DIFFERENT FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND SECOND LANGUAGE

ACQUISITION

THE LECTURER :

YANI LUBIS, M.Hum

GROUP 5 :

Rani Hafni Dwi Rezeki (0304193169)

Yuli Anggriani Desky (004193148)

Viky Pratiwi (0304193166)

Azra Putri Chairunida Tjg (0304193181)

Widya Wulanda (0304193169)

Nabilah Nasution (0304193156)

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTEMENT-4

FACULTY OF TARBIYAH AND TEACHING TRAINING
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF NORTH SUMATERA
MEDAN
2022
 PREFACE

Thanks to our god Allah swt. The one Almighty God who has given His bless to us to
make writer paper assignment entitled „Different first language acquisition and second language
acquisition ” finish. The writers also wish to express his deep and sincere gratitude for those
who have guided in completing this paper And we also thanks to our lecture to lead us finishing
our assignment papers and we hope this knowledge can be useful for our future. We also thanks
to our family especially our parents who support us to get knowledge in everywhere, every
time, and etc. And the last we say thank you to our friends that support us to spirit us to
finishing this assignment paper and we hope that Allah give them bless too , Amin..

Medan, 17 November 2022

Group 5

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 TABLE OF CONTENT

PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... 2
TABLE OF CONTENT .............................................................................................................. 3
CHAPTER I ................................................................................................................................. 4
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 4
A. Background.......................................................................................................................... 4
B. The Formula of Problem .................................................................................................... 4
C. Purpose of paper ................................................................................................................. 5
CHAPTER II................................................................................................................................ 6
DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................... 6
A. Definition ........................................................................................................................... 6
B. Development and Language Acquisition Process .......................................................... 6
C. Differences ......................................................................................................................... 7
References................................................................................................................................... 12

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background

Psycholinguistics or „the psychology of language‟ encompasses so many different

aspects of language, from language acquisition, to syntax and semantics, phonology and
morphology. With current and future technological advances and with the collaboration of other
disciplines, psycholinguistics aims to advance our understanding of the human brain.

Psycholinguistics is the study of the mental aspects of language and speech. It is

primarily concerned with the ways in which language is represented and processed in the brain.
A branch of both linguistics and psychology, psycholinguistics is part of the field of cognitive
science. Adjective: psycholinguistic. Psycholinguistics is the study of how humans acquire,
interpret, and use language. The study includes both the psychological factors and the
neurobiological factors involved. As a field, it has grown out of interdisciplinary work in fields
such as cognitive psychology, neuroscience, applied linguistics, and information theory.

Psycholinguistics investigates the interrelation of language and mind in processing and

producing utterance and in a language acquisition. Osgood and Sebeok (1965) in their book of
psycholinguistics : A Survey of Theory and Research Problems, defines Psycholinguistics
deals directly with the process of encoding and decoding as they relate states of message to
states communicators.

So, this paper will discuss psycholinguistic Different first language acquisition and
second language acquisition The predisposition of a child to communicate leads to an
unconscious language acquisition if only there are right conditions, such as others‟ permanent
talking to him/her or each other followed by sound imitations, and later words and sentences
pronunciation. Nevertheless, this condition is not sufficient for second language learners, and
more detailed instructions (grammar explanation, systematic vocabulary enhancement, and the
like) are needed.

B. The Formula of Problem

1. What the Definition of language acquisition?

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2. What the Different first language acquisition and second language acquisition?

C. Purpose of paper

1. To know definition of language acquisition

2. To Know the Different first language acquisition and second language acquisition

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 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Definition

Process the child begins to recognize verbal communication with its

environment is called language acquisition of children. The term used for the
acquisition of British counterpart of the term acquisition, namely the process of
language acquisition by children naturally when he learns his native language.
(Dardjowidjojo, 2008:225).

Language acquisition is closely related to cognitive development, namely. first,

if the child is able to produce utterances which, based on the grammar which are neat,
does not automatically imply that the child has mastered the relevant languages well.
Second, the speaker must obtain the cognitive categories that underlie the various
meanings expressive natural languages.

B. Development and Language Acquisition Process

1. Acquisition in the field Phonology Child uses sounds that have been studied with the
sounds that have not been studied, for example, replace sound / l / that have been
studied with the sound / r / that has not been studied.

2. Acquisition in the field of morphology At the age of 3 years children have already
formed several morphemes which show grammatical function of nouns and verbs used.
Grammatical errors often occur at this stage because children are still trying to say
what he wants to convey. Children continue to improve his language until the age of
ten years.

3. Acquisition in the field of syntax Alamsyah (2007:21) mentions that children

develop a level of grammatical sentences that are generated through several stages,
namely through imitation, through the classification of morphemes, and through the
preparation by way of putting words together to form sentences. 4. Acquisition in the
field of Semantic Children use certain words based on similarity of motion, size, and
shape. For example, children already know the meaning of the word clock. Originally
referring to a child just watches her parents, but then he used the word to all kinds of
hours.
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 C. Differences
While analyzing to what extent first and second language acquisitions are alike and
different, the differences seem more obvious and thus will be discussed first. On a daily basis,
people communicate with each other in various forms, including text messaging, using social
networks, face-to-face conversations, and so forth. As the first language acquisition
commences when we are toddlers, the ability to speak our mother tongue shapes naturally
without much effort. Therefore, not enough significance is attached to this process.

Being one of the most complex cognitive skills, a language is mastered by children
astonishingly quickly who, in turn, learn it on a subconscious level by observing and repeating
after the ones around them. Second language acquisition, on the other hand, is a conscious
process and is sometimes erroneously confused with bilingualism. Learnt simultaneously, the
latter occurs in infants who hear two languages spoken to them or around them. Being
bilingual means subliminally learning two languages at the time when the brain does not have
any notions about language structures yet.

Back to a toddler‟s period, it requires up to a year until an infant pronounces his/her first
comprehensible word or sentence. This happens because of constant interaction between the
parents and him/her. The brain catches the meaning of the words heard several times and
attaches them to what or who these words refer to. Meanwhile, no formal teaching is needed
for a child to learn his mother tongue. Whereas, a second language requires explicit instruction
or education in order to be mastered.

By the time a child starts studying another language, he has already had a clear image
and structure of his/her native language in his/her brain which perplexes the acquisition of L2.
It should also be noted that the process of acquiring a mother tongue is quite rapid and
happens simultaneously with gaining knowledge about the world, meaning there is no pre-
awareness of numerous language functions, such as requesting, commanding, and the like on
them. Hence, a child cannot have any expectation regarding the format and flaw of such
interactions. While fluency in a second language depends on that very language and indirectly
on a person‟s learning skills as well as his/her background knowledge.

Humans never choose what their native language will be when they grow up, as they are
exposed to it when they commence suiting the world around them. This is the prime reason
why speaking and listening skills in a native language are developed without many obstacles.
In contrast, a second language is a conscious choice of a person, and it can be selected
according to his/her needs. The time required for achieving fluency in one language or another
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is reliant on several factors. For instance, how close the language is to a learner‟s mother
tongue or how well his/her language skills are developed. As an instance, we may take the
Turkish and English languages in the context of the Uzbek language.

Learning Turkish is much easier for an Uzbek speaker than English because they belong
to one language family and, therefore, have similarities in vocabulary, most syntactic units,
grammar rules, and even cultures as well. This, in turn, is not true for English firstly because
there are some combinations of letters creating non-existing in Uzbek sounds or uttered
differently. The sounds / ð / and /θ/, for example, are pronounced by putting a tongue between
the teeth making either voiced or voiceless sounds. Discussing a sentence structure, in Uzbek,
a subject mostly comes at the beginning, and a predicate is always placed at the end of a
sentence.

There are secondary sentence parts coming between them. In English, a predicate follows
a subject, except for some adverbs of frequency standing between them. Therefore, being the
easiest language to learn, English can still be complicated for Uzbek or other languages
speakers. Another noticeable difference is the age when a language is acquired. It has already
been justified that children achieve fluency in their mother tongue until they are five [Ellis, R.
(1994)]. Toddlers spend several years listening to the speeches around them, trying to utter
some comprehensible sounds, and using telegraphic speech1.

Psycholinguists claim that if a child misses these five years serving as language
milestones, this child faces extreme difficulties in achieving their mother tongue proficiency.
In contrast, a second language can be started at any age, after one has become fluent in his
native language. Despite the fact that good competence can still be achieved, the process of
second language learning is rather slow. One of the widespread reasons why the second
language learning process is impeded can be language exposure. The quality and quantity that
infants are exposed to the first language are immense in comparison with the second.
[Florence Chenu and Harriet Jisa (2012)] They constantly hear the speech in their mother
tongue until they grow and become able to independently produce a range of comprehensible
sentences.

There is also a high possibility that the native language will be the only one they will be
continually surrounded with until they pass away. This process is not always true while
achieving second language proficiency. The common obstacle may be a lack of susceptibility
to the target language. Sometimes the only place children or adults can be submerged into the
language is their classroom – three hours or so a week, which is very little for mastering L2.
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[Florence Chenu and Harriet Jisa (2012)] Another matter can be the teacher and how skillful
he/she is in transferring his/her language knowledge to the learners. Although with the help of
the Internet resources, learners can find big amount of useful information about how to
practice a language out of the classroom or the instructions on learning it autonomously, not
everyone considers it necessary to address some extra materials or cannot allocate more time
for the language development.

For instance, if the learner is an adult with fulltime job and family responsibilities, the
shortage of time can become a great hindrance in devoting oneself to learning a language.
Therefore, both quality and quantity of a target language exposure vary mostly depending on
the position a person holds in terms of learning it, whether the learner is a child in a mono- or
multilingual family, a student in a classroom, a worker or a student abroad and so forth.
[Florence Chenu and Harriet Jisa(2012)]. Brown [Brown, H. D. (1994)] suggests that the role
of attitude differs in first and second language learners. According to him, the latter can treat
learning a new language negatively due to the stereotypes in society or adults pressure.
Whereas, young children are not affected by this factor. In other words, they do not have any
other choice except for picking up the language they constantly hear.

First language acquisition Second language acquisition

An instinct, triggered by birth A personal choice, required motivation

Very rapid Varies, but never as quick as FLA

Complete Never as good as a native speaker, though

good competence can be achieved

Natural (no instruction) Natural or guided (for synthetic languages

grammatical instruction is required

Note the following facts concerning first and second language acquisition

1) The level of competence acquired with SLA (second language acquisition) depends not
so much on the time spent learning a language as the time at which one begins.
2) In general linguists maintain that a first language is acquired, i.e. that knowledge is stored
unconsciously, and that a second language is learned, i.e. that knowledge is gained by
conscious study of the second language‟s structure. However, this distinction is not
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 watertight and SLA can involve acquisition to a certain degree. FLA (first language
acquisition) does not, however, learned as no instruction is required. Remember that you
know your first language before you start school.
3) There is a critical period, that of puberty, around 12 or 13 years of age, after which it is
difficult, if not impossible to acquire a second language with the same degree of
competence as the first language. The decline in ability to acquire a second language may
also be connected with the lateralisation of the brain just before puberty, i.e. with the
fixing of functions in one or other of the two halves of the brain. The decline in
acquisitional ability after lateralisation/puberty is a widespread phenomenon and affects
other activities such as sports, playing music, etc.
4) Because SLA is very largely conscious it is dependent on factors such as motivation and
personality. This does not apply to FLA which is triggered by birth, i.e. it is an instinct in
the biological sense of the word. Remember that no-one ever refuses to acquire one‟s
first language and that no-one dislikes one‟s own first language. Because FLA is an
instinct there is no choice involved, contrast this with a second language.
5) Note that something which is acquired does not require conscious decisions when
activated. However, if you have learned something, like the rule of chess then you must
think consciously about how to move the pieces. An unconscious activity, apart from
language, acquired in childhood would, for instance, be the ability to ride a bicycle.

6) Your first language is acquired without too much input from your surroundings.
Furthermore, this input does not have to be ordered: children make sense of what they
hear and create the order needed to stored knowledge of their first language themselves.
It is not necessary to speak to young children in a babyish way: children do not end up
speaking like this anyway.
7) First language acquisition is not dependent on intelligence or special ability for
languages. Everyone acquires their native language fully and properly. What is true, of
course, is that some people have a greater stylistic range and larger vocabulary in their
native language, but that is not connected with first language acquisition. You learn style
in school when you learn how to write the standard of your language and you learn
specialised words consciously after childhood.
8) First language acquisition is connected to cognitive development with the latter
preceding the former somewhat. With the second language (acquired after puberty) you
have all the cognitive structures necessary to deal with the language.
9) You cannot forget your first language, although it may become inactive if you spend many
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 years speaking just a second language. Backsliding, reverting to a lower level of
competence, making mistakes you know mistakes, are features of second language
acquisition only.
10) There are certain phases in first language acquisition: one-word, two-word and multi-
word stages. Furthermore, in early childhood children make maximally simpler
generalisations about language, e.g. that all verbs are weak. After a while they correct
themselves (when they just hear the adult forms). Once they have acquired the latter they
remember them.
11) In FLA children make errors, systematic ill-formed structures based on the level of
acquisition on which they happen to be. In post-puberty SLA individuals make mistakes
which are often random and erratic, though a degree of regularity can be recognised here.
With SLA there can be interference from the first language, i.e. structures from L1 are
carried over into L2 where they do not occur natively. Interference obviously does not
occur in FLA.
12) FLA children build up competence, the internalised knowledge of one‟s native language,
from the performance of others, i.e. by accepting spoken input from those people
surrounding them. The parents are obviously important here, but siblings and playmates
can play an equally important role if they are present.
13) In the strict sense bilinguals are those individuals who have acquired two languages
simultaneously in early childhood. Normally, one of these languages will be dominant,
but the degree of competence in the non-dominant language is still very high and far
exceeds that of a second language learned after puberty.

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 References

Brown, H. D. (1994) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (3rd edition) New
Jersey: Prentice Hall. Comparing and Contrasting First and Second Language
Acquisition.

Dardjowidjojo Soenjono, pengantar pemahaman bahasa manusia, books online.

Ellis, R. (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Florence Chenu and Harriet Jisa, “Reviewing some similarities and differences in L1
and L2 lexical development”, Acquisition et interaction en langue étrangère
[Online], Aile... Lia 1 | 2009, Online since 01 January 2012, connection on 21
September 2021.