Transcript Introduction to Linguistics 7

Introduction to Linguistics 10
L1 Acquisition
Prof. Jo Lewkowicz
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The miracle of language
• Bt age 4 English speaking children know
10,000+ words, equivalent of 10 new words
per day
• Compare this with number of words you have
learned in English during past
week/month/year
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Chronology of L1 acquisition
• V. early stage
• Approx 6
mths
• Approx 1 year
• One-word
stage
• Crying, smiling, cooing (4 -7 mths use pitch & loudness
to play with ‘cooing sounds’)
• Babbling (e.g. dadada; bababa, mama)
• Children begin to realise the concept that words refer
to something. As nos. words increases, so babbling
decreases.
• When this starts varies from one child to another.
What may be 2 words in adult language may be 1
word for a child , e.g ‘allgone’. Also children may
overextend words (e.g. bunny to mean many things
such as doll, bear, toy lion etc. Children may also
underuse a word, e.g ‘tree’ referring to leafless tree in
winter and not to one in spring, summer
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From sound to syntax
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• Sounds/pronunciation
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• Syntax
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Children learn some sounds more quickly than
others
Often delete a sound or syllable (e.g. ‘tein’ for
‘train’; ‘dedo’ for ‘potato’), replace one sound for
another (‘wabbit’ for ‘rabbit’)
May perceive sound differences they cannot
produce
Combining words together starts at approx 2
years.
At first, speech is telegraphic, i.e. only content
words used, e.g. mummy gone; Ethan no go.
Sequence of learning predictable (especially
noticeable in terms of morphology)
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Interest in L1 acquisition
• Interest in L1 acquisition has long history
• Example is the experiment carried out by
Mogul Emperor in India in 16th century
• First comprehensive theory of language
acquisition is developed by Skinner in late
1950s
• Will look at some of the theories of L1
acquisition since 1950s.
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Behaviourist views of L1 acquisition
• Believed that language learned through imitation and
habit formation
• BUT
– What we say is unique so children are unlikely to
remember exactly what they have heard
– Children are creative in their language use: say things they
will never have heard before
– Children overgeneralize rules, e.g. In English add ‘ed’
ending to past tense of irregular verbs
– Evidence that children also from an early stage
accommodate to their speakers
– Children hear vast quantities of language – too much to
remember everything
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Mentalist approach
• All humans are hard-wired to learn to speak: defining factor
for humanity.
– If this is so, how to we ‘classify’ those persons born without the
power of acquiring spoken language?
• Children cannot simply learn from what they hear as this is
often fragmentary, ungrammatical and imprecise. YET
– Parents do accommodate their speech when taking to infants:
speak more slowly, more clearly and often in complete
sentences
– Children have huge amounts of practice
– Parents do direct infants attention to aspects of language
– Infants early own can discover the limits of their communicative
competence, which may lead to further L1 acquisition
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Roger Brown’s contribution to L1
acquisition theory
• Studied 3 unrelated children for a period of time.
• Found that there was a consistent pattern in what
the children learned
• Found that they learned grammar in the same
order but at a different rate
• Found that frequency with which the children
encountered morphemes did not relate to the
order in which they learned them
• But, children will not learn constructions they
never hear.
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Halliday’s contribution to L1
acquisition
• Child starts by developing a ‘proto-language’:
one-to-one correspondence between utterance &
meaning
• At this stage there is no grammar & no words (as
we know them)
• Sounds uttered are functioning as signs – drawing
caregivers attention
• When words first appear a single word used to
mean many things, i.e. overgeneralization: dog
may mean: I like the dog, go away dog, I want a
dog, etc.
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Things young children can do with
language
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Satisfy material needs
Get others to do things
Interact socially
Express their own uniqueness
Explore the world
Use language imaginatively
Later 7th function = informative
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Functionalist views of L1 acquisition
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First utterances are not imitations of adult language
Children go through number of stages in acquiring their language
Acquire words then grammar
When words first appear a single word used to mean many things, i.e.
overgeneralization: dog may mean: I like the dog, go away dog, I want a
dog, etc
Children learn to nominate a topic of conversation early on. They also
know how to take turns in the interactive process
Learn to talk about the hear and now before talking about things that are
not present
Suggest that children do not learn words and then grammar to make
meaning, but they learn to function using language to fulfil certain
functions and as they do so, they acquire grammatical accuracy.
Language acquisition stimulated by our drive to meet physical and
emotional needs, including the need to socialise and become members of
social groups.
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