LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Socially Acquired

FLA | SLA | MLA Social Interaction Society as a Driving Force

to Lang. Acq.
Is Language…
A child learns from his immediate social group.
…innate?

…imitated? THEORIES FOR LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

…reinforced? INNATENESS THEORY

…actively constructed? IMITATION THEORY

…caused by neural connections? REINFORCEMENT THEORY

…socially acquired? ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION OF GRAMMAR

Innate THEORY

Internal – Instinctive – Primal – Involuntary CONNECTIONIST THEORIES

No External Influence – i t’s true across time and SOCIAL INTERACTION THEORY

space

Imitated PHYSIOLOGICAL PRERQUISITES OF

Mimicry – Environmental Social (in a certain SOUND PERCEPTION AND PRODUCTION

degree) – If a child is born in an environment

without language, that child won’t have a
language. PRODUCTION IS ALWAYS PRECEDED BY
PERCEPTION
Reinforced
Before children begin to speak a language, they
Reward – Punishment – Behaviorism – must first master several tasks related to the form
Modification of language.

Actively Constructed

Invention Constructivist Analogy and PRE-REQUISITES TO LEARNING

Error Recognition LANGUAGE

A person is responsible for learning his own 1. Phoneme identification

langauge
2. Allophone perception and production
Neural Connections
3. Syllable decoding
Neurons Brain Science
4. Word decoding
Language Exposure = Strong Connections
5. Sound to phrase combination

6. Word combination
 Experimental Methods for Studying Sound SO?
Perception
The experiment identifies the babies’ auditory and
HIGH AMPLITUDE SUCKING (HAS) visual representation

CONDITION HEAD-TURN PROCEDURE (HT) STAGES OF PHONOLOGICAL

ACQUISITION

COOING – production of vowel sounds as early

HIGH AMPLITUDE SUCKING
Developed to determine how babies recognize
sound differences.
1. Pacifiers attached to a sound production device
as a few weeks after birth. (“ooh”; “ya-ya”; “wah-
wah”)
BABBLING – production of consonant sounds at
the age of 4-6 months. (“ba-ba”; “ma-ma”)

2. Once the baby sucks on the pacifier, a sound is CANONICAL BABBLING – the repetitive
produced. babbling of the same CV pattern at the age of 7-10
month. (babababababa)
3. If the baby sucks faster, it means that he has noticed
a new sound. VERIEGATED BABBLING – the stringing
4. Once the baby stops sucking, the sound is changed. together of nonrepeated CV pattern between 10-
12 months. (bugabimo; abubugabiwabibo)
5. If the baby sucks faster with the new sound, it
means he has noticed the change. If the baby doesn’t, ACTUAL WORD CHILD SPEECH
he didn’t perceive the sound as something new.
Water Wa-wa
SO?
That Dat
The experiment is used for allophone recognition.
Drum Dwum
It infers how humans perceive sounds and sound
Right; Red; Around Wayt; Wed; Wouwnd
changes.

CONDITIONED HEAD-TURN PROCEDURE

FEATURES OF CHILD SPEECH
Usually done to babies aged 5-18 months. It has
two phases: conditioning and testing. 1. Dominance of CV pattern MAMA

1. Baby sits on the lap of the parent and watches a 2. Lack of consonant clusters spill pill
display while listening to sounds.
3. Omission of final consonant cat ka
2. Baby associates the change in sound with the
activation of visual reinforcers. 4. Stressed Syllable Bias banana nana

3. At first, the visuals are presented

simultaneously with the sound. Then, a delay is
“ Ey bi si di ep ep dzi! Etch eye jay kay
introduced.
emomomopee! Kyu ar es, ti yu vi. Doboyu eks,
4. Baby anticipates the change in the visuals after wayenzi. Nomai-nomai ey-bi-sis. Nes taym won
the sound. chu sing wid me!” -Baby N.; 2 Years Old
 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: BIRTH-12 STAGES OF ACQUISITION: MORPHOLOGY,
MONTHS WORD MEANING, SYNTAX

ONE-WORD STAGE

TWO-WORD STAGE

LATER STAGES

ACQUISITION OF WORD MEANING

ONE-WORD STAGE

FIRST WORDS UTTERED BY ONE-YEAR-OLDS:

◦ Names of People

◦ Objects

◦ Pets

◦ Other Familiar and Important parts of their

environment

SOON THE CHILD LEARNS:

ACQUISITION OF MORPHOLOGY and
SYNTAX ◦ Verbs

◦ Negation

DISCLAIMER ◦ Other important communicative words (gimme,

mine)
At the age of 12 months, a child can begin to
consistently produce words of the language he or SINGLE WORD STAGES UTILITY:
she is learning. ◦ Naming

There is a possible variation in the age range ◦ Commenting

during which children acquire language.
◦ Requesting
The ages associated with the different stages of
◦ Inquiring
language acquisition are only averages.
OTHER TERM FOR ONE-WORD STAGE:
There is a possible variation in the rate of
acquisition in terms of children’s behavior. HOLOPHRASTIC STAGE

Stages are not specific to children acquiring TYPICAL INTONATIONS IN ONE-WORD

English. STAGE:

◦ Interrogative – rising

◦ Ordinary or Emphatic Statements – falling

◦ Demands – falling
 TWO-WORD STAGE THREE-WORD STAGE does not have a clear cut
division as to when it actually occurs.
APPROXIMATELY BETWEEN 18-24 MONTHS
These longer utterances are SYNTACTICALLY
CHILDREN AT THIS STAGE DO NOT SIMPLE
ORGANIZED, rather than being just
PRODUCE TWO WORDS IN ANY ORDER;
SEMANTICALLY ORGANIZED.
THEY ADOPT A CONSISTENT SET OF WORD
ORDERS THAT CONVEY MEANING. FUNCTION WORDS and INFLECTIONAL
MORPHEMES start to emerge during this stage.
STRUCTURES ARE DETERMINED BY
SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS RATHER THAN She walk
ADULT SYNTAX.
She walking
EXAMPLE

AGENT + ACTION “baby sleep” OTHER FEATURES OF THREE-WORD

ACTION + OBJECT “kick ball”
STAGE:

ACTION + LOCATION “sit chair” PLURALITY

ENTITY + LOCATION “teddy bed”

(over-generalized –s inflections)
POSSESSOR + POSSESSION “mommy book”
NEGATIVES
ENTITY + ATTRIBUTE “block red”
(use of “no” and “not”)
DEMONSTRATIVE + ENTITY “this shoe”

INTERROGATIVES
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
(echo questions and overgeneralized yes-no
Words such as more or ‘nother may be used as questions)
modifiers of nouns Here and there may be used
FACTORS TO LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
as deictic terms. Some children at this stage also
use pronouns Speech typically lacks function Physiological
words.
Cognitive
ANOTHER TERM FOR TWO-WORD STAGE =
TELEGRAPHIC STAGE PRINCIPLE OF Learning and Maturation
ECONOMY IS AT WORK
Environmental

LATER STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT THREE- Sex

WORD
Social Interaction
utterances are initially formed by combining or
expanding twoword utterances. Family Members

Daddy cookie + eat cookie Country

“Daddy eat cookie”

Throw ball

Throw [red] ball

 PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTORS SEXUAL FACTORS

Slower development of motor skills lead to Boys and girls have similar rate in language
slower language acquisition development in general

Deafness/Hearing Impairment However, at age 2, girls develop faster

linguistically
Regression and Backwardness
Girls have greater mastery or speech sounds
Self-esteem
Girls have better fluency
Other health-related problems
One factor: Closeness to the mother helps girls
develop faster
COGITIVE FACTORS

IQ is a indicator to language acquisition

SOCIAL INTERACTION (FAMILY) FACTORS
Mental Retardation
Excessive love and over protection, faulty child
Dyslexia rearing, careless handling, lack of proper
parenting, and exposure to tension in the family
Vocabulary Growth depends on the extent of leads to tension and anxiety in learning language.
cognitive growth

FAMILY MEMBERS
LEARNING AND MATURATION FACTORS
More family members, more exposure to
Interaction between Physiological and Cognitive language
Development of the child
Birth order is also a factor
Delayed speech may indicate slower Language
Acquisition (children start to learn the language Older children tend to learn more from their
at around 18 to 28 months) parents

Phases of speech development have a fixed Younger children tend to learn from others
sequence regardless of other factors

Reinforcement, Facility, and Motivation help

COUNTRY

Children from monolingual countries acquire

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS language faster

Stimulation of language within the child’s Children from bilingual countries may have
environment retarded first and second language acquisition

Environment = encouragement to speak Cross-linguistic Interference

Social class is also a factor