Dado, Jazmine Joyce DG.

EDL 105 – Prof. Audrey Morallo

Title of Case Study: First Language Acquisition: A Case Study of a Three – Year Old
Lebanese Child

Abstract

The case study is about Al Baraa, a 3-years old Lebanese child and his first language
acquisition and development and whether the purpose First Language Acquisition Theories
where able to validate and explain the subject’s linguistic development. The researcher then used
observation as the main methods for gathering data and as a way to properly gauge and judge the
subject’s linguistic abilities and added interviews and questionnaires answered by the subject’s
parents as additional data gathering method. The study tried to answer the following: how the
subject acquired his L1, what are the factors that affected his learning, how were these
developments exhibited and what were the difficulties experienced. The key findings of the study
suggests that the subject’s linguistic development was mostly due to his biological innateness
and natural capability to process language. His environment and what he has been exposed to
outside of formal education also were the catalysts for him to develop further than what he is
naturally capable of. Affective factors were also identified in his growth. The researcher
highlighted the importance of the connection of these theories and there is not just one theory
that can fully explain how an individual acquires language. Furthermore, he identified
physiological and the subject’s current cognitive stage as the hindrances with his linguistic
competence.

Critic

Applied linguistics has relied with case studies for a long time to have an in-depth analysis,
insights, issues, and answers to many linguistic queries that coexists within a social and
educational context. As the studies continued to develop, the scope started to grow too and took
interest in underrepresented language groups aside from the largely studied English and tackle
multilingual and diasporic groups. (Duff, 2014)

This research is done with the purpose of applying learned linguistic theories about first
language acquisition and validating which of them would explain the subject’s development the
best. For this case study, the researcher chose the subject, Al Baraa, a 3-year-old Lebanese child
and closely observed him for 4 months. Al Baraa is a native in Saudi Arabia, born and raised
there, by his parents which naturally lead him to have Arabic as his first acquired language.
However, throughout the study, it has been noted that the subject was able to speak some English
with the help of the conversations exchanged by his father and academic colleagues. Aside from
the given background, the researcher also considered other factors that may affect the child’s
development such as individual preferences, personality and unique circumstances. (Meniado,
2016). It is important to note that at this stage of age 2- 3 years old, the subject is expected to be
at Telegraphic stage where he is able to produced multi-word utterances and can incorporate
more than two morphemes and give essentially semantically sound outputs. (Hakim, 2018)
 The research questions were answered and the data collected with faith and adherence to
First Language Acquisition theories such as Lenneberg’s Nativist Theory, Chomsky’s innateness
hypothesis, and McNeill’s Language Acquisition Device Theory and Skinner’s Behavioralist
Theory. This critic paper also stands with the argument that first language acquisition is not
meant to be contained within one theory and a child’s development is a multi-faceted process
with a lot of factors put into consideration and there are factors that explains this phenomenon
that can universally apply to children’s language acquisition and not is not just specific to this
subject.

In order to proceed with the study, the researcher posed questions that were answered with
the data gathered over the time duration of four months and with the researcher being in direct
daily contact with the subject and family. First question was how did the subject acquire his first
language, what contributions did imitation, correction and reinforcement, analogy, or structured
input bring. Second, what are the factors that were evident throughout the whole process. Third,
it was asked how did the subject exhibited his progression with his language and finally, the
difficulties that were encountered by the subject that hindered his linguistic output.

They key findings of the study started with establishing that Al Baraa’s first language
acquisition is mainly due to his innateness and biological capability to process language which is
theoretically sound with the idea that all humans have a Language Acquisition. It was manifested
with the subject’s ability “to perceive / receive linguistic inputs and produce communicative
outputs.” (Meniado, 2016) The paper emphasized the function and latency of the brain in the
subject’s development and that since there were no cited or observed abnormalities or any
linguistic defects, the subject was able to show a progress system such as showcasing creativity
with his linguistic outputs, ability to differentiate speech sounds, and classify which parts of the
language refer to names or actions. It was also added how language development is also a result
of a behavioralist process. It was detected that the subject tried to emulate the way adults speak,
or mimic phonologically correct sounds but failed with some attempts due to his physiological
development not being able to keep up with what he wanted to express verbally. The subject also
tried to showcase his skills with analogy and was able to alter some words in a sentence that he
was trying to imitate which also suggested that he had a grasp of his language’s structure.
However, the paper failed to further elaborate on how much the parents corrected or reinforced
their child. There was not much evidence of a strict implementation of operant conditioning thus
assuming that Al Baraa’s development was more generative rather than imitative.

The researcher then focused on the factors affecting the child namely the latency,
cognitive, and affective factors in language. Talking about the latency, the researcher made a
statement, “At his age (3), it is already clear that language acquisition is controlled by his left
hemisphere as manifested by his right-handedness.” Although it is true that according to neuro-
linguistic studies (Abbott, 2016), language is controlled by the left part of the brain that linguistic
functions in the brain is independent from left-handedness or right-handedness (French National
Center for Scientific Research, 2014). The researcher used Piaget’s theory in order to explain
why the subject would fail to cognitively process abstractions in their language. He then cites
Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis (Schütz, 2019) and claims that the subject had not shown
any evidence of inhibitions with language learning. And lastly, the paper also presented the
observations made on the subject’s linguistic competence and performance and admitted on the
difficulty of properly gauging the subject’s level.

For the third part of key findings, the researcher concluded that the subject falls under the
normal development. Furthermore, the subject’s communicative, discourse, and strategic
competence were still lacking in the sense that he still does not have a full grasp of the
complexities of his language due to the limits of his cognitive abilities.

The difficulties presented were mostly about the subject’s speech mechanisms that were
still underdeveloped at the time of the study meaning that his speech organ was still not at the
level wherein he would be able to properly produce the proper phonetic sounds of his language
which is common for his age group (Stanford Medicine, n.d.). At this age, his brain is also not
fully developed yet to be able to process all the inputs that he had been receiving. (Shiver, 2001)

The study overall is simple and straightforward with a direct and clear view of what it
wants to delve on. Its strength relies on the fact that it did not deviate from its goal and
concluded his findings based on his research questions. The questions were appropriate for the
nature of the study and were answered appropriately but could be improved with being more
detailed with the noted observations but that would also need for a longer study.

One critic that can be posed here is that the researcher is not a native speaker of Arabic
thus there were instances when there was a need to rely on the parent’s subject to explain
contexts that are not easily observable or understood by the researcher. It would be quite difficult
to track semantic and pragmatic development if the researcher is not able to understand the
language completely however, there could be more studied with the same setup and did not find
much problem with the language difference. The paper also failed to produce or include what
were the questions given to the parents that was used in order to asses the child’s linguistic
development or whether the parents were able to unbiasedly and expertly gauge the ability of the
child. This means that the researcher might only be looking at the surface structure of the subject
and was not able to properly and critically asses the subject’s deeper structure outputs. Yet this
could be argued with the Al Baraa’s ability to produced linguistic outputs that were not imitated
or conditioned by his parents. Another critic is that, the researcher failed to explore Al Baraa’s
interaction to people outside of the family environment. The subject was judged based on adult-
level proficiency but was not judged with his competence communicating with similarly aged
peers/other children.

Finally, a takeaway that could be derived from this research is that, a case study on first
language acquisition would be more effective if there are no inhibitions between the researcher
and the subject and that familiarity or expertise on the language shall be taken note of before
choosing the subject in order to avoid reliance on external opinions that might not be on the same
level of expertise as the researcher. Forming a bond between the learner and the instructor is
important to overcome interpersonal hindrances that may affect the development and study.

References
Abbott, D. (2016, September 16). What brain regions control our language? And how do we know this?
Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/what-brain-regions-control-our-
language-and-how-do-we-know-this-63318

Duff, P. (2014). Case Study Research on Language Learning and Use. Annual Review of Applied
Linguistics, 34, 233 - 255. doi:10.1017/S0267190514000051

French National Center for Scientific Research. (2014, July 4). A dominant hemisphere for handedness
and language? Retrieved from Science Daily:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140704134633.htm

Hakim, A. (2018, August 11). Stages of Language Development | 4 Important Stages. Retrieved from
Englsih FInders: https://englishfinders.com/stages-of-language-development/

Meniado, J. (2016). First language acquisition: A case study of a three-year old Lebanese child. Journal of
Child Language Acquisiton and Development, 4(3), 98 - 112.

Schütz, R. E. (2019, October). Stephen Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition. Retrieved from
sk: https://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash-english.html

Shiver, E. (2001, April). Brain Development and Mastery of Language in the Early Childhood Years.
Retrieved from Intercultural Development Research Association:
https://www.idra.org/resource-center/brain-development-and-mastery-of-language-in-the-
early-childhood-years/

Stanford Medicine. (n.d.). Age-Appropriate Speech and Language Milestones. Retrieved from Standford
Children: https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=age-appropriate-speech-and-
language-milestones-90-P02170