First Language

Acquisition

1. Aliya Adzra Shafiya (200221607654)

2. Eva Nurdiyana (200221607669)
1. Theories of First Language
Acquisition
2. Issues in First Language
Acquisition
3. L1 Acquisition-Inspired
Methods
 Theories of First Language Acquisition
Behavioral Approaches
The behavioral approach suggests that language develops due to certain
behaviors, such as imitating what they hear and responding to the feedback
they get.

Challenges
In an attempt to broaden the base of behavioral theory, some psychologists
proposed modified theoretical positions. One of these positions was mediation
theory, ( Osgood, 1953 , 1957) in which meaning was accounted for by the claim
that the linguistic stimulus (a word or sentence) elicits a “mediating” response that
is covert and invisible, acting within the learner.
Mediation theories were criticized on several fronts. There was too much
“mentalism” (speculating about unobservable behavior) involved for some, and
others saw a little relationship between meaning and utterance.
 Theories of First Language Acquisition
The Nativist Approach
The nativist approach suggests that we are born with a specific language-
learning area in our brains.

Challenges
Critics to the nativist theory of language acquisition suggest that language is
learned from its environment and isn't innate. Another condition to the nativist
hypothesis is that not all languages abide by the same rules and constraints and
therefore question whether a universal grammar is possible
 Theories of First Language Acquisition
Functional Approaches
A functional approach looks at how language enables us to do things: to share
information, to enquire, to express attitudes, to entertain, to argue, to get our
needs met, to reflect, to construct ideas, to order our experiences, and make
sense of the world.
Cognition and Language Development
Jean Piaget (1955; Piaget & Inhelder, 1969 ) described overall development as
the result of children’s interaction with their environment. Bloom (1976, p. 37 )
likewise noted that “what children know will determine what they learn about
the code for both speaking and understanding messages.”
Social Interaction and Language Development
Holzman (1984), Berko-Gleason, (1988), and Lock (1991) all looked at the
interaction between the child’s language acquisition and the learning of how
social systems operate in human behavior.
 Issues in First
Language Acquisition
1. Competence and Performance

Competence
Is one's underlyong knowledge of the system of
a language-its rules of grammar, its
vocabulary, all the pieces of a language and Perfor
how those pieces fit together.
mance
Performence
Is the actual production (speaking, writing) or
the comprehention (listerning, reading) of
Compe
linguistics events.
tence
2. Comprehension and Production
In child language, most observational and
research evidence points to the general
superiority of comprehention over production:

Even adults understand more vocabulary than

they ever use in speech, and also perceive
more syntactic variation than they actually
S M G
produce Z qbuC
xhLVE
JD
W.R. MIller gave a good example of this Al P
OC
phenomenon in phonological development: BHT

"Recently a three-year-old child told me her

name was Litha. I answered 'Litha?' 'No, Litha'
'Oh, Lisa.' 'Yes, Litha'
3. Nature or Nurture
Navitism claims that a child is born with an
innate knowledge of a willingness toward
language, and that this innate property
(LAD or AG) is universal in all human beings
Environmental factors cannot by any
means be ignored.
An interesting line of research on
innateness was pursued by Derek Bickerton
(1981), who found evidence, accross a
number of languages, of common patterns
of linguistic and cognitive development. He
proposed that human beings are "bio-
programmed" to proceed from stage to
stage.
4. Universals
It is controversial area of study: the claim that language is
universally acquired in the same manner, and that the
deep structure of language at its deepest level may be
common to all languages.
Much of current UG research is centered around what
have come to be known as principles and parameters.
Principles are invariable characteristics of human
language that apply to all languages universally.
Cook (1997, pp. 250-251) offered a simple analogy: Rules
of the road in driving universally require the driver to keep
to one side of the road; this is a principle. Where in some
countries you must keep to the left (e.g. UK & Japan) and
in others keep to the right (e.g. USA & Taiwan): this is
parameter.
5. Systematicity and Variability
One of the assumptions of a good deal of current research on child
language is the systematicity of the process of acquisition.
But in the midst of all this systematicity, there is an equally remarkable
amount of variability in the process of learning.
For example: it has been found that young children who have not yet
mastered the past-tense morpheme (-ed) tend first to learn past tense as
separate items ('walked', 'broke', 'drank') without knowledge of the
difference between regular and irregular verbs. Then, around the age of 4
or 5, they begin to perceive a system in which the -ed morpheme is added
to a verb, and at this point all verbs become regularized ('breaked',
'drinked', 'goed'). Finally after school age, children perceive that there
are two classes of verbs, regular and irregular, and begin to sort out verbs
into the two classes, a process that goes on for many years and in some
cases persists into young adulthood.
6. Language and Thought

Thought and language were seen as two distinct

cognitive operations that grow together.
(Schinkle-Llano, 1993)
One of the champions of the position that
language affects thought was Benjamin Whorf,
who with Edward Sapir formed the well-known
Sapir Whorf hypothesis that each language
imposes on its speaker a particular 'world view'.
The issue at stake in child language acquisition
is to determine (1) how thought affects
language, (2) how language affects thought, (3)
and how linguists can best describe and
account for the interaction of the two.
7. Imitation
Imitation is not an important strategies as child
uses in the acquisition of language.
Research has shown that echoing is a particular
important strategy in early language learning
and an important aspect of early phonological
acquisition.
There are two type of imitation (1) Surface
structure imitation: where a person repeats or
mimics the surface strings, attending to a
phonological code rather than a semantic code.
(2) Deep structure imitation: where a person
concentrates on language as a meaningful and
communicative tool.
8. Practice and Frequency
A behavioristic view would claim that practice -
repetition and association- is thekey to formation of
habits by operant conditioning.
Ruth Weir (1962) recorded one unique form of
practice by a children. She found that her children
produced rather long monologies in bed at night
before going to sleep. "what color...what color
blanket...what color mop...what color
glass...Mommy's home sick...Where's Mikey sick...
Mikey sick."
Brown and Hanlon (1970) found that frequency of
occurrence of linguistic item in the speech of the
mothers was a strong predictor of the order of
emergence of those items in their children's speech.
Like questions, irregular past-tense forms, certain
common household items and persons.
9. Input
The role of input in the child's acquisition of language is
undeniably crucial.
Whatever one's position is on the innateness of language, the
speech that young children hear is primarily the speech
heard in the home.
Children reach very consistently to the deep structure and
the communicative functions and grammatical corrections.
What many researchers have showed is that in the long run,
children will, after consistent, repeat models in meaningful
contexts, eventually transfer correct forms to their own
speech and thus correct past mistakes.
Thus, if children says 'Dat Harry' and the parent says "No,
that's John" the child might readily self-correct and say 'Oh,
dat John.
10. Discourse
While parental input is a significant part of the child's development
of conversational rules, it is only one aspect, as the child also
interacts with peers and, of course, with other adults.
Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) proposed that conversations be
examined in terms of initiations and responses.
The child learns not only how to initiate a conversation but how to
respond to another's initiating utterance.
Questions are not simply questions but are recognized functionally as
requests for information, for action, or for help.
Thus, in the case of a question "Can you go to the movie tonight?"
the response "I'm busy" is understood correctly as a negative
response (i can't go to the movies")
L1 Acquisition-Inspired Methods

1. Total
2. The Natural
Physical
Approach
Response
 Total Physical Response
The founder of the Total Physical Response (TPR) method, James Asher
(1977), noted that children, in learning their first language, appear to do
a lot of listening before they speak, and that their listening is
accompanied by physical responses (reaching, grabbing, moving,
looking, and so forth).
A typical TPR class utilized the imperative mood, even at more advanced
proficiency levels.
Eventually students, one by one, presumably felt comfortable enough to
venture verbal responses to questions, then to ask questions themselves,
and the process continued.
TPR had its limitations. It was especially effective in the beginning levels
of language proficiency, but lost its distinctiveness as learners advanced
in their competence.
But today TPR is used more as a type of classroom activity, which is a
more useful way to view it.
 The Natural Approach
The Natural Approach simulated child language acquisition through the
use of TPR activities at the beginning level.
Everyday language situations were highlighted: shopping, home and
health topics, etc. But in advocating teacherdelivered
“comprehensible input” (spoken language that is understandable to the
learner or just a little beyond the learner’s level), this method departed
from strictly drawing insights from children’s “natural” acquisition.
Richards & Rodgers (2001) noted that the delay of oral production
can be pushed too far and that at an early stage it is important for the
teacher to step in and encourage students to talk.
Thank You !
Any Questions?