Speech and Language: Its Metalinguistic Shades

We are designed to walk.That we are taught to walk is impossible.

And pretty much the same is true of language. Nobody is taught language.
Noam Chomsky, The Human Language Series Program 2, 1994

A normal human being can go through life even without

learning how to read or write. This has been proved by millions and
this same millions of people speak and understand and

discuss

complex or even abstract ideas just as well as those who are

schooled. Learning a language and learning to read and write are
somehow different.
Children have the sensory and motor abilities to produce and
comprehend even in the period of life before language acquisition
occurs.

Early exposure to a particular language produces a

"neural commitment" to the acoustic properties of that language

and that this neural commitment interferes with foreign language
processing, making it less efficient.
A string of studies conducted revealed a great deal about
language acquisition, about what a child does and does not do in
the process of acquiring a language.

A child learns his words

through committing the sounds in his memory; and by constantly

hearing these sounds as they occur in different sentences.

All children acquire language in the same way, regardless of

what language they use or the number of languages they use.
Acquiring a language is like learning to play a game. Children must
learn the rules of the language game, for example how to articulate
words and how to put them together in ways that are acceptable to
the people around them. In order to understand child language
acquisition, we need to keep two very important things in mind:
First, children do not use language like adults, because
children are not adults. Acquiring language is a gradual, lengthy
process, and one that involves a lot of apparent 'errors'. But these
'errors' are in fact not errors at all, but a necessary part of the
process of language acquisition. That is, they should not be
corrected, because they will disappear in time.
Second, children will learn to speak the dialect(s) and
language(s) that are used around them. Children usually begin by
speaking like their parents or caregivers, but once they start to mix
with other children they start to speak like their friends of their age.
The way children speak cannot be controlled - they will develop
their own accents and they will learn the languages they think they
need. If you don't like the local accent, you'll either have to put up
with it or move to somewhere with an accent you like. On the other
hand, if you don't like your own accent, and prefer the local one,

you will be happy. A child will also learn the local grammar. It might
be judged wrong in school contexts (and all children will have to
learn the standard version in school) but if adults in the child's
community use them, they are not "wrong" in child language.
Like the rest of us, children are individuals. What makes them
different from adults, as a whole, is that children are reared in adult
worlds according to adult expectations. Children learn to model
their behavior on what goes on around them, be it dress codes,
body language, table manners or language uses, usually first
through their caregivers or parents and later through peers in their
family, neighborhood or school. That is, children are learning how to
function adequately in their environment, and much of this learning
takes place through language itself. We talk to children to tell them
about our adult world and they learn about the world from what we
tell them. But they also learn about our language, from how we use
it to tell them about other things and most commonly when we
answer their questions. This means that language learning is going
on whenever language is used around children.
Springing from the abovementioned contexts, this study will
present findings (though limited) of a 4 year old boys language
acquired. Implications will also be presented in an attempt to chain
the data on psycholinguistic principles.

Statement of the Problem

This study attempts to capture a description of language
acquired by a 4 year old boy.

This description will be on the

following:
1. Grammaticality,
2. Grammatical Categories or Syntactical Categories, and
3. Grammatical Morphemes.

Objectives of the Study

The general objective of the study is to capture a description
of the language acquired by the subject.

Particularly, this study

should be able to describe:

a. grammaticality,
b. grammatical categories or syntactical categories, and
c. grammatical morphemes.

Methodology
The researcher based her study on a video recorded language
use of the subject. It was ensured that the recording was in such a

way that the language use was spontaneous while at play with
others about his age.

Participant observation was also utilized.

Dialogs were transcribed or the purpose of description.

Data Presentation and Discussion
This part presents the data gathered backed with related
literature and studies in an attempt to capture a description of the
language acquired by the subject.
Leonard Bloomfield (in 1933) wrote that the acquisition of
language is doubtless the greatest feat any one of us is ever
required to perform.

Despite the complexity of the aspects of

language children, before the age of 5 already know most of the

intricate system we have been calling the grammar of a language.
Before they can add 2 + 2, children are conjoining sentences, asking
questions, selecting appropriate pronouns, negating sentences,
forming relative clauses, and using the syntactic, phonological,
morphological, and semantic rules of the grammar.
Indeed, children do not wake up one morning with a fully
formed grammar in their heads or with all the rules of social and
communicative intercourse.
stages.

Linguistic knowledge develops by

Each successive stage more closely approximates the

grammar of the adult language.

Observations of children in

different language areas of the world reveal that the stages are
similar, possibly universal. Some of the stages last for a short time;
others remain longer. Some stages may overlap for a short period,
though the transition between stages is often sudden.
The Intellectual Feat Required
The First Sounds
The stages of language acquisition can be divided into prelinguistic and linguistic stages.

Most scholars agree that the

earliest cries, whimpers, and cooing noises of the newborn, or

neonate, cannot be considered early language.

Such noises are

completely stimulus-controlled; they are the childs involuntary

responses to hunger, discomfort, the desire to be cuddled, or the
feeling of well-being.

During the earliest period, the noises

produced by infants in all language communities sound the same.

Children who are born deaf also produce these same sounds, even
though they receive no auditory stimuli.
The Babbling Stage
Usually around the sixth month, the infant begins to babble.
The sounds produced in this period seem to include a large variety
of sounds, many of which do not occur in the language of the
household.

Deaf children also babble similar to that of normal

children.
babble.

Hearing children born of nonspeaking deaf parents also

Therefore, babbling does not depend on the presence of

acoustic, auditory input.

During this period, children learn to

maintain the right sounds and suppress the wrong ones.

The

pitches, or intonation contours, of infants utterances begin to

resemble the intonation contours of sentences spoken by adults.
However, babbling does not seem to be a prerequisite for language
acquisition. This stage is therefore pre-linguistic.
The First Words
Varying from child to child and regardless of how intelligent
the child is, sometime after one year children begin to use the same
string of sounds repeatedly to mean the same thing.

Most

children seem to go through the one word = one sentence stage.

These one-word sentences are called holophrastic sentences. At
this stage, the child uses only one word to express concepts or
predictions that will later be expressed by complex phrases and
sentences.
Many studies have shown that children in the holophrastic
stage

can

perceive

or

comprehend

many

more

contrasts than they can produce themselves.

phonological

At this stage

therefore, it is not possible to determine the extent of the grammar

of the child simply by observing speech production.

The Two-Word Stage

The production of two-word utterances occurs around the time
of the second birthday of children. At first these utterances appear
to be strings of two of the childs earlier holophrastic utterances,
each word with its own single-pitch contour.

Soon after this

juxtaposition, children begin to form actual two-word sentences

with clean semantic and syntactic relations. The intonation contour
of the two words extends over the whole utterance rather than
being separated by a pause between the two words. At this stage
there are no inflections for numbers, person, tense, and so on.
Pronouns are also rare. There is no three-word stage.
Supporting the stages of language acquisition are theories of
child language acquisition.
Theories of Child Language Acquisition
Do Children Learn by Imitation?
Various theories have been proposed to explain how children
manage to acquire the adult language. There are those who think
that children merely imitate what they hear. Imitation is involved to
some extent, of course, but the sentences produced by children
show that children are not imitating adult speech.

Even when children are deliberately trying to imitate what

they hear, they are unable to produce sentences that cannot be
generated by their grammar.

Neither can the imitation theory

account for another important phenomenon. There are children who

are unable to speak for neurological or physiological reasons; yet
these children learn the language spoken to them and understand
what is said.

When they overcome their speech impairment they

immediately use the language for speaking.

Do Children Learn by Reinforcement?
A theory of language acquisition suggests that children learn
to

produce

correct

sentences

because

they

are

positively

reinforced when they say something right and negatively reinforced

when they say something wrong. This view assumes that children
are being constantly corrected for using bad grammar and
rewarded when they use good grammar.

Studies report that

reinforcement seldom occurs, and when it does, it is usually

incorrect pronunciation or incorrect reporting of facts that is
corrected.
Attempts to correct a childs language seem to be doomed
to fail.

Children do not know what they are doing wrong and are

unable to make corrections even when they are pointed out.

The imitation and reinforcement theories fail.

Neither is

unable to account for the nonrandom mistakes children make.

It

appears that the child is equipped from birth with the neural
prerequisites for language and language use, just as birds are
biologically prewired to learn the songs of their species.

Our

linguistic ability permits us to acquire any human language to which

we are exposed.

So, children born of Zulu English-speaking

environment will learn English, and vice versa.

Related Studies
A study titled Children and Primary Language Acquisition
conducted by the University of Michigan, Department of Psychology
revealed that fathers tend to play physically with their boys but talk
and otherwise communicate socially and verbally with their girls,
which may contribute to age differences in language skills.
In another study, Gender Differences in Child Language
Development

conducted

by

researchers

from

Northwestern

University and Haifa University it was shown that there are gender
differences in brain activity and proposed that distinctions may date
back to early human history.

The evidence of early civilizations

indicates that men relied on a limited, immediate signal to make

instant fight-or-flight decisions while women used context and

abstract thinking in decision-making, skills that are still highly

relevant in contemporary culture.
In addition, the study reported that girls experience the
cognitive changes that affect language acquisition at age 14 to 20
months while boys exhibit changes later, between 20 and 24 months
of age.

This can explain why girls often speak sooner than boys,

use larger vocabularies and speak in multiple-word sentences or

phrases.
From the Australian Council of TESOL Associations in an
International TESOL Conference, a paper titled Understanding
Childrens

Language

Acquisition

was

presented.

This

was

undertaken as a response to the lack of awareness about the

indigenous language situation in Queensland, Australia. Data were
videotaped

and

samples

were

interviews were also conducted.

transcribed.

Semi-structured

The videos show how children

spoke with other indigenous people (peers, staff or family members)

in addition to how they spoke with non-indigenous peers and staff.
It highlighted the differences in the ease of communication between
these interactive situations, as well as demonstrating that these
children are learners of Standard Australian English (SAE).
The interviews gleaned information about differing language
backgrounds

and

schooling

experiences.

Recurring

themes

occurred, including the complex history behind the current

language situation; childrens language learning needs not being
recognized or catered for at school;

and the need for local

indigenous staff to assist staff who do not speak the same language
as the children.

The study forwarded recommendations including:

provision of language aware services to young children in terms

of language acquisition, language situation, language structure; and
multilingualism; understanding, valuing and using childrens home
language/s in educational settings; and localized trainings for
educators and related stakeholders. It also forwarded three broad
goals, i.e. to utilize and develop their first language; to assist them
in learning Standard Australian English (SAE); and to engage them
with the traditional language/s of their cultural heritage.

Subject
Cyrus Gabriel Adlao Olmedo is a 4-year old boy. Three adults
keep him company during day time and seven adults at night time.
He is exposed to cartoons on television for an average of three
hours per day.

The adults keeping him company speak either the

local dialect or Tagalog and intermittent English.

Cyrus started school at the age of three. At four, he is enrolled

in a nursery class using Tagalog as its medium of instruction. He is
physically active and talkative.

Data Presentation and Discussion

This part of the paper presents the data collected through
video recording (at play time) and observations made on the
subject. Dialogs in the video record were transcribed and presented
below:

Table 1. Data Gathered and Grammaticality

Dialogue

1. Sa Toy Kingdom adi...

(This is from the Toy
Kingdom)
2. Angry Bird yan na
green
(That is a green angry
bird)

Gra
mm
atic
ality

Grammatical/Syntactic
Category
Noun/Pronoun

Grammatic
al
Morpheme

Verb

Toy
Kingdom
Adi

Numbe
r
Inflecti
on

Angry
Bird
Yan

Numbe
r
Inflecti
ons

3. Waya na..isa
yang..nagsasakay
nagsasakay..
(No more..only one..riding
riding)

Isa

One,
Two,
Three
andito
(naka)close
(naka)open
Ko

4. One, two, three .. andito

na
(One, two, three.. its
here)
5. Hindi naka-closenakaopen
(Its not closed.. its open)

6. Ayaw koayaw ko..

(I dont like.. I dont like..)

7. San ang yeyo angry bird

ko?
(Wheres my yellow angry
bird?)

8. Ano yon nahuyog?

(What has fallen?)
9. Di ba may guitar

ikaw?

Don sa bahay?

(Is it not that you have a

guitar? There in the house..)
10. Sige na, hindi man ikaw
nagmo-move
(Come on, youre not
moving..)
11. Mata ko ikaw next time..
(Ill wake you up next time..)

12. Kasi stuff toy yang yan

di ba? Stuff toy yang
yan Yeyo sya tas yeyo
Sponge Bob
(Because its just a stu toy,
isnt it?..its a stu toy..its
yellow and yellow stuu toy)

Time
Inflecti
on

Numbe
r
Inflecti
on
Derivat
ive (?)

Ayaw

Inc

Nags
asaka
y

Angry
Bird
Ko
San

Inc

Guitar
Ikaw
Don
Bahay

Ikaw

Ko/ Ikaw

Nahu
yog

Nag
momov
e

Mat

a
C

Person
Numbe
r
Numbe
r
Person
Time
Numbe
r
Person
Numbe
r
Person
Time
Numbe
r
Person
Time

12. Uy, meron ako sig-sine

(Hey, I have something like
this..)
13. Sabi ko nga sayo
kakareach ko yan.hindi
ikaw kay kaka-reach ko
ya Ha, ano?
(As I have told you, I can
reach it.. not you because I
can reach it..ha, what?)
14. Uy, sa yabas yang ako
mag-motor cross..
(Hey, Ill play motor cross
outside..)
15. 15. Uy, diba dayawa sa imo?
tas dayawa sa akon?
(Hey, you have two, right..
and I have two also..)
16. Wag yan kasi hindi sya
taga-dyan kay red
(Not there because hes not
rom there because hes
red..)
17. Hindi, kasi hindi ikaw

boysgirl ikaw
(No, because youre not boys
youre a girl..)
18. Uy, sino nag-bite? Ayoko
yan
(Hey, who bit this? I dont
like that..)
19. Pag-naubos ko na adi

Inc

maghingi ikaw..
(I I inish this.. you ask..)
20. Wag lang mga adikasi
natutuyog
(Not these because they are
sleeping..)
21. Waya pa sip-onpag

hiccups hindi

Inc

mawara yan..
(No cold yet.. when you
hiccups..it will not
disappear..)
No, ayoko!
(No, I dont like..)
Yehey! Sasakay sya. Uy, mga
toys. I-park

C
Inc

toy kay sayi

sira dinah..hahapabackwards ganito yan!!!

(Yehey, hes going to
ride..Hey, toys..Park the toy
because they are in also
ah..haha..it should be
backwards..like this..)
Ako si Mr. Pogiano man
ikaw na gusto mo pa-yayk
(like)..
(I am Mr. Pogi..what about
you..what do you like..)
I-picture mo na..kaiha man
i-picture mo na kamitapos
mag picture video na agad
(You take the picture..its
taking long to take the
picture o us..ater the picture
..take the video
immediately..)
Patay na yong monsterpagpunta sa akin ng monster
ma-roar ako..rooaarrr!
(The monster is dead..i the
monster comes to me Ill
roar.. rooaarr!)
Anong movie yan? Bakit may
heart man?
(What movie is that? Why
does it have a heart?)
Ako na winako na win!!!
(I win.. I win..!!)

Inc

Inc

Number

Movie
Yan
Heart
Ako

Na-

Number
Person

win

Time

From the transcribed dialogues, it is shown that the 4-year old

subject utilizes six general functions of language and these are the:
instrumental, regulatory, representational, interactional, personal
and heuristic functions.
It also appears that with the mean length of utterances (MLU)
not lesser than five (5) morphemes on average the subject is at
the stage of grammar acquisition.

It is observed however, that

connectors are still missing in several of the string of utterances

(25, 26, 27, 28, 31 and 33). But basically, word order is acceptable.
Declarative sentences are well in order (e.g. 1, 2, 6, 9 and 18)
and so are the interrogative ones (9, 11, 12, 22, 25 and 34).
Ninorte-Samarnon utterances were limited to dialogues: 1
adi (this), 3 - nagsasakay, (riding) 4 - nagsasakay (riding), 13 man
(emphatic expression), nagmo-move (moving), 16 -

sig-sine (like

this), 22 - imo (yours), 25 nag-bite (bit), 26 adi (this), 27 adi

(this), 28 sip-on (cold), 30 sira (they), and 31 man (emphatic
expression) or particularly only the demonstrative: this singular
near the speaker, pronouns : yours (possessive) and

they 3 rd

person plural, sip-on noun; verbs: riding and moving

progressive; the emphatic expression man; and the prefix nag

in verbs. The subject is poor in his native tongue (L1); and

conversant in Tagalog (L2).
The occurrence of English words is more numerous than the
native tongue.

These are found in dialogues: 1 Toy Kingdom

(proper noun), 2 -

Angry Bird (proper noun) & green (noun), 5 -

one, two, three (nouns), 7 - close and open (used as modifiers), 9 Angry Bird (Proper noun), 11 guitar (noun), 13 - move (verb), 14
next time (temporal signal), 15 - stuff toy (noun) and Sponge Bob
(proper noun), 17 - reach (verb), 23 motor cross (noun), 24 boys
and girl (nouns),

25 bite (verb), 28 hiccups (noun), 30 toys

(noun), (i)-park (verb), (pa)-backwards (adverb), 31 like (verb), 32

(i)-picture and (i)-video (verbs), 33 monster (noun) and (ma)-roar
(verb), and 35 - (na)-win (verb). Most of the words are nouns and
verbs.
On estimate, most of the utterances are Tagalog (L2), next are
utterances in English (Target Language) and last are utterances in
the native tongue (L1)).
Indeed, children learn to construct sentences, most of which
they have never produced before.

Children learn to understand

sentences they have never heard before; they construct the rules
that permit them to use the language creatively and no one teaches

them these rules.

Their parents are no more aware of the

phonological, syntactic, and semantic rules than are children.

Conclusions
The following are conclusions:
1.

The subject is at the stage of grammar acquisition.

This is

evidenced by the declarative and interrogative dialogues where

word order is correct. This may be considered an advance feature in
the language acquisition stage of a 4-year old boy.
2. Six general functions of language were evidenced.

These are:

instrumental, representational, regulatory, interactional, heuristic

and personal functions.

3.

Connectives were found missing in few dialogues; and is

therefore a deficit.
4.

Inflections (number and tense) are not yet established. This is

also a deficit.
5. The subject is conversant in Tagalog (L2) which is the medium of
instruction.

Implications to Teaching Language in Pre-School

Implications include:
1.

The non-utilization and development of the first language in

educational settings may hamper the learning capability of the

pupils as they progress to higher grades with the implementation of
K2 12 program of the Department of Education.
2.

The conclusions forwarded imply the valuing and engaging of

childrens home language in the classroom situation.

References
Language Acquisition, Chapter 10. Introduction to Language

Gender Differences in Child Language Development.

http://www.ehow.com/list 6122997
Children and Primary Language Acquisition.
http://www.ehow.com/list html1#ixzz29F6HK9Q
Australian Council of TESOL Associations International TESOL
Conference:
Understanding Childrens Language Acquisition. July 10, 2012
Goid Coast Queensland.
Denise Angelo, Sophie McIntosh and Nina Carter (Central,
South and North Queensland Schooling Support Unit DET (Qld)
Applied Linguistics for Communication Arts. Tayao, Ma. Lourdes et
al., 1997. UP-OU.