this shoe all wet, daddy go bye-bye •By 3 yrs. •Pronunciation has become closer to the form of adult language The Acquisition Process Language acquisition is NOT simply a matter of : •Providing instruction on how to speak a language •Filling a little empty head with words •Children imitating adult speech •An adult making corrections to a child’s speech Rather, a more accurate view would be that children actively construct, from what is said to them, possible ways of using the language. Developing Morphology Starting at about 2 ½ yrs. •1st : -ing morpheme •cat sitting •2nd : regular plural –s •boys, cats •Often accompanied by OVERGENERALIZATION •Foots, mans, boyses, footses, some mens, and two feets •3rd : possessive –’s •Girl’s dog Developing Morphology, Cont. •4th : forms of ‘to be’ •Are, was •ALSO—about the same time–irregular past tense went and came appear •5th : regular past tense –ed •Walked , played •At this stage, irregular forms (went and came) may be OVERGENERALIZED as goed and comed •6th : third person singular present –s and auxiliaries •[he] Comes, [it] looks, does, has Developing Syntax, Cont. FORMING QUESTIONS •1st (18-26 months): add wh-form in front and rising intonation at the end •Where kitty? •2nd (22-30 months): same as 1st , but more complex phrases •Why you smiling? •3rd (24-40 months): S/V inversion occurs •Can I go? Developing Syntax, Cont. FORMING NEGATIVES •1st (18-26 months): put no or not at the beginning •I no fall. (I didn’t fall) •2nd (22-30 months): negative forms don’t and can’t appear with other auxiliary forms such as won’t and didn’t following closely behind. Developing Semantics OVEREXTENSION •When the meaning of a word is OVEREXTENDED on the basis of shape, sound, size, movement, texture, or other characteristics. •EXAMPLE: •doggie=all four-legged creatures •cookie=all circular things •fly=any little specks of anything Overextension is usually only relevant to a child’s language PRODUCTION, not COMPREHENSION. What does this mean? As the child’s vocabulary increases, the overextension of words occurs less and less. By the age of 5, the child has completed the greater part of L1 acquisition. What does this knowledge of L1 acquisition process mean for teachers? How can we apply this knowledge? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvlsco7ux4g Gettysburg Address http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-RAIRA941E Young 2-year-old with incomprehensible speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI42LSbwc8E&feature=related Making sense of nonsense