Module For Language Acquisition

SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES AGRIBUSINESS MARINE AND AQUATIC SCHOOL OF
TECHNOLOGY
MALITA, DAVAO OCCIDENTAL
AN INSTRUCTIONAL MODULE
ON
PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE

ACQUISITION AND LEARNING
COMPILED AND EDITED BY:
SHEILA JANE S. YAP, MA
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ABOUT THE COMPILER:
SHEILA JANE S. YAP, MA was born in Davao City and she
was raised in Malita Davao Occidental married to Mr. Nathan
S. Yap and have three kids. She earned her bachelor’s degree in
Davao Oriental State University, Mati City , BSED major in
English. She earned her Master’s degree in Ateneo De Davao
University , Masters Of Arts in Teaching English Language and Literature. She was
employed at Southern Philippines Agri-Business Marine and Aquatic School Of Technology,
Malita Davao Occidental handling English and Literature Subjects including Major subjects
in the English Department of the said school.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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PAGE
TITLE PAGE ………………………………………………………………………………
ABOUT THE COMPILER ………………………………………………………………..
TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………………….
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………..
OVERVIEW …………………………………………………………………………….
INSTRUCTION TO USERS ………………………………………………………………
GENERAL OBJECTIVES ……………………………………………………………….
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES ……………………………………………………………….
LESSON 1 – THE HUMAN BRAIN …………………………………………………..
LESSON 2 – THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE ………………………………………
LESSON 3 – THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE……………………………..
LESSON 4 – LANGUAGE AND SPEECH DEVELOPMENT……………………..
LESSON 5 – LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT (basic concepts of language system)
LESSON 6 –HUMAN LANGUAGE VS. ANIMAL COMMUNICATION …….
LESSON 7 –FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION…………………………………….
LESSON 8 – SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION…………………………………
POST TEST ……………………………………………………………………………..
LIST OF REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………..
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INTRODUCTION:
Language is the means we use to convey ideas from one mind to another, and the
acquisition of language remains one of the most fascinating aspects of human development. From the
first monosyllabic utterances to the use of complex, nuanced and context-specific structures, both the
rate of progress and the stages of language acquisition have been the focus of innumerable research
studies in developmental psychology, linguistics and pedagogy. (Brown 2007)
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Language acquisition theories have basically centered around “nurture” and “nature”
distinction or on “empiricism” and “nativism”. The doctrine of empiricism holds that all knowledge
comes from experience, ultimately from our interaction with the environment through our reasoning
or senses. Empiricism, in this sense, can be contrasted to nativism, which holds that at least some
knowledge is not acquired through interaction with the environment, but is genetically transmitted and
innate. To put it another way, some theoreticians have based their theories on environmental while
others believed that it is the innate factors that determine the acquisition of language. It is, however,
important to note that neither nurturists (environmentalists) disagree thoroughly with the nativist ideas
nor do nativists with the nurturist ideas. Only the weight they lay on the environmental and innate
factors is relatively little or more. Before sifting through language acquisition theories here, therefore,
making a distinction between these two types of perspectives will be beneficial for a better
understanding of various language acquisition theories and their
implications for the field of applied linguistics. In the following paragraphs, the two claims posed by
the proponents of the two separate doctrines will be explained and the reason why such a distinction
has been made in this article will be clarified. (Lichtman 2013)
Environmentalist theories of language acquisition hold that an organism’s nurture, or
experience, are of more significance to development than its nature or inborn contributions. Yet they
do not completely reject the innate factors. Behaviorist and neo-behaviorist stimulus-response
learning theories (S-R for simplicity) are the best known examples. Even though such theories have
lost their effect partially because of Chomsky’s intelligent review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior
(Chomsky, 1959), their effect has not been so little when we consider the present cognitive approach
as an offshoot of behaviorism.
OVERVIEW:
A great many theories regarding language development in human beings have been proposed in the
past and still being proposed in the present time. Such theories have generally arisen out of major
disciplines such as psychology and linguistics. Psychological and linguistic thinking have profoundly
influenced one another and the outcome of language acquisition theories alike. This article aims to
discuss language acquisition theories and assess their implications for applied linguistics and for a
possible theory of foreign/second language teaching.
Current theories in language acquisition attempt to address the central question of how the young
child acquires the abstract and formal syntactic system of his or her language so rapidly, without
formal instruction and with no feedback about whether he or she is using correct or incorrect forms. In
the past two decades, one idea that has gained prominence in the literature is that children may use
semantics or meaning to help break into the grammar of their language. Steven Pinker has been the
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main proponent to argue that children may use semantics as a bootstrap into syntax, particularly to
acquire the major syntactic categories on which grammatical rules operate. Thus, children can use the
correspondence that exists between names and things to map onto the syntactic category of noun, and
they can use physical attributes or changes of state to map onto the category of verb.
INSTRUCTION TO USERS:
Remember, you are to work on this module independently. I shall not be around to supervise
you as you go through each lesson. It is expected that you will make the most of this module and grow
professionally in your desire to become a competent teacher of English, determined to make a
difference. Instructions of the different activities provides opportunities to listen, speak, read, and
write at the students’ current levels of English development while gradually increasing the linguistic
complexity of the English students read and hear and they are expected to speak and write.
Instruction and academic tasks are specifically designed with an emphasis on promoting students’
English language development (ELD).
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
1. Describe the basic "stages" of language development from infancy through the early school years.
2. Describe cross-linguistic and cross-cultural differences in language acquisition and attitudes
toward language development.
3. Describe the characteristic features of children's language, explain and illustrate how these
features develop over time, for the following areas of language: phonology (sound system),
semantics (meaning), morphology (word building), syntax (sentence structure), pragmatics
(conversations, register), sociolinguistics (social language, variation), narrative (story-telling),
and literacy.
4.Describe and analyze basic language acquisition data from 2 or 3 languages other than English
5.Apply knowledge of the features of child language to analyze children's language samples and to
compare samples of language from children of different ages.
6. Understand and describe some of the basic methods in child language research.
7. Describe the underlying assumptions and aims of 3 current theories of child language acquisition.
8. Compare and contrast different theories of child language acquisition.
9. Evaluate the same set of child language acquisition data from several theoretical perspectives.
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PRE-TEST
1. The idea that ‘Language is not learnt by groups’ relates to.
A. Individual differences
B. Affective Factors
C. Cognitive Factors
2. The use of strategies on second language acquisition relates to
3. The idea that ‘Human beings are emotional creatures’ relates to
4. Identifying which variables are more influential and make stronger contribution than the others is
associated to
A. Gardner’s Educational Model
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B. Skehan Model of Influence on Language Learning
C. Spolsky’s Model of second language learning
5. This model includes three main aspects: Cultural beliefs, Individual differences and Second
Language Learning (SLA)/learning contexts
6. This model holds that language learners have characteristics that affect language learning once they
choose strategies to be successful on achieving the target language.
A. Monitor theory
B. Brown & Fraser’s Framework
C. The “Good Language Learner’ Model
7. This model highlights the importance of these two elements: ‘conditions of social contexts’ and
‘conditions of learners’.
8. When the goal is basic communicative ability of the TL, rather than native-like mastery, and when
children’s native language remains the primary language, it may be more efficient to begin L2 or FL
learning later.
A. True
B. False
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9. Intelligence may play a determinant role in language learning that FOCUSES more on
COMMUNICATION AND INTERACTION.
A. True
B. False
10. Successful language learners are not necessarily strong in all of the components of aptitude. (e.g.,
Some may have strong memories but only average ability to figure out grammatical rules.)
A. True
B. False
11. Personality may be a major factor only in the acquisition of conversational skills (i.e., oral
communicative ability), not in the acquisition of literacy skills (i.e., reading and writing skills).
A. True
B. False
12. Every person, student or teacher, has a learning style; therefore, there is no particular teaching or
learning method that can suit the needs of all learners.
A. True
B. False
13. Learners’ preference for learning, whether due to their learning styles or to their beliefs about how
language are learned, will not influence the kinds of strategies they choose to learn new material.
A. True
B. False
14. According to the Socio Educational Model, acquiring a FL/ L2 consists on knowing and repeating
new words, structures and sounds.
A. True
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B. False
15. To manage communication problems language learners have a variety of strategies to use, such as
expansion, reduction and avoidance.
A. True
B. False
16. According to the Acculturation Model, language learners that aren’t willing to acculturate, use
input to construct their interlanguage.
A. True
B. False
17. The process of becoming adapted to a new culture”
A. Socio Educational Model
B. Acculturation Model
C. Motivation model
D. Classroom Model
18. It states the reciprocity of motivation and language learning
A. Socio Educational Model
B. Acculturation Model
C. Motivation Model
D. Classroom Model
19.Write the 4 types of motivation
20. Write the 4 components of language aptitude
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21. It is a natural ability for learning an L2
22. It involves the attitude and affective states that influence the degree of effort that learners make to
learn an L2.
23. They are particular approaches or techniques that learners employ to try to learn an L2.
24. Techniques of coping with difficulties in communicating in an imperfectly known second

language
25. This is NOT a learning strategy.
A. Cognitive
B. Metacognitiva
C. Social/affective
D. Achievement
OBJECTIVE:
To acquire an appreciation for the amazing task that every child is able to accomplish in acquiring
their first language.
To gain a detailed knowledge of child language development including the major milestones in
the development of:
speech perception,
speech production,
word learning,
morphology,
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syntax,
pragmatic and social language skills.
To learn some of the methods used in studying child language acquisition and to become
acquainted with the types of results these methods have uncovered.
To explore basic child language data and conduct basic analyses of this data.
To become familiar with the major theories of language development and some of the major
debates in the field.
LESSON 1:
THE HUMAN BRAIN
The Structure And Function Of The Human Brain
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The brain structure is composed of three main
parts: the forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain, each with multiple parts.
Forebrain
The Cerebrum: Also known as the cerebral cortex, the cerebrum is the largest part of the human brain,
and it is associated with higher brain function such as thought and action. Nerve cells make up the
gray surface, which is a little thicker than our thumb. White nerve fibers beneath the surface carry
signals between nerve cells in other parts of the brain and body. Its wrinkled surface increases the
surface area, and is a six-layered structure found in mammals, called the neocortex. It is divided into
four sections, called “lobes”. They are; the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe and the
temporal lobe.
Functions Of The Lobes:
Frontal Lobe – The frontal lobe lies just beneath our forehead and is associated with our brain’s
ability to reason, organize, plan, speak, move, make facial expressions, serial task, problem solve,
control inhibition, spontaneity, initiate and self-regulate behaviors, pay attention, remember and
control emotions.
Parietal Lobe – The parietal lobe is located at the upper rear of our brain, and controls our complex
behaviors, including senses such as vision, touch, body awareness and spatial orientation. It plays
important roles in integrating sensory information from various parts of our body, knowledge of
numbers and their relations, and in the manipulation of objects. Portions are involved with our
visuospatial processing, language comprehension, the ability to construct, body positioning and
movement, neglect/inattention, left-right differentiation and self-awareness/insight.
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Occipital Lobe – The occipital lobe is located at the back of our brain, and is associated with our
visual processing, such as visual recognition, visual attention, spatial analysis (moving in a 3-D
world) and visual perception of body language; such as postures, expressions and gestures.
Temporal Lobe – The temporal lobe is located near our ears, and is associated with processing our
perception and recognition of auditory stimuli (including our ability to focus on one sound among
many, like listening to one voice among many at a party), comprehending spoken language, verbal
memory, visual memory and language production (including fluency and word-finding), general
knowledge and autobiographical memories.
A deep furrow divides the cerebrum into two halves, known as the left and right hemispheres. And,
while the two hemispheres look almost symmetrical, each side seems to function differently. The right
hemisphere is considered our creative side, and the left hemisphere is considered our logical side. A
bundle of axons, called the corpus callosum, connects the two hemispheres.
Midbrain
The midbrain is located below the cerebral cortex, and above the hindbrain placing it near the center
of the brain. It is comprised of the tectum, tegmentum, cerebral aqueduct, cerebral peduncles and
several nuclei and fasciculi. The primary role of the midbrain is to act as a sort of relay station for our
visual and auditory systems. Portions of the midbrain called the red nucleus and the substantia nigra
are involved in the control of body movement, and contain a large number of dopamine-producing
neurons. The degeneration of neurons in the substantia nigra is associated with Parkinson’s disease.
The midbrain is the smallest region of the brain, and is located most centrally within the cranial
cavity.
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Limbic System – the limbic system is often referred to as our “emotional brain”, or ‘childish brain’. It
is found buried within the cerebrum and contains the thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala and
hippocampus.
Thalamus – the primary role of the thalamus is to relay sensory information from other parts of the
brain to the cerebral cortex
Hypothalamus – the primary role of the hypothalamus is to regulate various functions of the pituitary
gland and endocrine activity, as well as somatic functions e.g.body temperature, sleep, appetite.
Amygdala – the primary role of the amygdala is to be a critical processor for the senses. Connected to
the hippocampus, it plays a role in emotionally laden memories and contains a huge number of opiate
receptor sites that are implicated in rage, fear and sexual feelings.
Hippocampus – the primary role of the hippocampus is memory forming, organizing and storing
information. It is particularly important in forming new memories, and connecting emotions and
senses, such as smell and sound, to memories.
Pituitary Gland – the primary role of the pituitary gland is an important link between the nervous
system and the endocrine system. It releases many hormones which affect growth, metabolism, sexual
development and the reproduction system. It is connected to the hypothalamus and is about the size of
a pea. It is located in the center of the skull, just behind the bridge of the nose.
Hindbrain
The Cerebellum – The cerebellum, or “little brain”, is similar to the cerebrum with its two
hemispheres and highly folded surface. It is associated with regulation and coordination of movement,
posture, balance and cardiac, respiratory and vasomotor centers.
Brain Stem – The brain stem is located beneath the limbic system. It is responsible for vital life
functions such as breathing, heartbeat, and blood pressure. The brain stem is made of the midbrain,
pons, and medulla.
Pons – The primary role of the pons is to serve as a bridge between various parts of the nervous
system, including the cerebellum and cerebrum. Many important nerves that originate in the pons,
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such as the trigeminal nerve, responsible for feeling in the face, as well as controlling the muscles that
are responsible for biting, chewing, and swallowing. It also contains the abducens nerve, which allows
us to look from side to side and the vestibular cochlear nerve, which allows to hear. As part of the
brainstem, a section of the lower pons stimulates and controls the intensity of breathing, while a
section of the upper pons decreases the depth and frequency of breaths. The pons is also associated
with the control of sleep cycles, and controls respiration and reflexes. It is located above the medulla,
below the midbrain, and just in front of the cerebellum.
Medulla – The primary role of the medulla is regulating our involuntary life sustaining functions such
as breathing, swallowing and heart rate. As part of the brain stem, it also helps transfer neural
messages to and from the brain and spinal cord. It is located at the junction of the spinal cord and
brain.
Presentation of VIDEO CLIP from YOUTUBE about Brain and Language
Reinforcement question will be given by the Instructor after watching the video
LESSON 2:
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The Origins of Language
Dr. C. George Boeree
It is an intriguing question, to which we may never have a complete answer: How did we get from
animal vocalization (barks, howls, calls...) to human language?
Animals often make use of signs, which point to what they represent, but they don't use symbols,
which are arbitrary and conventional. Examples of signs include sniffles as a sign of an on-coming
cold, clouds as a sign of rain, or a scent as a sign of territory. Symbols include things like the words
we use. Dog, Hund, chien, cane, perro -- these are symbols that refer to the creature so named, yet
each one contains nothing in it that in anyway indicates that creature.
In addition, language is a system of symbols, with several levels of organization, at least phonetics
(the sounds), syntax (the grammar), and semantics (the meanings).
So when did language begin? At the very beginnings of the genus Homo, perhaps 4 or 5 million years
ago? Before that? Or with the advent of modern man, Cro-magnon, some 125,000 years ago? Did the
neanderthal speak? We don't know.
There are many theories about the origins of language. Many of these have traditional amusing names
(invented by Max Müller and George Romanes a century ago), and I will create a couple more where
needed.
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1. The mama theory. Language began with the easiest syllables attached to the most significant
objects.
2. The ta-ta theory. Sir Richard Paget, influenced by Darwin, believed that body movement
preceded language. Language began as an unconscious vocal imitation of these movements -- like the
way a child's mouth will move when they use scissors, or my tongue sticks out when I try to play the
guitar. This evolved into the popular idea that language may have derived from gestures.
3. The bow-wow theory. Language began as imitations of natural sounds -- moo, choo-choo, crash,
clang, buzz, bang, meow... This is more technically refered to as onomatopoeia or echoism.
4. The pooh-pooh theory. Language began with interjections, instinctive emotive cries such as oh!
for surprise and ouch! for pain.
5. The ding-dong theory. Some people, including the famous linguist Max Muller, have pointed out
that there is a rather mysterious correspondence between sounds and meanings. Small, sharp, high
things tend to have words with high front vowels in many languages, while big, round, low things
tend to have round back vowels! Compare itsy bitsy teeny weeny with moon, for example. This is
often referred to as sound symbolism.
6. The yo-he-ho theory. Language began as rhythmic chants, perhaps ultimately from the grunts of
heavy work (heave-ho!). The linguist A. S. Diamond suggests that these were perhaps calls for
assistance or cooperation accompanied by appropriate gestures. This may relate yo-he-ho to the ding-
dong theory, as in such words as cut, break, crush, strike...
7. The sing-song theory. Danish linguist Jesperson suggested that language comes out of play,
laughter, cooing, courtship, emotional mutterings and the like. He even suggests that, contrary to
other theories, perhaps some of our first words were actually long and musical, rather than the short
grunts many assume we started with.
8. The hey you! theory. A linguist by the name of Revesz suggested that we have always needed
interpersonal contact, and that language began as sounds to signal both identity (here I am!) and
belonging (I'm with you!). We may also cry out in fear, anger, or hurt (help me!). This is more
commonly called the contact theory.
9. The hocus pocus theory. My own contribution to these is the idea that language may have had
some roots in a sort of magical or religious aspect of our ancestors' lives. Perhaps we began by
calling out to game animals with magical sounds, which became their names.
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10. The eureka! theory. And finally, perhaps language was consciously invented. Perhaps some
ancestor had the idea of assigning arbitrary sounds to mean certain things. Clearly, once the idea was
had, it would catch on like wild-fire!
Another issue is how often language came into being (or was invented). Perhaps it was invented
once, by our earliest ancestors -- perhaps the first who had whatever genetic and physiological
properties needed to make complex sounds and organize them into strings. This is
called monogenesis. Or perhaps it was invented many times -- polygenesis -- by many people.
We can try to reconstruct earlier forms of language, but we can only go so far before cycles of change
obliterate any possibility of reconstruction. Many say we can only go back perhaps 10,000 years
before the trail goes cold. So perhaps we will simply never know.
Water Babies
It may help us understand the origins of languages if we take a look at what is sometimes called the
Hardy-Morgan hypothesis, for the orijinator of the hypothesis - Alister Hardy, an English marine
biologist, and Elaine Morgan, a Welsh writer and journalist. It is more commonly known as the
aquatic ape theory.
Humans have quite a few characteristics we don't share with our primate relatives. We don't have
much body hair; we have a layer of fat under our skin; we have a descended larynx; we produce tears;
we sweat a lot; we tend to have sex face-to-fact; we can hold our breath quite easily; we are able to
swim even before we walk; and most importantly, we walk on our two legs just about all the time.
Hardy, in the 1960s suggested that perhaps (he was cautious, and waited 30 years to tell anyone about
his idea) we, or at least our genus, Homo, must have spent some portion of our existence on this
planet in the water, wading, swimming, even diving. This may have been why we learned to stand up
straight (while wading, supported by water), then evolving the strength and coordination to do so
without the support, and only then proceeding into the savannah.
There are other animals that have some of our odd characteristics: sea mammals like whales and
dolphins have little hair, hold their breath, and have extra fat under their skin; others, like otters, have
a lot of hair, but share the other abilities with us. The only other land animal that shares our lack of
hair is the elephant, whose closest relatives include dugongs and manatees. Perhaps elephants, too,
spent a portion of their evolution in the water. They do still breath through their trunks when under
water. (Gaeth et al 1999)
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Perhaps our commonalities with these animals also extend to language.
Musical Babies
Darwin himself once said "Humans don't speak unless they are taught to do so", ie language is
learned, and not innate in the way that the famous linguist Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker, the
author of "The Language Instinct" say.
Mario Vaneechoutte and his students suggest that language comes from music, with some assitance
from gestures and dance. Music is what is innate, not language. Like in many species of birds and
mammals, singing (which uptight scientists prefer to call "calls", in order to keep language as our
"special ability" distinct) in order to call for help, keep track of each other, and - most especially - in
order to attract mates. That use of sound is most definitely something that can evolve, from simple to
the complex.
Babies like music. They love listening to their mothers speak to them. The mothers like to use a sort
of sing-song speech ("motherese"), which babies like even more. Babies begin to vocalize in very
"musical" ways, and often hum or sing in short or long "phrases", with modulations. Babies prefer
major rather than minor intervals. And before they even learn individual words, they imitate the
"melody of speech" (prosody). Even fetuses can remember sounds in the last trimester.
Because our larynx is lower in the throat, our tongues are free to move around inside the mouth more
and our ability to hold our breath means we can control our exhaling and inhaling. We are born ready
to make music and so speech. In fact, music and speech use the same areas of the brain, including
Broca's area.
In regards to dancing, we see babies moving rhythmically while listening to music and even when not.
We see the ease with which they can imitate the movements of others (perhaps by way of the famous
"mirror neurons"?). And regarding gestures, maybe you have noticed the connection between
movements of the body, especially the hands, and movements of the mouth, especially the tongue. I
still stick out my tongue when I try to play guitar, and I have seen children make grinding movements
of their mouths when using the old school pencil sharpeners.
A lot of the grammar that seems so essential when we look at written language, in speech is much
more obvious: We use pauses, tone changes, melodies, rhythms, eye movements, facial expressions,
and gestures that add information to our speech. Perhaps you (like myself) use the pauses we hear or
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imagine to guide our use of commas and periods. And perhaps you have noticed how much more
difficult it is to understand someone when talking on the phone than when you are across the table
from them.
In addition to the hypothesis that we were once "aquatic apes", Vaneechoutte adds that we were and
still are very much "musical apes".Chomsky. N. (1957).
THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUSITION
In this part of the article, eight different views of language acquisition will be discussed. Most of
the theories may be considered in both L1 (mother tongue) and L2 (second or foreign language)
acquisition even though certain theories to be discussed here have been resulted from second language
acquisition (SLA) studies. It is important to note once again that language acquisition theories have
been influenced especially by linguistic and psychological schools of thought. Thus they
have given relatively changing weights on different factors in approaching the acquisition process as
can be seen in the following subsections.
1. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development
Vygotsky was a psychologist but his studies on conscious human behavior led him to
investigate the role that language plays in human behavior. Vygotsky’s point of view is simply that
social interaction plays an important role in the learning process. He places an emphasis on the role of
“shared language” in the development of thought and language. The term “shared language”
refers to social interaction and can be best elucidated through the notion of “zone of proximal
development". According to Vygotsky (1962:10), two developmental levels determine the learning
process: egocentricity and interaction. We can look at what children do on their own and what they
can do while working with others. They mostly choose to remain silent or speak less on their own
(less egocentric speech) when they are alone. However, they prefer to speak to other children when
they play games with them (more egocentric speech). The difference between these two types of
development forms has been called “Zone of Proximal Development”. This zone refers to the distance
between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level
of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in
cooperation with more capable friends of the child. The first thing that children do is to develop
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concepts by talking to adults and then solve the problems they face on their own. In other words,
children first need to be exposed to social interaction that will eventually enable them build their inner
resources. As for the drawbacks of the views proposed by Vygotsky, it is not clear what Vygotsky
meant by inner resources. Also, his emphasis on the significance of egocentric speech in the
development of thought and language is worth discussing. He suggests that egocentric speech is social
and helps children interact with others. When a child is alone he uses less egocentric language than he
uses it
when playing games with other children. This implies that speech is influenced by the presence of
other people. It seems that Vygotsky overemphasizes the function of egocentric speech in the
development of language. It is true that society and other people are important factors helping
children to acquire language. However, Vygotsky fails to account for the role of the self itself in this
process, even though he stresses the importance of egocentric speech, which is not the self actually,
and see the relative role of inner linguistic and psycholinguistic mechanisms that promote language
acquisition.
In conclusion, Vygotsky contends that language is the key to all development and words play a
central part not only in the development of thought but in the growth of cognition as a whole. Within
this framework, child language development, thus acquisition, can be viewed as the result of social
interaction.
2. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior
Behavioristic view of language acquisition simply claims that language development is the
result of a set of habits. This view has normally been influenced by the general theory of learning
described by the psychologist John B. Watson in 1923, and termed behaviorism. Behaviorism denies
nativist accounts of innate knowledge as they are viewed as inherently irrational and thus unscientific.
Knowledge is the product of interaction with the environment through stimulus response
conditioning.Broadly speaking, stimulus (ST) – response (RE) learning works as follows. An event in
the environment (the unconditioned stimulus, or UST) brings out an unconditioned response (URE)
from an organism capable of learning. That response is then followed by another event appealing to
the
organism. That is, the organism’s response is positively reinforced (PRE). If the sequence UST -->
URE--> PRE recurs a sufficient number of times, the organism will learn how to associate its
response to the stimulus with the reinforcement (CST). This will consequently cause the organism to
give the same response when it confronts with the same stimulus. In this way, the response becomes a
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conditioned response (CRE). The most risky part of the behavioristic view is perhaps the idea that all
leaning, whether verbal (language) or non-verbal (general learning) takes place by means of the same
underlying process, that is via forming habits. In 1957, the psychologist B.F. Skinner produced a
behaviourist account of language
When language acquisition is taken into consideration, the theory claims that both L1 and L2
acquirers receive linguistic input from speakers in their environment, and positive reinforcement for
their correct repetitions and imitations. As mentioned above, when language learners’ responses are
reinforced positively, they acquire the language relatively easily. These claims are strictly criticized in
Chomsky’s “A Review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior”. Chomsky (1959) asserts that there is
“neither empirical evidence nor any known argument to support
any specific claim about the relative importance of feedback from the environment”.
Therefore, it would be unwise to claim that the sequence UST --> URE --> PRE and imitation can
account for the process of language acquisition. What is more, the theory overlooks the speaker
(internal) factors in this process. The behaviorists see errors as first language habits interfering with
the acquisition of second language habits. If there are similarities between the two languages, the
language learners will acquire the target structures easily. If there are differences, acquisition will be
more difficult. This approach is known as the contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH). According to
the hypothesis, the differences between languages can be used to reveal and predict all errors and the
data obtained can be used in foreign/second language teaching for promoting a better acquisition
environment.Lightbown and Spada (1993: 25) note that: “… there is little doubt that a learner’s first
language influences the acquisition of second language. [But] … the influence is not simply a matter
of habits, but rather a systematic attempt by the learner to use knowledge already acquired in learning
a new language.” This is another way of saying that mother tongue interference cannot entirely
explain the difficulties that an L2 learner may face. It is true that there might be some influences
resulting from
L1, but research (Ellis, 1985:29) has shown that not all errors predicted by CAH are actually made.
For example, Turkish learners of English simply use utterances just as “No understand” even though
the corresponding structure of Turkish ("Anlamiyorum" literally, “UNDERSTAND-NO-ME”) is
thoroughly different.
In brief, Skinner’s view of language acquisition is a popular example of the nurturist ideas.
Behaviorism, as known by most of us, was passively accepted by the influential Bloomfieldian
structuralist school of linguistics and produced some well-know applications in the field of
foreign/second language teaching – for instance, the Audiolingual Method or the Army Method. The
theory sees the language learner as a tabula rasa with no built-in knowledge. The theory and the
resulting teaching methods failed due to the fact that imitation and simple S-R connections only
cannot explain acquisition and provide a sound basis for language teaching methodology.
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3. Piaget’s View of Language Acquisition
Even though Piaget was a biologist and a psychologist, his ideas have been influential in the
field of first and second language acquisition studies. In fact he studied the overall behavioural
development in the human infant. But his theory of development in children has striking implications
as regards language acquisition.
Ellidokuzoglu (1999:16) notes that “many scientists, especially the psychologists are hesitant to
attribute a domain-specific built-in linguistic knowledge to the human infant.” Accordingly, they view
the human brain as a homogeneous computational system that examines different types of
data via general information processing principles. Piaget was one of those psychologists who view
language acquisition as a case of general human learning. He has not suggested, however, that the
development is not innate, but only that there is no specific language module. Piaget’s view was then
that the development (i.e., language acquisition) results mainly from external factors or social
interactions. Piaget (cited in Brown, 1987:47, Eyseneck, 1990:51) outlined the course of intellectual
development as follows:
- The sensorimotor stage from ages 0 to 2 (understanding the environment)

- The preoperational stage from ages 2 to 7 (understanding the symbols)
- The concrete operational stage from ages 7 to 11 (mental tasks and language use)
- The formal operational stage from the age 11 onwards (dealing with abstraction)
Piaget observes, for instance, that the pre-linguistic stage (birth to one year) is a determining
period in the development of sensory-motor intelligence, when children are forming a sense of their
physical identity in relation to the environment. Piaget, unlike Vygotsky, believes that egocentric
speech on its own serves no function in language development.
4. Cognitive Theory: The Language Acquisition View
Cognitive theory is based on the work of psychologists. Piaget’s work, which dwells on the idea
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that students can learn things when they are developmentally ready to do so since learning follows
development, can be regarded as a starting point of the cognitivist ideas. Cognitive psychologists
emphasized the importance of meaning, knowing and understanding. According to them, 'meaning'
plays an important role in human learning. ‘Learning’ is a meaningful process of
“relating new events or items to already existing cognitive concepts.” (Brown, H.D. 1987:47); and it
is thought to involve internal representations that guide performance. In the case of language
acquisition, these representations are based on language system and involve procedures for selecting
appropriate vocabulary, grammatical rules, and pragmatic conventions governing language use.
David Ausubel (cited in Brown, 1987:80), who criticized the popular Audiolingual method for its
theory based on reinforcement and conditioning, stated that adults learning a second language could
profit from certain grammatical explanations. Whether adults do really profit from such explanations
depends on (1) the suitability and efficiency of the explanation, (2) the teacher, (3) the context, and
(4) other pedagogical variables. Though children do not use deductive presentations of
grammar and they do not have superior cognitive capacities, they acquire their mother tongue quite
successfully.
Cognitive psychologists see second language acquisition, on the other hand, as the “building up of
knowledge systems that can eventually be called automatically for speaking and understanding”
(Lightbown and Spada, 1993:25). Language learning, in this sense, has some Gestalt characteristics in
that language learning is a wholistic process and not analysable as stimulus response associations.
Language learners pay attention to any aspect of the language that they are attempting to understand
and produce. Then, step by step, they become able to use certain parts of their knowledge through
experience and practice. In short, the cognitivists claim that language acquisition can be automatically
attained.
However it is not clear how it will be automatized. And what L1 structures can be automatized
through practice in L2 and what structures can be transferred to L2 are not clearly accounted for.
5. The Discourse Theory
The Discourse Theory has resulted from a theory of language use. The theory emphasizes
that language development should be viewed within the framework of how the learner discover the
meaning capacity of language by taking part in communication. Del Hymes’ description of
communicative competence (Brown, 1987: 200, 201; Ellis, 1986:259), for instance, reflects the
principles of the Discourse Theory. Communicative competence includes knowledge of the grammar
and vocabulary, knowledge of rules of speaking, knowledge of how to use and respond to different
types of speech acts and social conventions, and knowledge of how to use language appropriately. It
is believed, according to discourse theorists, that language acquisition will successfully take place
when language learners “know” how and when to use the language in various settings and when they
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have successfully “cognized” various forms of competence such as grammatical competence (lexis,
morphology, syntax and phonology) and pragmatic competence (e.g., speech acts). A language learner
needs to “know” conversational strategies to acquire the language. Halliday (cited in Ellis, 1985: 259),
for example, conducted a study on his own son’s first language acquisition experience and asserted
that basic language functions arise out of interpersonal uses and social interaction.
Dwelling on the ideas above, first language acquisition notion of the theory is that children
accomplish actions in the world and develop rules of language structure and use. Accordingly, in the
case of L2 acquisition, language learners are encouraged to deal with accomplishing actions, which
are thought to help them acquire the target language. The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
is the best known example of such a theory. In the communicative classes, students are expected to
learn by doing (discovery learning) and expected to acquire the language through the PPP
(presentation, practice and production) principle. It is another issue whether or not the CLT
techniques promote L2 acquisition.
The Discourse Theory has a number of drawbacks. It overemphasizes the role of external factors in
the process of language acquisition and gives little importance to internal learner strategies (i.e.,
innate processes). The Discourse Theory is similar to the behavioristic view of language acquisition in
that environmental factors and input (or positive stimulus) are at the very center in attempting to
explicate the acquisition process. The Discourse Theory is of course more sophisticated
than the Skinner’s views in accounting for the complex structure of communication. Yet it
overstresses the role of “knowledge of competence and functions” in acquiring a language, and hence
fails to notice universal principles that guide language acquisition.
6. The Speech Act Theory
This theory holds that saying something is a way of doing something. In speech act theory,
two kinds of meaning are seen in utterances. The fist is the prepositional meaning and the second is
the illocutionary meaning. The former refers to the basic literal meaning of the utterance conveyed by
the particular words or structures. The latter refers to the “effect” the spoken or written text has
on the listener or reader. For instance the utterances including “threatening” or “apologizing” might
have “presupposition” or “implicature” effects that listeners strive to figure out. It is, of course,normal
for someone to use these utterances in his native language. The problem is how propositions and
implicatures are acquired in first and second language. Does a formal instruction environment
help the learners acquire them? Or will it create an environment where learners know only “about”
them. Can it be labeled “acquisition”?
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7. The Universal Grammar Theory
Among theories of language acquisition, Universal Grammar (UG) has recently gained wider
acceptance and popularity. Though noted among L2 acquisition theories, the defenders of UG are not
originally motivated to account for L2 acquisition, nor for first language (L1) acquisition. However,
UG is more of an L1 acquisition theory rather than L2. It attempts to clarify the relatively quick
acquisition of L1s on the basis of 'minimum exposure' to external input. The 'logical problem' of
language acquisition, according to UG proponents, is that language learning would be impossible
without 'universal language-specific knowledge' (Cook, 1991:153; Bloor & Bloor: 244). The main
reason behind this argument is the input data: …[L]anguage input is the evidence out of which the
learner constructs knowledge of language – what goes into the [brain]. Such evidence can be either
positive or negative. … The positive evidence of the position of words in a few sentences [the learner]
hear[s] is sufficient to show [him] the rules of [a language]." (Cook, 1991: 154) The views supports
the idea that the external input per se may not account for language acquisition (Ellidokuzoglu,
1999:20). Similarly, the Chomskyan view holds that the input is poor and deficient in two ways. First,
the input is claimed to be 'degenerate' because it is damaged by performance features such as slips,
hesitations or false starts. Accordingly, it is suggested that the
input is not an adequate base for language learning. Second, the input is devoid of grammar
corrections. This means that the input does not normally contain 'negative evidence', the knowledge
from which the learner could exercise what is 'not'possible in a given language. As for L2 acquisition,
however, the above question is not usually asked largely because of the frequent failure of L2
learners, who happen to be generally cognitively mature adults, in attaining native-like proficiency.
But why can't adults who have already acquired an L1, acquire an L2
thoroughly? Don't they have any help from UG? Or if they do, then how much of UG is accessible in
SLA? These and similar questions have divided researchers into three basic camps with respect to
their approach to the problem:
Direct access -L2 acquisition is just like L1 acquisition. Language acquisition device (LAD) is
involved. No access - L2 learners use their general learning capacity.
Indirect access - Only that part of UG which has been used in L1 acquisition is used in L2 acquisition.
Proponents of UG, for example, believe that both children and adults utilize similar universal
principles when acquiring a language; and LAD is still involved in the acquisition process. This view
can be better understood in the following quote. [A]dvocates of [UG] approach working on second-
language learning... argue that there is no reason to assume that language faculty atrophies with age.
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Most second-language researchers who adopt the [UG] perspective assume that the principles and
parameters of [UG] are still accessible to the adult learner. (McLaughlin, 1987:96) To support the
view above, the acquisition of the third person “-s” can be given as an example. According to research
(1996, Cook: 21) both child L1 and adult L2 learners (e.g. Turkish learners of English) acquire the
third person “-s” morpheme at a later stage of their overall acquisition process and have a great
difficulty in acquiring it when compared to other morphemes
such as the plural morpheme “-s” or the progressive morpheme “-ing”. This shows that such learners
are somewhat affected by UG-based knowledge. However, in the case of foreign/second language
teaching it is very well known that the third person “-s” is taught at the very beginning of a second
language learning program and presented in a great majority of textbooks as the first grammatical
item.
Accordingly, Fodor’s views have some parallels with the UG Theory. Jerry Fodor studied
the relationship between language and mind and his view that language is a modular process has
important implications for a theory of language acquisition. The term modular is used to indicate that
the brain is seen, unlike older views such as behavioristic view of learning and language learning, to
be organized with many modules of cells for a particular ability (for instance, the visual module).
These modules, according to Fodor (1983:47), operate in isolation from other modules that they are
not directly connected. The language module, if we are to follow Fodor’s ideas, is one of such
modules. This modular separateness has been termed as “informational encapsulation” by Fodor. To
put it simply, each module is open to specific type of data. In other words, modules are domain
specific. This is another way of saying that conscious knowledge cannot penetrate your visual module
or language module or any other subconscious module.
Basically, Fodor’s arguments are somewhat similar to that of Chomsky or the proponents of UG
Theory in that the external input per se may not account for language acquisition and that language
acquisition is genetically predetermined. Add to this, such a modular approach to language acquisition
is totally different from the views of Piaget and Vygotsky who have laid the primary emphasis on the
role of social or environmental factors in language development.
In the case of foreign/second language teaching, the common view is that inductive learning
teaching a language through hidden grammar or) leads to acquisition. However, dwelling on Fodor’s
views as discussed above, it is obvious that inductive learning is confused with acquisition and that by
learning something via discovery learning, students just improve their problem-solving skills, but not
acquire a language.
As for the problems with Universal Grammar, it can be said that UG’s particular aim is to
account for how language works. Yet UG proponents had to deal with acquisition to account for the
language itself. “Acquisition part” is thus of secondary importance. A second drawback is that
Chomsky studied only the core grammar of the English language (syntax) and investigated a number
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of linguistic universals seems to be the major problem. And he neglected the peripheral grammar, that
is, language specific rules (i.e., rules of specific languages which cannot be generalized). Thirdly, the
primary function of language is communication, but it is discarded. The final and the most significant
problem is a methodological one. Due to the fact that Chomsky is concerned only with
describing and explaining 'competence', there can be little likelihood of SLA researchers carrying out
empirical research.
In summary, UG has generated valuable predictions about the course of interlanguage and the
influence of the first language. Also, it has provided invaluable information regarding L2 teaching as
to how L2 teachers (or educational linguists) should present vocabulary items and how they should
view grammar. As Cook (1991:158) puts it, UG shows us that language teaching should deal with
how vocabulary should be taught, not as tokens with isolated meanings but as items that play a part in
the sentence saying what structures and words they may go with in the sentence. The evidence in
support of UG, on the other hand, is not conclusive. If the language module that determines the
success in L1 acquisition is proved to be accessible in L2 acquisition, L2 teaching methodologists and
methods should study and account for how to trigger this language module and redesign their
methodologies. The UG theory should, therefore, be studied in detail so as to endow us with a more
educational and pedagogical basis for mother tongue and foreign language teaching.
8. The Monitor Model
Krashen’s Monitor Model is an example of the nativist theories. The model forms the basis of the
Natural Approach, which is a comprehension-based approach to foreign and second language
teaching. The model consists of five hypotheses The explanations of the hypotheses below have been
taken from an article titled “A Promising Approach to Second Language Acquisition”
(Kiymazarslan,2000:72-82).
(1) The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
Krashen (1985), in his theory of second language acquisition (SLA) suggested that adults have
two different ways of developing competence in second languages: Acquisition and learning. “There
are two independent ways of developing ability in second languages. ‘Acquisition’ is a subconscious
process identical in all important ways to the process children utilize in acquiring their first language,
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... [and] ‘learning’..., [which is] a conscious process that results in 'knowing about' [the rules of]
language” (Krashen 1985:1). Krashen (1983) believes that the result of learning, learned competence
(LC) functions as a monitor or editor. That is, while AC is responsible for our fluent production of
sentences, LC makes correction on these sentences either before or after their production. This kind of
conscious
grammar correction, ‘monitoring’, occurs most typically in a grammar exam where the learner has
enough time to focus on form and to make use of his conscious knowledge of grammar rules (LC) as
an aid to ‘acquired competence’. The way to develop learned competence is fairly easy: analyzing the
grammar rules consciously and practising them through exercises. But what Acquisition / Learning
Distinction Hypothesis predicts is that learning the grammar rules of aforeign/second language does
not result in subconscious acquisition.
The implication of the acquisition-learning hypothesis is that we should balance class time between
acquisition activities and learning exercises.
(2) The Natural Order Hypothesis
According to the hypothesis, the acquisition of grammatical structures proceeds in a predicted

progression. Certain grammatical structures or morphemes are acquired before others in first language
acquisition and there is a similar natural order in SLA. The implication of natural order is not that
second or foreign language teaching materials should be arranged in accordance with this sequence
but that acquisition is subconscious and free from conscious intervention.
(3) The Input Hypothesis
This hypothesis relates to acquisition, not to learning. Krashen (1985:3) claims that people
acquire language best by understanding input that is a little beyond their present level of competence.
Consequently, Krashen believes that ‘comprehensible input’ (that is, i + 1) should be provided. The
'input' should be relevant and 'not grammatically sequenced'. The foreign/second language teacher
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should always send meaningful messages, which are roughly tuned, and ‘must’
create opportunities for students to access i+1 structures to understand and express meaning.
For instance, the teacher can lay more emphasis on listening and reading comprehension
activities.
(4) The Monitor Hypothesis
As mentioned before, adult second language learners have two means for internalizing the target
language. The first is ‘acquisition’ which is a subconscious and intuitive process of constructing the
system of a language. The second means is a conscious learning process in which learners attend to
form, figure out rules and are generally aware of their own process. The ‘monitor’ is an aspect of
this second process. It edits and makes alterations or corrections as they are consciously perceived.
Krashen (1985:5) believes that ‘fluency’ in second language performance is due to ‘what we have
acquired’, not ‘what we have learned’: Adults should do as much acquiring as possible for the purpose
of achieving communicative fluency. Therefore, the monitor should have only a minor role
in the process of gaining communicative competence. Similarly, Krashen suggests three conditions
for its use: (1) there must be enough time; (2) the focus must be on form and not on meaning; (3) the
learner must know the rule. Students may monitor during written tasks (e.g., homework assignments)
and preplanned speech, or to some extent during speech. Learned knowledge enables students to read
and listen more so they acquire more.
(5) The Affective Filter Hypothesis
The learner's emotional state, according to Krashen (1985:7), is just like an adjustable filter
which freely passes or hinders input necessary to acquisition. In other words, input must be achieved
in low-anxiety contexts since acquirers with a low affective filter receive more input and interact with
confidence. The filter is ‘affective’ because there are some factors which regulate its strength. These
factors are self-confidence, motivation and anxiety state. The pedagogical goal in aforeign/second
language class should thus not only include comprehensible input but also create an atmosphere that
fosters a low affective filter.
The Monitor Model has been criticized by some linguists and methodologists
McLaughlin(1987: 56), notes that the model fails at every juncture by claiming that none of the
hypotheses is clear in their predictions. For example, he notes that the acquisition-learning distinction
is not properly defined and that the distinction between these two processes cannot be tested
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empirically.
Although it is true that some parts of the theory need more clarification, it would be harsh to suggest
that the Model is a pseudo-scientific. Hasanbey (personal communication) define acquisition as
follows:
"Any systematic linguistic behavior, the rules of which cannot be verbalized by its performer is the
outcome of acquisition. So if one uses a specific language rule in proper contexts and if the same
person cannot articulate the underlying language rule which determines its proper context, then that
person is said to have acquired the rule in question. On the other hand, if a person can verbalize a
language rule, with or without its proper implementation during performance then that
person is said to have conscious knowledge of that rule. So one might have acquired and learned the
same rule in theory." While writing these very sentences, I have displayed a curious example of
committing an error which proves the acquisition-learning distinction. In the statement “Hasanbey
(personal communication) define acquisition as follows” the verb define should have an “-s” attached
to it. I, as an EFL learner/teacher of English for about 20 years, "consciously" know when to attach
that suffix to the verbs. But when it comes to fluent writing and speaking during which only
subconsciously acquired rules have a say, I frequently miss that third person singular –s. So I and
many other L2
learners who commit this error in spite of knowing the underlying rule at a conscious level, are the
irrefutable evidence proving the distinction between acquisition and learning. The on-going interest in
Krashen’s theory and the emergence of articles supporting his theory in recent journals also proves
that his theory is far from being pseudo-scientific. Here is a typical example:
"Krashen's 'acquisition-learning' distinction has met harsh criticism but the theory he put
forward deserves a more sympathetic reappraisal. First of all, the theory is not insulated against
falsification. The results of the studies examining the effects of explicit positive and/or negative
evidence in formal learning are not inconsistent with it. Recent studies on the acquisition of functional
categories lends support to the existence of the natural order in English L2. It is alsopossible to single
out major dimensions on which processes and products of the 'acquired' and
'learned' systems differ using the principles of markedness and differences in computational
complexity."(Zobl, 1995:35)
So far eight theories of language acquisition have been discussed. It

can be seen that none of the theories is complete and most of them need developing. Each theory,
however, is important for their implications and provides invaluable information as to how a language
is acquired. and how language teaching should take place.
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CONCLUSION
The most important implication of language acquisition theories is obviously the fact that
applied linguists, methodologist and language teachers should view the acquisition of a language not
only as a matter of nurture but also an instance of nature. In addition, only when we distinguish
between a general theory of learning and language learning can we ameliorate the conditions L2
education. To do so, applied linguists must be aware of the nature of both L1 and L2 acquisition and
must consider the distinction proposed in this study. Ridgway (2000, 13) notes that the educational
linguist (not the applied linguist) is a practitioner who applies and adapts the policies of others in the
classroom creatively. If the educational linguist is to adapt language models proposed by others
(applied linguists) for classroom practice, it becomes more important “how” he or she will adopt
them. How, for instance, should s/he utilize the findings of SLA studies conducted on syntax or
natural order and use them for his or her particular classroom settings? How should grammar points
be handled? Should they be taught inductively or deductively? Or should there be a balance between
grammar lessons and acquisition lessons just as proposed by the proponents of the Monitor Model?
How should vocabulary teaching be like and how should a syllabus be designed? How will the results
of language planning proposed
by the government be implemented? Most of these “how” questions can be answered properly only
through a detailed analysis and a thorough understanding of language acquisition theories. Here, on
the shoulders of the methodologists lays quite a heavy responsibility. As we often see, linguistics and
TEFL/TESL are largely based on the nurturist facet of language acquisition, emphasizing discourse
and ethnolinguistic studies. It would, of course, be unwise to deemphasize such studies and their role
in accounting for language acquisition and reaching a possible theory of educational linguistics.
However, in this article it has been shown that language acquisition is also a
considerable matter of innate factors. What is then the role of that “nature” part of theories in the
overall sketch of language acquisition and methodology?
In addition, the author wishes to emphasize the necessity of the subfield “educational
psycholinguistics”. In Stubbs’ point of view (1986:283), a thorough description of language in use,
language variation, levels of language such as phonology, morphology and syntax, semantics and
discourse will form the bases of a complete educational theory of language. If such a theory is
expected to be beneficial to foreign and second language teaching, then it should not only include
these environmentalist components but also include the subfield “educational psycholinguistics”
which would mainly focus on “naturist” accounts as discussed in previous parts of this article. The
inclusion of educational psycholingustics in this sense will make the current position of applied
linguistics and language teaching far stronger. No longer should mind and innateness be treated as
dirty words (Pinker, 1994:22). This will most probably lead to innovative proposals for syllabus
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development and the design of instructional systems, practices, techniques, procedures in the language
classroom, and finally a sound theory of L2 teaching and learning.
TASK 1.
Watch in the youtube about Human Spark: http://www.pbs.org/humanspark
Alan Alda talks to scientist Dan Lieberman about why the human ability to run could be an
important prerequisite for the evolution of our bigger brains -- and the emergence of our human spark.
1. Ask students what they think might set humans apart from other animals. Explain that there
are no “right” answers, but each response should be accompanied by an explanation or
justification. (Accept all answers, writing them all on a blackboard or whiteboard.) Explain
that the debate about what is or is not uniquely human is highly controversial and always
evolving. Ask students why they think the debate is always evolving?
2. Review the focus question: what are the three parts of Dr. Pinker’s response to the question,
“what makes us unique?” (Language, cooperation, and technological “know-how.”) Explain
that while two other The Human Spark lesson plans focus on Cooperation (“Social Skills”)
and technology (“Sticks and Stones”), this lesson will be examining language as it exists in
our brains, and what it may tell us about what it means to be human.
Culminating Activity
1. As homework, have students write a one page essay summarizing what they learned in the course
of the lesson. Each essay should make mention of the following themes:
 Language development in children

 A definition of grammar and its role in language
 What makes animal communication different that human language
 How the brain processes and produces language
Additionally, the essay should include one unanswered question about the material covered in order
for them to make a research.
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LESSON 3:
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE
READ THE CASE STUDY BELOW AND COMMENT ON HOW LANGUAGE DEVELOP IN THIS
SCENARIO:
As a young boy growing up in rural Vermont, Mario had the good fortune to learn two languages.
At home, his parents spoke Spanish almost exclusively, in part because they wanted to pass their
cultural heritage along to their son. Most of Mario’s early exposure to English was in the English-
speaking child care centers and preschools he attended off and on from the time he was 2 years old.
When Mario was 5, his dominant language was Spanish, but he was proficient in English as well.
After his first 2 months in kindergarten, his teacher wrote the following in a report to Mario’s parents:
[Mario is] extremely sociable. He gets along fine with all the children, and enjoys school. He is quite
vocal. He does not seem at all conscious of his speech. His slight accent has had no effect on his
relations with the others. Whenever I ask the class a question, he is always one of the ones with his
hand up. His greatest problem seems to be in the give and take of conversation. Since he always has
something to say, he often finds it difficult to wait his turn when others are talking. When he talks,
there are moments when you can see his little mind thinking through language—for he sometimes has
to stop to recall a certain word in English which he might not have at his finger tips. (Fantini, 1985, p.
28) The “slight accent” in Mario’s English led a speech therapist to recommend speech therapy,
which Mario’s parents declined. In fact, all traces of an accent disappeared from Mario’s speech by
age 8, and his third-grade teacher was quite surprised to learn that he spoke a language other than
English at home. Standardized tests administered over the years attested to Mario’s proficiency in
English. Before he began kindergarten, his score on a standardized English vocabulary test was at the
29th percentile, reflecting performance that, though a little on the low side, was well within an
average range. Later, when he took the California Achievement Test in the fourth, sixth, and eighth
grades, he obtained scores at the 80th percentile or higher (and mostly above the 90th percentile) on
the reading, writing, and spelling subtests. When Mario spent a semester of fifth grade at a Spanish-
speaking school in Bolivia, he earned high marks in Spanish as well, with grades of 5 on a 7-point
scale in reading, writing, and language usage. As Mario grew older, his vocabulary and written
language skills developed more rapidly in English than in Spanish, in large part because most of his
school instruction was in English. His father described the situation this way: [B]y about fifth grade
(age ten), he had entered into realms of experience for which he had no counterpart in Spanish. A
clear example was an attempt to prepare for a fifth grade test on the topic of “The Industrial
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Revolution in England and France.” It soon became clear that it was an impossibility to try to
constrain the child to review materials read and discussed at school—in English—through Spanish.
With this incident, [use of English at home] became a fairly well established procedure when
discussing other school topics, including science, mathematics, and the like. (Fantini, 1985, p. 73)
• Throughout much of his childhood and adolescence, Mario needed to use different languages in
different contexts.
Did the distinctly different linguistic environments in Mario’s everyday life adversely affect his
language development.
Acquiring the language of one’s culture is an extremely complex and challenging

undertaking. To understand and use a language effectively, children must master four basic
components of the language. First, they must master phonology: They must know how words sound
and be able to produce the sequence of sounds that make up any given word. Second, they must
master semantics, the meanings of a large number of words. Third, they must have a good command
of syntax, rules for how words can legitimately be combined to form understandable phrases and
sentences. Finally, children must master the pragmatics of language, the use of social conventions and
speaking strategies that enable effective communication with others. Mastering these four components
of language is a remarkable achievement for any child. For children like Mario who acquire more than
one language, the task is even more challenging. Given the multifaceted nature of human language, it
is not surprising that Mario needed some extra time to acquire basic skills in both English and
Spanish. At age 5, he had minor difficulties with English phonology (the kindergarten teacher
mentioned a “slight accent”), semantics (his score on a vocabulary test was a tad on the low side), and
pragmatics (especially turn taking). Over the long run, however, Mario’s bilingual upbringing clearly
did not hinder his language development. The accent in his English disappeared by age 8, and test
scores in the fourth and fifth grades were well above average. In this chapter we often revisit Mario as
we explore the multifaceted nature of human language and its development over childhood and
adolescence. We begin our discussion by looking at several theoretical perspectives on how children
acquire their first language—that is, their native language. Theoretical Perspectives of Language
Development By age 3 or 4, most children have acquired sufficient proficiency in language that they
are able to carry on productive conversations with the people around them. How they accomplish this
monumental task in such a short time is one of the great mysteries of child development. Theorists
have offered numerous explanations for how children learn their native language. Here we describe
early theories based on modeling and reinforcement plus four more contemporary perspectives:
nativism, information processing theory, sociocultural theory, and functionalism. Early Theories:
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Modeling and Reinforcement Some early theorists suggested that language development is largely the
result of modeling— that children simply imitate the speech of others. Observation and imitation of
others are certainly involved in language development to some degree (e.g., Arbib, 2005). Infants
occasionally imitate the specific sounds and general sound patterns that parents and other caregivers
make (M. H. Goldstein & Schwade, 2008; Tronick, Cohn, & Shea, 1986). And older children
sometimes pick up other people’s words and expressions. For instance, when Mario began attending
an English-speaking preschool, he came home using such expressions as “Shut up!” and “Don’t do
dat!” which he had apparently acquired by listening to his classmates (Fantini, 1985, p. 97). The
behaviorist B. F. Skinner (1957) suggested that reinforcement also plays a role, in that parents and
other adults in a child’s environment praise or in some other way reward increasingly complex
language use. In Skinner’s view, when infants make a variety of speech sounds in a seemingly
random fashion, adults respond favorably to—and so encourage children to repeat—only those sounds
used in the local language. As children grow older, Skinner proposed, adults begin to reinforce the use
of single words, then the use of multiword combinations, and eventually only word combinations that
are, from an adult’s perspective, grammatically correct. As complete explanations of how children
acquire language, however, these early theories have not held up under the scrutiny of research. The
speech of young children includes many phrases (e.g., “Allgone milk”) that people around them
neither say nor reinforce (N. Chomsky, 1959; Cook & Newson, 1996; D. Lightfoot, 1999). Moreover,
parents usually reinforce their children’s statements based on what is factually accurate rather than
what is grammatically correct (R. Brown & Hanlon, 1970; O’Grady, 1997). Even in the elementary
and secondary school years, the great majority of grammatical errors in children’s speech go
uncorrected (Bohannon, MacWhinney, & Snow, 1990). And children may continue to produce
grammatically incorrect sentences despite feedback that the sentences need revision, as the following
dialogue illustrates:
Child: Nobody don’t like me.
Mother: No, say “nobody likes me.”
Child: Nobody don’t like me.
[Eight repetitions of this dialogue]
Mother: No, now listen carefully; say “nobody likes me.”
Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me. (McNeill, 1966, p. 68)
Clearly, then, neither modelling nor reinforcement sufficiently explains how children eventually
acquire an adult-like form of their native language.
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Showing VIDEO clip from YOUTUBE:
8 ACTIVITIES FOR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
(1) | How we get our toddler talking with games and activities
LESSON 4
Language and Speech Development From Birth to 8 years old
Children’s language develops through a series of identifiable stages as outlined in the language
development charts below.
Not all children will follow the exact sequence below. This is presented so that you will know what to
expect from your child as children vary in the speed with which they reach these milestones.
You should seek advice from your child’s language and speech therapist if she seems to be
significantly behind in her speech development.
Pre-linguistic Stage: 0 to 12 Months
The first stage of development in the process of children learning to use language is the pre-linguistic
stage. Babies use this stage to learn how to communicate with others.
During the first stage of life, babies rapidly learn how to communicate with their carers, so that by the
age of 12 months, most babies understand what is being said to them and are starting to communicate
their needs by pointing or by showing their carer objects.
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Language and Speech Development Chart: 0 to 12 Months
0-3 Months
Recognises different tones of voices
Coos and gurgles when content
Cries to show hunger, tiredness and distress
Smiles in response to others’ faces
Recognises carer’s voice.
6 Months
Babbles and coos
Babbles consist of short sounds e.g. ‘da da, ma ma’
Laughs, chuckles and squeals
Cries to show distress
Begin to understand emotion in parent or carer’s voice
Begin to enjoy music and rhymes accompanied by actions.
9 Months
Babbling continues
Begin to recognise own name
Imitate simple words
Pointing begins. This is often accompanied by a sound or the beginnings of a word. This demonstrates an
increasing awareness that words are associated with people and objects
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Babbling begins to reflect the intonation of speech
May understand simple, single words e.g. bye bye.
12 Months
Babbling becomes more tuneful and inventive
Strings vowels and consonants together to make repetitive sounds
Use gestures to ask for things
Enjoy games e.g peek-a-boo
Understand more than they can say
Begin to respond to simple instructions e.g ‘come here’, ‘clap your hands’.
Linguistic Stage: 15 Months to 8 Years
Children starts to use words around twelve months and by fifteen months they have developed their
own word for an object or person and use it consistently. They then go on to use holophrases– using a
single word to express several meanings by changing the sound and using gestures. As they grow
children gradually put two words together to form a mini-sentence.
Language and Speech Development Chart: 15 Months to 8 Years
15 Months
Have about ten words that their carers can understand
Words are used to mean more than one thing depending on the intonation the baby uses
Pointing is accompanied by a single word.
18 Months
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Two words are put together e.g. ‘bye bye dog’
Telegraphic speech appears, with children using key words in a grammatical way e.g. ‘dada come’
Vocabulary increases with children learning 10-30 words in a month
Repeat words and sentences
Use language to name belongings and point out named objects.
2 Years
Quickly learns new words
Use plurals e.g. ‘dogs’
Makes errors e.g. ‘drawed’, ‘sheeps’
Starts to use nagatives e.g. ‘there no cats’
Both active and passive vocabularies continue to increase
Sentences become longer although they tend to be in telegraphic speech
Questions are asked frequently, What? And Why?
3 Years
Speech is understood by strangers
Sentences contain four or more words
Imitates adult speech patterns accurately
Knows and understands nursery rhymes
Enjoys asking questions
Talk to themselves during play
Pronouns are usually used correctly
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Rhymes and melody are attractive.
4 Years
Vocabulary is now extensive
Longer and more complex sentences are used
Are able to narrate long stories including sequence of events
Play involves running commentaries
Can use language to share, take turns, argue, collaborate etc.
Begin to describe how other people feel
Questioning is at its peak
Speech is fully intelligible with few, minor incorrect uses.
5 Years
Sentences are usually correctly structured although incorrect grammar may still be used
Pronunciation may still be childish
Have a wide vocabulary and can use it appropriately
Vocabulary can include shapes, colours, numbers etc.
Questions become more precise
Offer opinions in discussion.
6 Years
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Understands 13,000 words
Understands opposites
Classifies according to form, colour and use
Uses all pronouns correctly.
7 Years
Understand 20,000-26,000 words
Understands time intervals and seasons of the year
Is aware of mistakes in other peoples’ speech.
8 Years
Form complex and compound sentences much more easily and exhibit few lapses in grammar
Carry on meaningful conversations with adult speakers and follow fairly complex instructions with little or no
repetition
Able to read age appropriate texts with ease and begin to demonstrate competence with writing simple
compositions
Have acquired various social amenities in common usage, such as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and will know when
and where to use them.
How to Promote Your Child’s Language and Speech Development
Sing nursery rhymes with actions like Incey-wincey-spider, play games like pat-a-cake and peek-a-boo. These
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connect language to actions and help your child’s understanding and memory.
Play games involving ‘more’ or ‘again’ which can help develop attention and support language too.
Toys, objects and books that make a noise can be used to encourage your child’s attention and listening skills.
Talk about everyday activities e.g. putting away the shopping. This helps your child to connect language to the
world around them.
Use objects and gestures to support your child’s understanding of instructions and questions e.g. Point to their
coat when saying “Put your coat on please”.
Offer your child choices by showing them two objects and labelling them e.g. ‘do you want the teddy or the
car?’, ‘do you want milk or juice?’
Books are a good way to promote speech development – look at pictures together and describe what they can
see. Don’t be afraid to tell a story more than once, repetition helps your child to understand and remember the
language that she hears. ‘Lift-the-flap’ books are also helpful to encourage concentration.
Children learn speech sounds gradually – saying the whole word back to your child is the best way to encourage
language and speech development rather than correcting them. It is also helpful for your child if they can see
your face when you are talking to them – this helps your child to watch and copy the movements that your lips
make as you say sounds and words.
Often children can be frustrated when adults don’t understand them – this can lead to tantrums. Encouraging
your child to use gestures for objects or actions can be useful too. Be patient, wait for them to finish what they
are saying or trying to show you.
Sometimes children sound as if they are stammering, trying to share all of their ideas before their language skills
are ready! This is perfectly normal – just show you are listening and give your child plenty of time.
LESSON 5:
Language Development
Basic Concepts of Language Systems
There are several vocabulary terms that you need to be familiar with in order to serve English
language learners. The following activities will introduce or perhaps refresh your memory of language
system vocabulary such as those listed in the diagram above.
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1. Pragmatics
Pragmatics studies language usage, especially how context influences the interpretation of
utterances – the same sentence can be used to do different things in different situations.
E.g., Gee, it's hot in here! can be used either to state a fact or to get someone open a window. Simply
put: Pragmatics is the intended meaning.
Jirka, Hana. (2006, March 25). Basic Concepts of Linguistics. Retrieved November 4, 2008, from
http://www.ling.ohiostate.edu/~hana/201/HO01-Intro.pdf
Pragmatics is also referred to as the rules of social language. Now access the following web site and
read the information to further your understanding of pragmatics.
http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Pragmatics.htm
2. Semantics
Semantics is the literal meaning of sentences, phrases, words and morphemes. Information
created and compiled as part of ENLACE-a federally funded grant through the United States
Department of Education.
James I. Perkins College of Education at Stephen F. Austin State University
www2.sfasu.edu/enlace
E.g., What is the meaning of the word vegetable?
E.g., How does the word order influence meaning of sentence in English? How about Russian?
Simply put: semantics is the literal meaning and pragmatics is the intended meaning.
http://www.ling.ohiostate.edu/~hana/201/HO01-Intro.pdf
Semantics refers to the connotative (primary and secondary) meaning of words or sentences. For
example, semantics is commonly used to refer to a trivial point or distinction that revolves around
mere words rather than significant issues "To argue whether the medication killed the patient or
contributed to her death is to argue over semantics.
3. Syntax
Syntax – phrase and sentence structure
Syntacticians try to discover rules that govern: word order: The book is on the table. *Table book on
is the the. agreement: I am here. *I are here.
subject/object forms (cases): I like her. *I like she. etc.
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Note: In linguistics, placing an asterisk (*) before a sentence marks that sentence as ungrammatical,
i.e., not of the kind normally used by most speakers of a particular language.
http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/lexiconterm.htm
4. Lexicon
Lexicon - a list of words used in a particular subject.
E.g., The lexicon of a stock trader includes terms such as delayed quotes, futures contract, limit order,
margin account, short selling, stop order, trend line, and watch list. E.g., The lexicon of soccer
("football" outside the U.S.) includes terms such as linesman, friendly match,
yellow card, penalty shootout, pitch, result, and draw.
Lexicon. About.com Guide to Grammar & Composition. Retrieved November 04, 2008, from
About.com website http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/semantics
5. Morphology
Morphology – the word structure and of systematic relations between words. Morpheme – the
building-blocks of words, the smallest linguistic unit which has a meaning or grammatical
function.Words are composed of morphemes (one or more). Sing-er-s answer-ed un-kind-ly
6. Phonology
Phonetics – the production and perception of speech sounds as physical entities. E.g., [v] is
pronounced by bringing the lower lip into contact with upper teeth and forcing air out of the mouth
while the vocal folds vibrate and nasal cavity is closed off.
Phonology – the sound patterns (the sound system of a particular language) and of sounds as abstract
entities. In English, a word never starts with [kn] (note that knife starts with [n] not [k]), while in
German it is possible (e.g., Knabe 'boy')
In Setswana (a language of southern Africa), a consonant is always followed by a vowel –when the
speakers adopted the word Christmas from English, they pronounce as kirisimasi.
7. Grammar
Grammar is a language system, a set of principles (rules) that underlie a language.
Mental Grammar – the knowledge of language that allows a person to produce and understand
utterances.
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Grammar can be described as having different parts:
• phonetics
• phonology
• morphology
• syntax
• semantics
• pragmatics
Language Registers
There are five language registers or styles. Each level has an appropriate use that is determined
by differing situations. It would certainly be inappropriate to use language and vocabulary reserve for
a boyfriend or girlfriend when speaking in the classroom. Thus the appropriate language register
depends upon the audience (who), the topic (what), purpose (why) and location (where). You must
control the
use of language registers in order to enjoy success in every aspect and situation you encounter.
Rules of Language Use:
One can usually transition from one language register to an adjacent one without encountering
repercussions. However, skipping one or more levels is usually considered inappropriate and even
offensive.
1. Static (Frozen) Register
This style of communications RARELY or NEVER changes. It is "frozen" in time and content.
e.g. the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord's Prayer, the Preamble to the US Constitution, the Alma Mater,
a bibliographic reference, laws .
2. Formal Register
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This language is used in formal settings and is one-way in nature. This use of language usually
follows a commonly accepted format. It is usually impersonal and formal. A common format for this
register are speeches. e.g. sermons, rhetorical statements and questions, speeches, pronouncements
made by judges, announcements.
3. Consultative Register
This is a standard form of communications. Users engage in a mutually accepted structure of

communications. It is formal and societal expectations accompany the users of this speech. It is
professional discourse. e.g. when strangers meet, communications between a superior and a
subordinate, doctor & patient, lawyer & client, lawyer & judge, teacher & student, counselor & client.
4. Casual Register
This is informal language used by peers and friends. Slang, vulgarities and colloquialisms are normal.
This is "group" language. One must be member to engage in this register. e.g. buddies, teammates,
chats and emails, and blogs, and letters to friends.
5. Intimate Register
This communications is private. It is reserved for close family members or intimate people. e.g.
husband & wife, boyfriend & girlfriend, siblings, parent & children.
Source: Montano-Harmon, M. R. "Developing English for Academic Purposes" California State

University, Fullerton.
Retrieved November 04, 2008, from
http://www.genconnection.com/English/ap/LanguageRegisters.htm
Part 1: Five Levels of Phonological Awareness - Activities are multisensory, incorporated through out
the day, and delivered auditorily.
Source: University of Texas System/Texas Education Agency (2006). Teacher Reading Academies.
1. Rhyming and Alliteration

Rhyming - Words that end in the same phoneme (sound).
Example: Yes, my pie. ("my" and "pie" rhyme)
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Alliteration - words that begin with the same letter/phoneme.
Example: Little laughing lizards lost lemons.
2. Sentence Segmenting
Segmenting - Understanding that individual words make up a sentence.
Example Activity: Teacher recites a sentence outloud, " My clothes are wet." Then, the children say
the
same sentence clapping their hands each time they say a word (4 claps).
Children may also be given tiles to move each time they say a word in the sentence.
3. Syllable Blending and Segmenting

Syllable Segmenting - Dividing a word into into is separate sounds.
Example:dinosaur di / no / saur
Syllable Blending - Combining separate sounds into a complete word.
Example: mer / cur / ry = mercury
Information created and compiled as part of ENLACE-a federally funded grant through the United
States Department of Education.
3. Onset-rime Blending and Segmenting

Onset-rime Segmenting - how words are broken into smaller parts (onset and rime)
Example: big is the word and it can be broken into parts - "b" is the onset and "ig" is the rime.
Example: break is the word and it can be broken into parts - "br" is the onset and "eak" is the
rime.
Onset-rime Blending - taking the parts of a word and putting them together.
Example: "b" is the onset and "ig" is the rime and these are combined to make the word big.
Example: "br" is the onset and "eak" is the rime and these are combined to make the word
break
5. Phoneme Blending and Segmenting Words Into Phonemes - highest level of phonological
awareness.
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Phonemes - smallest units of sounds.
Phoneme Segmenting - taking a word and isolating or segmenting the individual sounds.
Example: shirt - sh / ir / t
Example: sad - s / a / d
Phoneme Blending - taking isolated sounds and blending them into a word.
Example: s / a / d = sad
Example: m / a / m / a = mama
TASK
Now that you have re-familiarized yourself with the levels of phonological awareness, access
the link below and read a short article that relate this information to English language
learners.
http://www.readinghorizons.com/research/esl-phonemic-awareness.aspx
LESSON 6
HUMAN LANGUAGE VS. ANIMAL COMMUNICATION
5 Characteristics of language use and meaning
• semanticity (words can be about external things in the world;)
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• arbitrariness (word meaning is arbitrary [symbolic], not iconic)
• prevarication (language can be used to lie)
• displacement (we can refer to objects and events distant in place and time from the speech event;
“black scorpions”)
• reflexiveness (language can refer to itself and its properties)
3 Characteristics of language structure
• discreteness (the pieces are discrete, not continuous)
• duality of patterning (small number of sounds combine to make words, finite number of words make
sentences)
• productivity (number of possible utterance types is infinite)
Communicative vs Informative Signals
• Communicative signals are intentional and carry meaning
•Informative signals are not intentional but still carry meaning

• I am sitting at the desk in the front of the room (information: I must be the professor.
• I say to you that I am here to teach the class (intentional: I am the professor)
Communicative vs. Informative Signals
• Animals can be informative: a bird may suddenly fly away at the approach of a predator
(information: we deduce that the bird must be frightened)
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Animals can be communicative:
A bird may make a loud squawk at the sight of a predator (communication: Hey
everyone, lookout! Something is going to eat us!!)
Properties of Human Language

 Reflexivity
 Displacement
 Arbitrariness
 Productivity
 Cultural Transmission
 Duality
Properties of Human Language
 Reflexivity:
 Humans are able to reflect. They are able to talk about, or reflect on language itself. Without this
ability, we could not even talk about the other properties of language.
 Dogs are able to bark at each other, but they are probably not barking about barking itself!
 Displacement: Properties of Humans can talk about the past, present and
future
Yesterday, I saw a movie.

Today, I’m staying home.
Next week, I’m….
Humans can talk about things that don’t exist
or we can’t see.
Yesterday, Grandpa went to heaven...
Tomorrow, the Tooth Fairy is coming…
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 Animal communication is about the here and
now:
“meow, meow!!” I am hungry NOW (not next week)

“bark, bark!!” An intruder is at the door NOW! (not yesterday)
Animals can’t displace in either time or
space:
“Bark, bark!” There is a problem! Help!

NOT “Timmy fell into a well over on the old Cotter Farm 3 miles
away!! Drive down Cook Lane and help him!”(Good girl, Lassie!)
 Arbitrariness: There is no natural connection between a word’s form and its meaning (with the
possible exception of our old friend, onomatopeia)
 A written word doesn’t look like its meaning:“star” “estrella” “stella”

Even thought you can play games with it: BIG little Soft Hard
 Animal communicative sounds are closely correlated with their meanings:
 Think of a cat: grrr hissss meow screech! purrrr…. It doesn’t use a variety of sounds to express
these conditions. These sounds always mean the one thing they mean.
 Vervet monkeys have 36 cries of warning for

different predators, but…
 An animals “vocabulary” is finite. Limited.
 Honey Bee Dance Language
 Bees use intricate combinations of dance movements and tail waggling to communicate the location
of nectar (food) sources to other bees in the
hive.
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 The dance is a figure eight with movements of the tail to indicate location in relation to the azimuth
of the sun. Speed of waggle indicates distance.
 Has been studied by Janda (1973) to have linguistic (syntactic) properties.
 HOWEVER the language is finite – can’t create new moves or waggles to indicate “up” for
example:
 Productivity: Human vocabulary and sentences are infinite, open-ended:

We can create new words in our LEXICON, like texting, googling, new slang…examples???? In
unlimited combinations…..
“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” (Noam Chomsky)
We have a morphology (word-forming rules) and a grammar (with sentence structure rules) which
allow us to combine new words in new structures..
Infinite diversity in infinite combinations (Star Trek)
 Cultural Transmission: We acquire our speech from the environment we are raised in, our culture,
which includes our language, our accent, our expressions.
 While a meow is a meow is a meow, wherever; it is instinctual, inborn.

 Some birds both are born with some calls and songs instinctually and some are learned
 7 week window for birds: If birds are not exposed to bird song in the first 7 weeks, they will still
produce songs, but abnormal ones. Song-singing is instinctual.
 7 year window for children: If a child is not exposed to language within the first 7 years, it will
develop no language at all . Language is not instinctual : it is learned in the cultural environment.
More properly, it is acquired.
 Duality: Human language is organized at two levels:
 The sounds (PHONETICS) which carry no individual meaning and
 The combinations of sounds (PHONOLOGY and MORPHOLOGY) which carry meaning.
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 Economical: with a limited number of discrete sounds, we can produce an infinite
number of meanings
 Animal sounds can’t be broken down into

levels woof = *w + oo = f *oofw *foow
 Human words can:
Meow = m+ e + o + w
me
ow
woe
Animal Communication
 Does your dog understand you when you say, “Sit” “Heel” “Roll Over”
 Answer: He doesn’t know the word roll means “turn” and over means “other side”
His reaction (to roll over) is a conditioned response to a stimulus (your command sound of “roll
over”). But can we talk to or with some animals?
 Viki the chimp: Researchers tried to tach a

young chimpanzee to articulate English words. Her vocal tract was not up to the
challenge.
 Washoe the chimp and Koko the gorilla: Taught ASL in a home-like environment;
learned over 100 signs; could create new signs; could create new sentences by
combining signs. Evidence of language ability by primates?
 Nim Chimpsky the chimp: named as a parody of the name of Noam Chomsky, the famed linguist,
chimp was found by researchers to merely repeat ASL signs and not “converse”as claimed in the
Washoe and Koko cases.
 However, he was kept in a cage and not exposed to a rich linguistic environment.
 Alex the Parrot:

 The term “to parrot” means to repeat something without understanding it.
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 What about Alex?
 Raised for 31 years by researcher Irene Pepperberg, Alex developed a vocabulary of several
hundred words and could use them appropriately in combinations. Could use language to solve
complex problems.
 So, can we talk to animals.
Animals can convey various message to each other, such as: feelings (anger, fear)
warnings desire/willingness to mate location of food sources Nonetheless, animals lack anything like
human language.
Honeybee Dance:
Dance to communicate
Dance communicates direction and distance to food source
Not entirely arbitrary
and Bird Songs

Birdcalls (one note) messages about surroudings
Bird songs (patterns of notes)
territorial purposes
mating purposes
European Robin’s song
complex despite complexity, only high-low alteration is important
indicate degree of willingness to defend territory.
Some birds can imitate human speech. Is this language?

cannot learn structure
cannot create novel utterances
imitate sounds regardless of source ;Lyre Bird and parrots?
Dogs learn to understand certain commands.

Most famous dog (concerning language) is Chaser learned more than 1,000 nouns (for toys) performs
basic actions in response to commands consisting of a verb (paw, nose, take) and a noun demonstrated
power of deduction when asked to find novel object.
Chaser Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6479QAJuz8, longer video at
http://video.pbs.org/video/1778564622
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What can animals do?
Some can learn hundreds of signs.
Some can associate meaning with sign.
Some show understanding of simple, novel combinations.
But...
Most animals merely exhibit stimulus-response behavior.
Ability to learn structure is lacking.
Novel utterances are rare.
ANIMALS, HUMANS, AND LANGUAGE
Anders Holmberg
One of the properties we have as humans which makes us different from other species is a
capacity for acquiring and using a form of language which is far more complex than the language, or
system of communication, of any other species. This capacity has been crucial for the evolution of
human technology and human society, providing us with a huge advantage over other species. The
advantage derives not just from the fact that human language is a superior instrument of
communication between people, but it is also a superior instrument for the acquisition of knowledge
and for storing knowledge, and importantly, it is an instrument for rational thought. What is it exactly
that makes human language so special, though? After all, animals, too, can communicate with each
other, although the messages that they convey are generally speaking very limited in terms of their
content, compared to the messages that we can convey using human language. Our language is richer
and more complex than animal systems of communication, but the question is whether it is also
qualitatively different, not just quantitatively different (more sounds, more words, more complex
structures), from any means of communication that animals have at their disposal. The best way to
find out is to compare human natural language to animal “languages”, i.e. systems of communication
used by animals . There are other species that have communication systems characterized by a certain
degree of complexity, for instance, some songbirds, dolphins, monkeys and apes, and even some
insects: honey bees can convey information to each other about the location of a source of nectar by
moving their body in a certain pattern. Furthermore, we know that certain animals, although they
don‟t use a language with human characteristics under natural conditions, are capable of learning
certain parts, or aspects, of human language, up to a certain level. For instance, some parrots can learn
to imitate the sounds of human language with a very high degree of accuracy. And chimpanzees can
learn to communicate with humans using what is basically human language. Since, due to physical
limitations they can‟t learn speech, what they learn is usually some form of sign language, but
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arguably they learn to use signs basically in the way that we humans do. The purpose of this lecture is
to try to determine what it is that makes human language, and human cognition, special in the living
world. I will begin by comparing the language used by a trained chimp with the language used by a
human child at a comparable level of intellectual maturity. I will then consider the calls of the
chickadees. The call of this American bird is known to have some formal properties which, in some
sense, match those of human language. Finally I will comment briefly on the dance of the honeybees,
another famous form of animal communication.
LESSON 7
FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
References: Brown, D. H. (2000). Principles of language learning & teaching. (4th ed.). New York:
Longman. (pp. 20-27) Lightbown, P.M. & Spada, N. (1993). How Languages are Learned. Oxford
University Press. (pp. 1-8)
Children have a remarkable ability to communicate:
 Small babies: children babble and coo and cry and vocally and nonvocally send messages and
receive messages.
 End of first year: children start to imitate words and speech sounds and about this time use their
first words.
 18 months: their vocabulary in terms of words has increased and are beginning to use 2-word 3-
word utterances (known as “telegraphic utterances”).
 3 years: Children can comprehend an incredible quantity of linguistic input, they chatter nonstop
 School age: Children start to internalize increasingly complex structures, expand their vocabulary
and sharpen their communication skills and they also learn the social functions of their language.
Three Positions in First Language Acquisition
 Behavioristic Position
 Nativist Position
 Functional Position Behavioristic Approach Characteristics:
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 Children come into this world with a tabula rasa (a clean slate bearing no preconceived notions
about the world or about language) and that these children are then shaped by the environment and
slowly conditioned through various schedules of reinforcement.
 Language is a fundamental part of total human behavior.
 This approach focused on the immediately perceptible aspects of linguistic behavior-the publicly
observable responses-and the relationships or associations between those responses and events in the
world surrounding them.
 A behaviorist might consider effective language behavior to be the production of correct responses
to stimuli. If a particular response is reinforced, it then becomes habitual, or conditioned.
 This is true of their comprehension as well as production responses.
 The behaviorist view imitation and practice as primary processes in language development. -
Imitation: Word for word repetition of all or part of someone else‟s utterance. e.g. Mother: Would you
like some bread and peanut butter? Katie: Some bread and peanut butter - Practice: Repetitive
manipulation of form. e.g. Michel I can handle it. Hannah can handle it. We can handle it
 Children‟s imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning. B. F. Skinner
 One of the best-known attempts to construct a behavioristic model of linguistic behavior was
embodied in B.F. Skinner's classic, Verbal Behavior (1957).
 Skinner was commonly known for his experiments with animal behavior, but he also gained
recognition for his contributions to education through teaching machines and programmed learning.
 Skinner's theory of verbal behavior was an extension of his general theory of learning by operant
conditioning. Operant Conditioning: - Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the
occurrence and form of behavior. - It refers to conditioning in which the organism (in this case, a
human being) produces a response, or operant (a sentence or utterance), without necessarily
observable stimuli. - This operant is maintained (learned) by reinforcement (e.g. a positive verbal or
nonverbal response from another person). - If a child says “want milk” and a parent gives the child
some milk, the operant is reinforced and, over repeated instances, is conditioned.
 According to Skinner, verbal behavior, like other behavior, is controlled by its consequences. -
When consequences are rewarding, behavior is maintained and is increased in strength and perhaps
frequency. - When consequences are punishing, or when there is a total lack of reinforcement, the
behavior is weakened and eventually extinguished.
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 Skinner's theories attracted a number of critics (Noam Chomsky) but it also had people who
defended it (Kenneth MacCorquodale). 3 Chomsky‟s Criticisms: - Chomsky argues that the
behaviourist theory fails to recognize what has come to be called „the logical problem of language
acquisition‟. - This logical problem refers to the fact that children come to know more about the
structure of their language than they could reasonably be expected to learn on the basis of the samples
of language which they hear. - Children do not learn and reproduce a large set of sentences, but they
routinely create new sentences that they have never learnt before. - They internalize rules rather than
strings of words (e.g. it breaked /mommy goed). - The language the child is exposed to in the
environment is full of confusing information. (e.g. false starts, incomplete sentences, or slips of the
tongue) - Children are not systematically corrected or instructed on language points. Parental
corrections are inconsistent or even non-existent. - When parents do correct, they tend to focus on
meaning and truth values and not on language itself.
 Today virtually no one would agree that Skinner's model of verbal behavior adequately accounts
for the capacity to acquire language, for language development itself, for the abstract nature of
language, or for a theory of meaning. It would appear that this position with its emphasis on empirical
observation and the scientific method only began to explain the miracle of language acquisition. It left
untouched genetic and interactionist domains that could be explored only by approaches that probed
more deeply. Nativist Approach
 The term nativist is derived from the fundamental assertion that language acquisition is innately
determined, that we are born with a genetic capacity that predisposes us to a systematic perception of
the language around us, resulting in the construction of an internalized system of language.
 Noam Chomsky claims that children are biologically programmed for language and that language
develops in the child in just the same way that other biological functions develop.
 Children are born with a special ability to discover for themselves the underlying rules of a
language system.
 The environment makes a basic contribution in this case - the availability of people who speak to
the child. The child, or rather, the child‟s biological endowment, will do the rest.
4 The Language Acquisition Device (LAD):
 LAD is the imaginary “black box” which exists somewhere in the brain.
 It is thought to contain all and only the principles which are universal to all human languages.
 For the LAD to work, the child needs access only to samples of a natural language. These language
samples serve as a trigger to activate the device.
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 Once it is activated, the child is able to discover the structure of the language to be learned by
matching the innate knowledge of basic grammatical relationships to the structures of the particular
language in the environment.
 More recently, Chomsky and his followers no longer use the term LAD, but refers to the child‟s
innate endowment as Universal Grammar (UG) McNeill (1966) described LAD as consisting of four
innate linguistic properties:
 the ability to distinguish speech sounds from other sounds in the environment;
 the ability to organize linguistic data into various classes that can later be reformed;
 knowledge that only a certain kind of linguistic system is possible and that other kinds are not;
 the ability to engage in constant evaluation of the developing linguistic system so as to construct
the simplest possible system out of the available linguistic input. One practical contribution of nativist
theories is the kind of discoveries that have been made about how the system of child language works:
- Research has shown that the child's language, at any given point, is a legitimate system in its own
right. - The child's linguistic development is not a process of developing fewer and fewer "incorrect"
structures, not a language in which earlier stages have more "mistakes" than later stages. - Rather, the
child's language at any stage is systematic in that the child is constantly forming hypotheses on the
basis of the input received and then testing those hypotheses in speech (and comprehension). - As the
child's language develops, those hypotheses are continually revised, reshaped, or sometimes
abandoned.
 Chomsky drew attention to the fact that children seem to develop language in similar ways and on a
similar schedule.
 Environmental differences may be associated with some variation in the rate of acquisition.
 Before generative linguistics came into vogue, Jean Berko (1958) demonstrated that children learn
language not as a series of separate discrete items, but as an integrated system.
 Using a simple nonsense-word test, Berko discovered that English-speaking children as young as
four years of age applied rules for the formation of plural, present progressive, past tense, third
singular, and possessives.
 She found, for example, - if a child saw one "wug" he could easily talk about two "wugs;' - or if he
were presented with a person who knows how to "gling," the child could talk about a person who
"glinged" yesterday, or sometimes who "glang." The three most important contributions of the nativist
framework to our understanding of the first language acquisition:
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1. Freedom from the restrictions of the so-called “scientific method” to explore the unseen,
unobservable, underlying, abstract linguistic structures being developed in the child;
2. Systematic description of the child‟s linguistic repertoire as either rulegoverned or

operating out of parallel distributed processing capacities;
3. The construction of a number of potential properties of Universal Grammar. Functional

Approach More recently, with an increase in constructivist approaches to the study of language, there
has been a shift in patterns of research. The shift has not been so much away from the
generative/cognitive side of the continuum, but perhaps better described as a move even more deeply
into the essence of language. Two emphases have emerged: a. Researchers began to see that language
was one manifestation of the cognitive and affective ability to deal with the world, with others, and
with the self. b. Moreover, the generative rules that were proposed under the nativistic framework
were abstract, formal, explicit, and quite logical, yet they dealt specifically with the forms of language
and not with the deeper functional levels of meaning constructed from social interaction. * Forms:
Morphemes, words, sentences, and the rules that govern them. Functions: The meaningful, interactive
purposes, within a social (pragmatic) context, that we accomplish with the forms. Cognition and
 The first social constructivist emphasis of the functional perspective was on Cognition and
 Dan Slobin (1971; 1986), among others, demonstrated that in all languages, semantic learning
depends on cognitive development and that sequences of development are determined more by
semantic complexity than by structural complexity.
There are two major pacesetters to language development, involved with the poles of functions and
forms:
1. On the functional level, development is paced by the growth of conceptual and

communicative capacities, operating in conjunction with innate schemas of cognition;
2. On the formal level, development is paced by the growth of perceptual and information-
processing capacities, operating in conjunction with innate schemas of grammar. (In simple terms:
what children know will determine what they learn about the code for both speaking and
understanding messages.) Child language researchers began to tackle the formulation of the rules of
the functions of language and the relationships of the forms of language to those functions. In recent
years it has become quite clear that language functioning extends well beyond cognitive thought and
memory structure. Social Interaction & Language Development
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 The second social constructivist emphasis of the functional perspective was on Social Interaction &
 Some research (BerkoGleason, 1988; Lock, 1991) looked at the interaction between the child's
language acquisition and the learning of how social systems operate in human behavior.
 Other investigations of child language centered on the function of language in discourse.
 Since language is used for interactive communication, it is only fitting that one study the
communicative functions of language: What do children know and learn about talking with others?
about connected pieces of discourse (relations between sentences)? the interaction between hearer and
speaker? conversational cues? Within such a perspective, the very heart of language-its
communicative and pragmatic function-is being tackled in all its variability.
 This kind of research renewed interest in the performance level of language.
 Overt responses, such as hesitations, pauses, backtracking and other conversational cues, that were
carefully observed by structuralists and hastily weeded out as “performance variables” by generative
linguists, have now returned to the forefront.
Issues in First Language Acquisition Competence and Performance
 Competence refers to one‟s underlying knowledge of a system, event, or fact. It is the

nonobservable ability to do something, to perform something.
 Competence & language: it is one's underlying knowledge of the system of a language-its

rules of grammar, its vocabulary, all the pieces of a language and how those pieces fit together.
 Performance is the overtly observable and concrete manifestation or realization of

competence. It is the actual production (speaking, writing) or the comprehension (listening, reading)
of linguistic events. Comprehension and Production
 These two aspects should not be confused with the competence/performance distinction;
they are aspects of both performance and competence.
 In child language, most observational and research evidence points to the general
superiority of comprehension over production: children seem to understand "more" than they actually
produce.
 Even adults understand more vocabulary than they ever use in speech, and also perceive
more syntactic variation than they actually produce. Nature or Nurture?
 Nativists claim that a child is born with an innate knowledge of a predisposition toward
language, and that this innate property (the LAD or UG) is universal in all human beings.
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 Environmental factors cannot by any means be ignored.
 For years psychologists and educators have been embroiled in the "naturenurture"
controversy: - What are those behaviors that "nature" provides innately, in some sort of predetermined
biological timetable? - and what are those behaviors that are, by environmental exposure - by
"nurture,” by teaching - learned and internalized?
 Language acquisition is universal; every child acquires language. But how are the
efficiency and success of that learning determined by the environment the child is in? or by the child's
individual construction of linguistic reality in interaction with others?
 An interesting line of research on innateness was pursued by Derek Bickerton (1981), who
found evidence, across 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. Like
flowering plants, people are innately programmed to "release" certain properties of language at certain
developmental ages. Just as we cannot make a geranium bloom before its "time," so human beings
will "bloom" in predetermined, preprogrammed steps. 8 Universals
 It is a 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.
 Research on Universal Grammar continues to this day.
 One of the keys to such inquiry lies in research on child language acquisition across many
different languages in order to determine the commonalities.
 Areas of study: word order, morphological marking tone, agreement (e.g., of subject and
verb), reduced reference (e.g., pronouns, ellipsis) nouns and noun classes, verbs and verb classes,
predication, negation, and question formation. 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.
 From pivot grammar … to full sentences of almost indeterminate length, children exhibit a
remarkable ability to infer the phonological, structural, lexical, and semantic system of language.
 But in the midst of all this systematicity, there is an equally remarkable amount of
variability in the process of learning.
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 Researchers do not agree on how to define various "stages" of language acquisition, even in
English.
 In both first and second language acquisition, the problem of variability is being carefully
addressed by researchers.
 One of the major current research problems is to account for all this variability. Language
and Thought
 For years researchers have examined the relationship between language and cognition.
 Behaviorists think that cognition is too mentalistic to be studied by the scientific method.
 Piaget (1972) gives an opposing position. He claimed that cognitive development is at the very
center of the human organism and that language is dependent upon and springs from cognitive
development.
 Vygotsky (1962, 1978) claimed that social interaction, through language, is a prerequisite to
cognitive development.
 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 of linguistic relativity-namely, that
each language imposes on its speaker a particular "world view."
 The issue at stake in child language acquisition is to determine how thought affects language, how
language affects thought, and how linguists can best describe and account for the interaction of the
two.
Imitation
 It is a common informal observation that children are good imitators. So we might think that
imitation is one of the important strategies a child uses in the acquisition of language.
 This is not inaccurate on a global level. Indeed, research has shown that echoing is a particularly
important strategy in early language learning and an important aspect of early phonological
acquisition.
 There are two types of imitation: - Surface structure imitation: where a person repeats or mimics
the surface strings, attending to a phonological code rather than a semantic code. - Deep structure
imitation: where a person concentrates on language as a meaningful and communicative tool. * See
(Brown, 2002, pp. 38-39) for examples Practice:
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 Do children practice their language? If so, how? What is the role of the frequency of
hearing and producing items in the acquisition of those items?
 A behavioristic view would claim that practice – repetition and association – is the key to
the formation of habits by operant conditioning.
 Practice is usually thought of as referring to speaking only. But one can also think in terms
of comprehension practice (the frequency of linguistic input to the child).
 Is the acquisition of particular words or structures directly attributable to their frequency in

the child‟s linguistic environment?
 Brown and Hanlon (1970) found that the frequency of occurrence of a 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. 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, and much of that speech is parental speech or the speech of older siblings.
 Children react very consistently to the deep structure and the communicative function of
language, and they do not react overtly to expansions and grammatical corrections. Such input is
largely ignored unless there is some truth or falsity that the child can attend to.
 What many researchers have showed is that in the long run, children will, after consistent,
repeated models in meaningful contexts, eventually transfer correct forms to their own speech and
thus correct past mistakes.
Discourse
 A subfield of research that is occupying the attention of an increase number of child

language researchers, especially in an era of social constructivist research, is the area of
conversational or discourse analysis.
 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.
 While it used to be generally held that mere exposure to language is sufficient to set the
child's language generating machinery in motion, it is now clear that, in order for successful first
language acquisition to take place, interaction, rather than exposure, is required. Children do not learn
language from overhearing the conversations of others or from listening to the radio and must,
instead, acquire it in the context of being spoken to.
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 While conversation is a universal human activity performed routinely in the course of daily
living, the means by which children learn to take part in conversation appear to be very complex.
 How do children learn discourse rules? What are the key features children attend to? How
do they detect pragmatic or intended meaning? How are gender roles acquired? These and other
questions about the acquisition of discourse ability are slowly being answered in the research A
number of theories and issues in child language have been explored in this chapter with the purpose of
both briefly characterizing the current state of child language research and of highlighting a few of the
key concepts that emerge in the formation of an understanding of how babies learn to talk and
eventually become sophisticated linguistic beings.
In the Classroom: Gouin and Berlitz – The First Reformers According to (Brown, 2002),
Francois Gouin and Charles Berlitz were the first two reformers of “modern” language teaching. Their
perspective observations about language teaching helped set the stage for the development of
language teaching methodologies. Francois Gouin: See (Brown, 2002, pp. 43-44)
 The Series Method was created, a method that taught learners directly (without translation)
and conceptually (without grammatical rules and explanations) a “series” of connected sentences that
are easy to understand. For instance, I stretch out my arm. I take hold of the handle. I turn the handle.
I open the door. I pull the door.
 Nevertheless, this approach to language learning was short-lived and, only a generation
later, gave place to the Direct Method, posited by Charles Berlitz. Charles Berlitz – The Direct
Method Overview
 The Berlitz Method is a variation of the Direct Method.
 The basic tenet of Berlitz's method was that second language learning is similar to first
language learning. In this light, there should be lots of oral interaction, spontaneous use of the
language, no translation, and little if any analysis of grammatical rules and syntactic structures.
 The direct method, sometimes also called natural method, is a method that refrains from
using the learners' native language and just uses the target language. 11
 The direct method operates on the idea that second language learning must be an imitation
of first language learning, as this is the natural way humans learn any language - a child never
relies on another language to learn its first language, and thus the mother tongue is not
necessary to learn a foreign language.
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 This method places great stress on correct pronunciation and the target language from
outset. It advocates teaching of oral skills at the expense of every traditional aim of language
teaching.
 According to this method, printed language and text must be kept away from second
language learner for as long as possible, just as a first language learner does not use printed
word until he has good grasp of speech.
 So, learning of writing and spelling should be delayed until after the printed word has
been introduced
 Grammar and translation should also be avoided because this would involve the
application of the learner's first language.
 All above items must be avoided because they hinder the acquisition of a good oral proficiency
Characteristics: Richard and Rodgers (1986) summarized the principles of the Direct Method:
1. Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language 2. Only

everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught
3. Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully graded progression organized

around question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and students in small, intensive
classes.
4. Grammar was taught inductively.
5. New teaching points were introduced orally.
6. Concrete vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures; abstract
vocabulary was taught by association of ideas.
7. Both speech and listening comprehensions are taught.
8. Correct pronunciation and grammar are emphasized.
History:
 The Direct Method enjoyed considerable popularity at the end of the 19th century and the
beginning of the 20th .
 It was most widely accepted in private language schools were students were highly
motivated and were native-speaking teachers could be employed. Today, Berlitz language
schools are thriving in every country of the world.
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 However, it was difficult to apply in public education, mainly because of the constraints
of budget, time, classroom size, and teacher background.
 By the end of the first quarter of the 20th century, the use of this method had declined both
in Europe and the US. Most language curricula returned back to the Grammar Translation
Method or to a “reading approach” that emphasized reading skills in foreign languages.
 Yet, after a period of decline, in the middle of the 20th century, this method has been
revived, leading to the emergence of the Audiolingual Method.
Acquisition
is carried out in the first years of childhood and leads to unconscious knowledge of one's
native language which is practically indelible. Note that acquisition has nothing to do with
intelligence, i.e. children of different degrees of intelligence all go through the same process of
acquiring their native language.
Learning (of a second language) is done later (after puberty) and is characterised by imperfection and
the likelihood of being forgotten. Learning leads to conscious knowledge.
FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
This is the acquisition of the mother tongue. Chronology is important here (see below). The
degree of competence acquired may vary from individual to individual and may be checked by later
switching to another language. Note that language acquisition is largely independent of intelligence,
although individuals can and do differ in their mastery of open classes such as vocabulary.
BI- AND MULTILINGUALISM
This is the acquisition of two or more languages from birth or at least together in early
childhood. The ideal situation where all languages are equally represented in the child's surroundings
and where the child has an impartial relationship to each is hardly to be found in reality so that of two
or more languages one is bound to be dominant.
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
This is the acquisition of a second language after the mother tongue has been (largely)
acquired. Usually refers to acquisition which begins after puberty, i.e. typically adult language
acquisition. Sometimes replaced by the term further language acquisition.
ERROR
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This is an incorrect feature in language acquisition which occurs because of the stage at which
the child is at a given time (acquisition in as yet incomplete). Errors are regular and easily
explainable. For instance the use of weak verb forms for strong ones or the over application of the s-
plural to all nouns in English would be examples of errors. Such features tend to right themselves with
time when the child appreciates that many word classes contain a degree of irregularity.
MISTAKE
Here one is dealing with a random, non-systematic and usually unpredictable phenomenon in
second language learning. Mistakes are sometimes termed 'performance errors' to emphasise that they
arise on the spur of the moment when speaking and are not indicative of any acquisitional stage.
COMPETENCE
is the abstract ability to speak a language, i.e. knowledge of a language independent of its use.
PERFORMANCE
is actual use of language. Its features do not necessarily reflect characteristics of performance,
for example, when one is nervous, tired, drunk one may have difficulties speaking coherently. This,
however, does not mean that one cannot speak one's native language.
The logical problem of acquisition
The logical problem of language acquisition is that it would seem impossible to learn
anything about a certain language without first already knowing something about language in general.
That is the child must know what to expect in language before he/she can actually order the data
he/she is presented with in his/her surroundings and ascribe meanings to words he/she encounters.
THE EVIDENCE OF DEAF CHILDREN
Deaf children start by babbling and cooing but this soon peters out because they have no
linguistic input. However, they would seem to seize on other communication systems and if people in
their surroundings use sign language then they pick this up. The interesting point here is that the
children usually learn the sign language more perfectly than the people from which they learn it (note:
sign language has grammar with inflections just as does spoken language). They are creative in this
language and create sentence structures if these are not present in their input. This would seem to
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suggest that deaf children use sign language as a medium for activating their knowledge about
language which is innate.
THE EVIDENCE OF PIDGINS
Children who have very poor input in their surroundings tend to be creative in their use of
language. Any categories which they deem essential but which are not present in the input from their
environment are then invented by the children. This has happened historically in those colonies of
European powers where a generation was cut off from its natural linguistic background and only
supplied with very poor unstructured English, Spanish, Dutch, etc. as input in childhood. Such input,
known technically as a pidgin, was then expanded and refined grammatically by the children of the
next generation and is known in linguistics as a creole. Here one can see that if the linguistic medium
of their environment is deficient children create the structures which they feel are lacking, going on
their own abstract innate knowledge of language.
The implication of both the above cases is that children look for language and if they do not find it
they create it somehow, so that they have a system of communication. In this sense language is a true
instinct because it starts to develop of its own accord and does not need to be consciously triggered.
IS THERE A LANGUAGE GENE?
There is a pathological medical condition called Specific Language

Impairment (abbreviated SLI) which covers a range of defects, all of which have in common that
children continually make grammatical mistakes in their mother tongue, i.e. they would seem to be
unaware of the existence of grammatical rules. Now as the Canadian linguist Myrna Gopnik has
shown in her study of a family in Britain, some 16 of 30 members over three generations suffered
from the defect. This would seem to imply that it is genetically transferred (it looks like a defective
gene which is dominant in the family) which would also imply that the ability to grasp the rules of
grammar in first language acquisition is genetically encoded.
IS THE LANGUAGE FACULTY SEPARATE FROM OTHER COGNITIVE ABILITIES?
There is one major piece of evidence that this is the case. Williams syndrome is a medical
condition in which the patients are quite severly retarded, as both children and adults, and have
difficulties counting properly or carrying out simple tasks like tieing their shoelaces. However, such
people are good speakers of their native language and just show a slight tendency to overgeneralise
(they might say speaked for spoke). They have a good command of grammatical rules which shows
that their language faculty is intact. The implication of this is that our ability to speak language is
separate from other cognitive abilities.
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How is language transmitted?
Language is obviously passed on from parents to their children. But on closer inspection one
notices that it is the performance (in the technical sense) of the previous generation which is used as
the basis for the competence of the next. To put it simply, children do not have access to the
competence of their parents.
1) Linguistic input from parents (performance) ->

2) Abstraction of structures by children ->
3) Internalisation (competence of next generation)
The above model is the only one which can account for why children can later produce
sentences which they have never heard before: the child stores the sentence structures of his/her native
language and has a lexicon of words as well. When producing new sentences, he/she takes a structure
and fills it with words. This process allows the child to produce a theoretically unlimited number of
sentences in his/her later life.
Note that certain shifts may occur if children make incorrect conclusions about the structure of the
language they are acquiring on the basis of what they hear. Then there is a discrepancy between the
competence of their parents and that which they construct; this is an important source of language
change.
Language acquisition for any generation of children consists of achieving mastery in four main areas,
i.e. acquiring:
1) A set of syntactic rules which specify how sentences are built up out of phrases and phrases
out of words.
2) A set of morphological rules which specify how words are built up out of morphemes, i.e.
grammatical units smaller than the word.
3) A set of phonological rules which specify how words, phrases and sentences are
pronounced.
4) A set of semantic rules which specify how words, phrases and sentences are interpreted,
i.e. what their meaning is.
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competence
According to Chomsky in his Aspects of the theory of syntax (1965) this is the abstract ability
of an individual to speak the language which he/she has learned as native language in his/her
childhood. The competence of a speaker is unaffected by such factors as nervousness, temporary loss
of memory, speech errors, etc. These latter phenomena are entirely within the domain
of performance which refers to the process of applying one's competence in the act of speaking. Bear
in mind that competence also refers to the ability to judge if a sentence is grammatically well-formed;
it is an unconscious ability.
performance
The actual production of language as opposed to the knowledge about the structure of one's
native language which a speaker has internalised during childhood.
TASK: Watch video in the youtube and comment on the childs first language acquisition.
www.youtube.com (child’s first language acquisition)
LESSON 8
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
An Introduction to the Second Language Acquisition
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Dr. Md. Enamul Hoque Director, EDRC Bangladesh
Introduction:
Language is the method of expressing ideas and emotions in the form of signs and symbols.
These signs and symbols are used to encode and decode the information. There are many languages
spoken in the world. The first language learned by a baby is his or her mother tongue. It is the
language, which he or she listens to from his or her birth. Any other language learned or acquired is
known as the second language. Second language acquisition, or SLA, has two meanings. In a general
sense it is a term to describe learning a second language. More specifically, it is the name of the
theory of the process by which we acquire - or pick up - a second language. This is mainly a
subconscious process which happens while we focus on communication. It can be compared with
second language learning, which describes how formal language education helps us learn language
through more conscious processes. Implications for the language classroom include the ideas that the
teacher can create contexts for communication which facilitate acquisition, that there is a natural order
of acquisition of language, that there are affective filters which inhibit acquisition, especially for
adults, and that comprehensible input is very important.
1.1. Second language acquisition
The definition of second language acquisition and learning is learning and acquisition of a second
language once the mother tongue or first language acquisition is established. It is the systematic study
of how people learn a language other than their mother tongue. Second language acquisition or SLA is
the process of learning other languages in addition to the native language. For instance, a child who
speaks Hindi as the mother tongue starts learning English when he starts going to school. English is
learned by the process of second language acquisition. In fact, a young child can learn a second
language faster than an adult can learn the same language.
1.2. Second Language Learning
Language learning refers to the formal learning of a language in the classroom. On the other hand,
language acquisition means acquiring the language with little or no formal training or learning. If you
go to a foreign land where people speak a
different language .
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It can be done with little formal learning of the language through your every day interaction
with the native peoples in the market place, work place, parks or anywhere else. This is true for
learning spoken language.
1.3 First language acquisition seems that children all over the world go through similar
stages of language learning behaviors. They use similar constructions in order to express similar
meanings, and make the same kinds of errors.
These stages can be summarized as follows:
SL Language stage
Beginning stage 1 crying birth
2 cooing 6 weeks
3 babbling 6 months
4 one-word utterances 1 year
two-word utterances 18 months
6 questions, negatives 2 years 3 months
7 rare or complex constructions 5 years
8 mature speech 10 years
An important characteristic of child language is that it is rule-governed, even if initially the rules
children create do not correspond to adult ones.
Children commonly produce forms such as sheeps or breads which they never heard before and
therefore not imitating.
2. Language Acquisition and Language Learning
Learners acquire language through a subconscious process during which they are unaware of
grammatical rules. This happens especially when they acquire their first language. They repeat
what is said to them and get a feel for what is and what is not correct. In order to acquire a
language, they need a source of natural communication, which is usually the mother, the father,
or the caregiver. Language learning, on the other hand, is the result of direct instruction in the
rules of language. Language learning is not an age-appropriate activity for very young children
as learning presupposes that learners have a conscious knowledge of the new language and can
talk about that knowledge.
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They usually have a basic knowledge of the grammar.
Acquisition:
 unconscious process
 does not presuppose teaching Second Language Acquisition:
 the child controls the pace Learning:
 intentional process
 presupposes teaching
 the teacher controls the pace
One needs to approach the comparison of first and second language acquisition by first
considering the differences between children and adults.
3. Critical Period Hypothesis:
is the ability to acquire language biologically linked to age. This hypothesis claims that there
is a period of growth, from early childhood to adolescence, in which full native competence is
possible when learning a language. The hypothesis was grounded in research which showed that
people who lost their linguistic capabilities, for example as a result of an accident, were able to
regain them totally before puberty (about the age of twelve) but were unable to do so afterwards.
There is considerable evidence to support the claim that L2 learners who begin learning as adults
are unable to achieve native-speaker competence in either grammar or pronunciation. Derived
from biology, this concept was presented by Penfield and Roberts in 1959 and refined by
Lenneberg in 1967. Lenneberg contended that the LAD needed to take place between age two
and puberty: a period he believed to correspond with the lateralisation process of the brain. The
lateralisation process of the brain is it a complex and ongoing procedure that refers to the
tendency for some cognitive processes to be more dominant in one hemisphere than the other.
According to Lenneberg this idea was concerned with the implicit “automatic acquisition” in
immersion contexts and does not stop the possibility of learning a foreign language after
adolescence, but with a lot more effort and typically less achievement. Lenneberg likewise
expressed that the development of language is a result of brain maturation: equipotential
hemispheres at birth, language gradually becoming lateralized in the left hemisphere.
4. Lateralization:
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There is evidence in neurological research that as the human brain matures, certain functions
are assigned, or ‘lateralized’, to the left hemisphere of the brain, and certain other functions to
the right hemisphere. Intellectual, logical, and analytic functions appear to be largely located in
the left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere controls functions related to emotional and social
needs. Lenneberg (1967) suggested that lateralization is a slow process that begins around the
age of two and is completed around puberty. 4. History of Second Language Theories and
Approach
4.1. Behavioristic approach (1900s -1950s): In the 1950s and 1960s, in the
behaviorist view, language learning is seen as the formation of habits, based
on the notions of stimulus and response. The response people give to stimuli
in their environment will be reinforced if desired outcome is obtained.
Through repeated reinforcement, a certain stimulus will elicit the same
response time and again, which will then become a habit. When learning a
second language, we already have a set of well-established responses in our
mother tongue. The L2 learning process therefore involves replacing those
habits by a set of new ones. The complication is that the old L1 habits
interfere with this process, either helping or inhibiting it. If the structures in
the L2 are similar to those of the L1, learning will take place easily. If,
however, structures are realized differently in the L1 and the L2, then
learning will be Second Language Acquisition
5 difficult.
From a teaching point of view, the implications of this approach were twofold.
First, language learning would take place by imitating and repeating the same structures time
after time (it was strongly believed that practice makes perfect).
Second, teachers need to focus their teaching on areas of L1 and L2 difference. Researchers
also embarked on the task of comparing pairs of languages in order to pinpoint areas of differences.
This was termed Contrastive Analysis (CA). Behaviorist leaning theory Theories of habit formation
were theories of learning in general. A habit was formed when a particular stimulus became regularly
linked with a particular response. These theories were applied to language learning.
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In L1 acquisition children were said to master their mother tongue by imitating utterances
produced by adults and having their efforts at using language either rewarded or corrected. It was also
believed that SLA could proceed in a similar way. Imitation and reinforcement were the means by
which the learner identified the stimulus-response association that constituted the habits of the L2.
L2 learning was most successful when the task was broken into a number of stimulus-
response links, which could be systematically practiced and mastered one at a time.
Criticisms: The creativity of language- children do not learn and reproduce a large set of
sentences, but they create new sentences that they have never learned before. This is only possible
because they internalize rules rather than strings of words. (e.g. Mummy goed; it breaked.)
Why the L2 learner made errors: Old habits get in the way of learning new habits. The notion
of interference has a central place in behaviorist account of SLA. Where the first and second language
share a meaning but express it in different ways, an error is likely to arise in the L2 because the
learner will transfer the realization device form his first language into the second. Transfer will be
positive when the first and second language habits are the same. Thus differences between the first
and second language create learning difficulty which results in errors. By comparing the learner’s
native language with the target language, differences could be identified and used to predict areas of
potential error.
4.2. Krashen’s monitor model (the 1970s) Krashen’s Monitor Model evolved in
the late 1970s in a series of articles (Krashen 1977, 1978) and was elaborated
and expanded in a number of books (Krashen 1981, 1982, 1985; Krashen and
Terrell 1983). Krashen’s theory has achieved considerable popularity among
second-language teachers in the United States.
On the other hand, the theory has been seriously criticized on various grounds by second-language
researchers and theorists. The five central hypotheses which constitute Krashen’s theory are as
follows:
1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
2. The Monitor Hypothesis
3. The Natural Order Hypothesis
4. The Input Hypothesis
5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis
The acquisition-Learning Hypothesis Krashen claimed that adult learners have two means for
internalizing the target language.
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The first is “acquisition”, a subconscious and intuitive process of constructing the system of a
language, not unlike the process used by a child to “pick up” a language.
The second means is a conscious “learning” process in which learners attend to form, figure out rules,
and are generally aware of their own process. According to Krashen, what is consciously learned –
through the presentation of rules and explanations of grammar – does not become the basis of
acquisition of the target language. Learning does not “turn into” acquisition. Our conscious learning
process and our subconscious acquisition process are mutually exclusive.
The Monitor Hypothesis The “Monitor” is a “device” for “watchdogging” one’s output, for editing
and making alterations or corrections as they are consciously perceived. Acquisition “initiates” the
speaker’s utterances and is responsible for fluency.
Thus the Monitor is thought to alter the output of the acquired system before or after the
utterance is actually written or spoken, but the utterance is initiated entirely by the acquired system.
This hypothesis has important implications for language teaching. Krashen argued that formal
instruction in a language provides rule isolation and feedback for the development of the Monitor, but
that production is based on what is acquired through communication, with the Monitor altering
production to improve accuracy toward target language norms. Krashen’s position is that conscious
knowledge of rules does not help acquisition, but only enables the learner to “polish up” what has
been acquired through communication. The focus of language teaching should not be rule-learning
but communication.
The Natural Order Hypothesis The Natural Order Hypothesis states that we acquire the rules
of language in a predictable order, some rules tending to come early and others late (Krashen 1985).
This “natural” order of acquisition is presumed to be the result of the acquired system,
operating free of conscious grammar, or the Monitor. The principal source of evidence for the Natural
Order Hypothesis comes from the so-called “morpheme’ studies” (Dulay and Burt 1974) Krashen also
maintained that there is a “natural” sequence for the development of the negative, the auxiliary
system, questions, and inflections in English.
To conclude, Krashen’s argument for the Natural Order Hypothesis is based largely on the
morpheme studies, which have been criticized on various grounds and which, by focusing on final
form, tell us little about acquisitional sequences.
The Input Hypothesis This hypothesis postulates that humans acquire language in only one
way – by understanding messages, or by receiving ‘comprehensible input’…We move form i, our
current level, to i+1, the next level along the natural order, by understanding input containing i+1
(Krashen 1985). An important part of the Input Hypothesis is Krashen’s recommendation that
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speaking not be taught directly or very soon in the language classroom. Speech will ‘emerge’ once the
acquirer has built up enough comprehensible input (i+1). Comprehensible input is the route to
acquisition and information about grammar in the target language is automatically available when the
input is understood. Evidence: the silent period – during this period, learners are presumably building
up their competence in the target language by listening. Krashen argued that they are making use of
the ‘comprehensible input’ they receive. Once competence has been built up, speech emerges.
Criticism: there is no way of knowing what comprehensible input is. Also, learners make
considerable use of formulaic expressions during the process of acquisition. Formulaic constructions
enable learners to express communicative functions they have not yet mastered and may be far from
mastering. The main function of the second language class according to Krashen is to provide learners
with good and grammatical comprehensible input that unavailable to them on the outside, and to bring
them to the point where they can obtain comprehensible input on their own in the real world.
Krashen argued that the best way to learn a second language is to approach the language as
children do when they are acquiring their first language. The Natural Approach: communication
competence, or functional ability in a language, arises from exposure to the language in meaningful
settings where the meanings expressed by the language are understood. Rules, patterns, vocabulary,
and other language forms are not learned as they are presented or encountered, but are gradually
established in the learner’s repertory on the basis of exposure to comprehensible input.
Krashen claimed that if input is understood and there is enough of it, the necessary grammar
is automatically provided. Speaking is a result of acquisition and not its cause. The ability to
communicate in a second language cannot be taught directly but ‘emerges’ on its own as a result of
building competence via comprehensible input.
However, Krashen has argued that speaking is unnecessary for acquiring a second language.
In his view, the only role that the speaker’s output plays is to provide a further source of
comprehensible input. Other researchers would argue that understanding new forms in not enough;
the learner must be given the opportunity to produce the new forms. Swain (1985) has argued for the
importance of “comprehensible output”. Learners can benefit from talking.
The Affective Filter Hypothesis
According to the Affective Filter Hypothesis, comprehensible input may not be utilized by a
second-language acquirers if there is a ‘mental block’ that prevents them form fully profiting from it
(Krashen 1985). The affective filter acts as a barrier to acquisition: if the filter is ‘down’, the input
reaches the LAD and becomes acquired competence; if the filter is ‘up’, the input is blocked and does
not reach the LAD. Krashen maintained that acquirers need to be open to the input and that when the
affective is up, the learner may understand what is seen and read, but the input will not reach the
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LAD. This occurs when the acquirer is unmotivated, lacking in confidence, or concerned with failure.
The filter is down when the acquirer is not anxious and is intent on becoming a member of the group
speaking the target language. Many researchers agree with Krashen on basic assumptions, such as the
need to move form grammar-based to communicatively oriented language instruction, the role of
affective factors in language learning, and the importance of acquisitional sequences in second-
language development.
Criticism of Monitor Model
1. Barry McLaughlin (1978, 1990) sharply criticized Krashen’s rather fuzzy distinction
between subconscious (acquisition) and conscious (learning) processes.
2. There is no interface – no overlap – between acquisition and learning. Instruction in

conscious rule learning can indeed aid in the attainment of successful communicative competence in a
second language.
3. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis claims that success in a foreign language can be attributed to
input alone. Such a theory ascribes little credit to learners and their own active engagement in the
pursuit of language competence. First of all, it is important to distinguish between input and intake.
The latter is the subset of all input that actually gets assigned to our long-term memory store. Second
language learners are exposed to potentially large quantities of input, only a fraction of which
becomes intake.
4. Krashen presents the i+1 formula as if we are actually able to define i and 1, and we are
not.
5. The notion that speech will ‘emerge’ in a context of comprehensible input sounds
promising, but we are left with no significant information on what to do about the students for whom
speech does not ‘emerge’.
4.3. The rationalism/ cognitive approach (the 1960s-1970s): Cognitive psychologists sought
to discover underlying motivations and deeper structures of human behavior by using a rational
approach. They employed the tools of logic, reason, extrapolation, and inference in order to derive
explanations for human behavior. They asserted that meaning, understanding, and knowing were
significant data for psychological study. Language acquisition is innately determined, that we are born
with a built-in device that predisposes us to language acquisition (LAD: language acquisition device).
Chomsky believes that natural languages are governed by highly abstract and complex rules
that not immediately evident in actual utterances (surface structure). If the child were totally reliant on
the data available in the input, he would not be able to acquire these rules. Therefore, the child must
possess a set of innate principles which guide language processing. These principles comprise
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Universal Grammar --- the linguistic features and processes which are common to all natural
languages and all language learners. The child’s linguistic development is not a process of developing
fewer and fewer incorrect structures. Rather, the child’s language at any stage is systematic in that
child is constantly forming hypotheses on the basis of the input received and then testing those
hypotheses. As the child’s language develops, those hypotheses get continually revised, reshaped, or
sometimes abandoned. Followed in the 1980s and 1990s, new links have emerged with cognitive
science (the role of consciousness), with neuropsychology (modularity of the brain, the left
hemisphere is associated with logical, analytical thought, with mathematical and liner processing of
information. The right hemisphere perceives and remembers visual, tactile, and auditory images), and
with sociocultural frameworks which have greatly enriched our perception of the many facets of
second language acquisition.
4.4. Constructivism: (the 1980s-200) Constructivists argue that all human beings construct
their own vision of reality, and therefore multiple contrasting ways knowing and describing are
equally legitimate. Cognitive factors of second language acquisition Intelligence:
There is clear evidence that L2 students who are above average on formal measures of
intelligence tend to do well in L2 learning. In addition to traditional sense of intelligence defined and
measured in terms of (1) linguistic and (2) logical-mathematical abilities (IQ), Gardner (1983)
described five more different forms of knowing as (3) spatial intelligence (to find your way around an
environment), (4) musical intelligence (to perceive and create pitch and rhythmic patterns), (5) bodily-
kinesthetic intelligence(athletic prowess), (6) interpersonal intelligence(to understand others, how
they feel, how they interact with one another), (7) intrapersonal intelligence(the ability to see oneself,
to develop a sense of self-identity), and (8) naturalist intelligence. By broadly defining intelligence as
Gardner has done, we can more easily discern a relationship between intelligence and second
language learning. For instance, musical intelligence could explain the relative ease that some learners
have in perceiving and producing the intonation patterns of a language. Interpersonal intelligence is of
obvious importance in the communicative process. Language aptitude: (Is there really such a thing as
a gift for language learning, distinct from general intelligence?) A number of subskills are believed to
be predicators of L2 learning success:
(1) phonetic coding ability,
(2) grammatical sensitivity,
(3) memory abilities, and
(4) inductive language ability.
Language learning strategies:
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More proficient learners do indeed employ strategies that are different from those used by the
less proficient. However, whether the strategies cause the learning, or the learning itself enables
different strategies to be used, has not been fully clarified.
5. Affective domain of second language acquisition
Affect refers to emotion or feeling. The affective factors are the emotional side of human
behavior in the second language learning process. The development of affective states or feeling
involves a variety of personality factors, feeling both about ourselves and about others with whom we
come into contact. Understanding how human beings feel, respond, believe, and value is an important
aspect of a theory of second language acquisition. Specific affective factors are discussed as follows:
Anxiety: Anxiety is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension, or
worry. Anxiety can be experienced at various levels. At the deepest, or global, level, trait anxiety is a
more permanent predisposition to be anxious. Some people are predictably and generally anxious
about many things. At a more momentary, or situational level, state anxiety is experienced in relation
to some particular event or act. Foreign language anxiety focuses more specifically on the situational
nature of state anxiety.
Three components of foreign language anxiety have been identified:
(1) communication apprehension, arising from learners’ inability to adequately express mature
thoughts and ideas;
(2) fear of negative social evaluation, arising from a learner’s need to make a positive social
impression on others; and
(3) test anxiety, or apprehension over academic evaluation (Horwitz et al., 1986).Yet another
important insight to be applied to our understanding of anxiety lies in the distinction between
debilitative and facilitative anxiety (Scovel, 1978). We may be inclined to view anxiety as a negative
factor, something to be avoided at all costs (e.g. test anxiety). But the notion of facilitative anxiety is
that some concern over a task to be accomplished is a positive factor. So the next time your students
are anxious, you do well to ask yourself if that anxiety is truly debilitative. It could well be that a little
nervous tension in the process is a good thing. Both too much and too little anxiety may hinder the
process of successful second language learning.
Empathy
Empathy is usually described as the projection of one’s own personality into the personality of
another in order to understand him or her better. Language is one of the primary means of
empathizing. In order to communicate effectively, you need to understand the other person’s affective
and cognitive states. For instance, in a second language learning situation, not only must learner-
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speaker correctly identify cognitive and affective sets in the hearer, but they must do so in a language
in which they are insecure. Motivation: Motivation is commonly thought of as an inner drive,
impulse, emotion, or desire that moves one to a particular action. In second language learning, a
learner will be successful with the proper motivation.
1. Instrumental motivation: To learn an L2 for some functional reason- to pass an

examination, to get a better job, reading technical material, translation, and so forth.
2. Integrative motivation: Learners are interested in the people and culture represented by the
target language group. Learners wish to integrate themselves within the culture of the second
language group, to identify themselves with and become a part of that society. However, some
learners may be influenced by a “Machiavellian motivation”- the desire to learn the L2 in order to
manipulate and overcome the people of the target language.
3. Resultative motivation: This motivation is the result of learning. Learners who experience
success in learning may become more, or in some contexts, less motivated to learn.
4. Intrinsic motivation: Motivation involves the arousal and maintenance of curiosity and can
ebb and flow as a result of such factors as learners’ particular interests and the extent to which they
feel personally involved in learning activities. There is no apparent reward except the activity itself.
Intrinsically motivated behaviors are aimed at bringing about certain internally rewarding
consequences, namely, feelings of competence and self-determination.
5. Extrinsic motivation: Extrinsically motivated behaviors are carried out in anticipation of a reward
from outside and beyond the self. Typical extrinsic rewards are money, prizes, grades, and even
certain types of positive feedback.
These five types of motivation should be seen as complementary rather than as distinct and
oppositional. Most situations involve a mixture of each type of motivation. However, growing
stockpile of research on motivation strongly favors intrinsic motivation, especially for long-term
retention (Brown, 1990).
6.Sociocultural perspectives on second language acquisition
Culture is a way of life. It is the context within which we exist, think, feel, and relate to
others. Culture might also be defined as the ideas, customs, skills, arts, and tools that characterize a
given group of people in a given period of time. But culture is more than the sum of its parts. “It is a
system of integrated patterns, most of which remain below the threshold of consciousness, yet all of
which govern human behavior” (Condon, 1973).
Culture, as an ingrained set of behaviors and modes of perceptions, becomes highly

important in the learning of a second language. A language is a part of a culture and a culture is a part
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of a language. The acquisition of a second language is also the acquisition of a second culture. Sapir-
Whorf hypothesis It refers to the idea that language shapes (rather than reflect) one’s world view. It
can be summed up as follows: the background linguistic system of each language is not merely a
reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas, the program and guide
for the individual’s mental activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental
stock in trade (Whorf, 1956).
Schumann’s acculturation model Acculturation is defined by Brown (1980) as ‘the process of

becoming adapted to a new culture’. Linton (1963) described the general process of acculturation as
involving modification in attitude, knowledge, and behavior. The overall process of acculturation
demands both social and psychological adaptation. John Schumann (1978) characterized the
relationship between acculturation and second-language acquisition in the following way:
Second language acquisition is just one aspect of acculturation and the degree to which a
learner acculturates to the target language group will control the degree to which he acquires the
second language. In this view, acculturation – and hence second-language acquisition – is determined
by the degree of social and psychological ‘distance’ between the learner and the target-language
culture. It is assumed that the more social and psychological distance there is between the second-
language learner and the target-language group, the lower the learner’s degree of acculturation will be
toward that group.
Social and psychological distance influence second-language acquisition by determining the

amount of contact learners have with the target language and the degree to which they are open to the
input that is available. In a negative social situation, the learner will receive little input in the second
language. In a negative psychological situation, the learner will fail to utilize available input.
Schumann lists the various factors which determine social and psychological distance.
An example of a ‘good’ learning situation is when
(1) the target language and L2 groups view each other as social equal;
(2) the target language and L2 groups are both desirous that L2 group will assimilate;
(3) both the target language and L2 groups expect the L2 group to share social facilities with
the target language group;
(4) the L2 group is small and not very cohesive;
(5) the L2 group’s culture is congruent with that of the target language group;
(6) both groups have positive attitudes to each other;
(7) the L2 group envisages staying in the target language area for an extended period.
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The psychological factors are affective in nature. They include
(1) language shock;
(2) culture shock;
(3) motivation; and
(4) ego boundaries.
In Schumann’s model, acculturation is the causal variable in the second language learning
process. He argued that the early stages of second language acquisition are characterized by the same
processes that are responsible for the formation of pidgin languages. When there are hindrances to
acculturation – when social and/or psychological distance is great – the learner will not progress
beyond the early stages and the language will stay pidginized. Schumann documented this process in
a case study of a 33-year-old Costa Rican immigrant, Alberto. Alberto’s interlanguage was
characterized by many simplifications and reductions.
These simplifications and reductions Schumann saw to be a form of pidginization, which

leads to fossilization when the learner no longer revises the interlanguage system in the direction of
the target language. This process occurred not because of a cognitive deficit, but because of a minimal
amount of acculturation to the target language group.
Pidginization is characteristic of all early second language acquisition. Evaluation: The

question of causality: The acculturation hypothesis assumes a causal model in which attitude affects
access to input which in turn affects second language acquisition. Attitude, or the perception of
distance between the learner and the target group, is seen to control behavior.
It is possible, however, that successful learners may be more positively disposed toward the
target language group because of their positive experience with the language. Their success may be
more a function of intelligence, social skills, and language learning ability than of perceived distance
form the target language group. Most likely, the line of causality is bi-directional. Perceived distance
affects second language acquisition and is affected by success in second language acquisition.
2. One of the difficulties in Schumann’s hypothesis of social distance is the measurement of

actual social distance. William Acton (1979) devised a measure of perceived social distance. His
contention was that it is not particularly relevant what the actual distance is between cultures since it
is what learners perceive that forms their own reality. Instruction and second language acquisition
Researchers have studied what impact teaching has on L2 learning.
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1. Whether teaching learners grammar has any effect on their interlanguage development. Do
learners learn the structure they are taught? (Initial gains in grammar accuracy disappear over time)
Teachability hypothesis: Second language learners follow a fairly rigid route in their acquisition of
certain grammatical structures. Instruction can only promote language acquisition if the interlanguage
is close to the point when the structure to be taught is acquired in the natural setting (so that sufficient
processing requirements are developed). Instruction does not subvert the natural sequence of
acquisition but rather helps to speed up learners’ passage through it. (Teachers are not likely to know
which learners in their class are ready to be taught a particular structure and will have no easy way of
finding out.)
2. The same instructional option is not equally effective for all L2 learners. Learners learn
better if the kind of instruction they receive matches their preferred ways of learning an L2. (learning
styles and learning strategies)
7. Learning Styles and Strategies Learning styles Learning styles might be thought of as cognitive,
affective, and physiological traits that relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact
with, and respond to the learning environment (Keefe, 1979). Learners’ styles are determined by the
way they internalize their total environment, and since that internalization process is not strictly
cognitive, we find that physical, affective, and cognitive domains merge in learning style.
1. Reflectivity and impulsivity Reflective learners are slower but more accurate than
impulsive learners in reading. Teachers tend to judge mistakes too harshly, especially in the
case of a learner with an impulsive style who may be more willing than a reflective learner to
gamble at a correct answer. On the other hand, a reflective learner may require patience from
the teacher, who must allow more time for the student to struggle with responses.
2. Visual and auditory styles Visual learners tend to prefer reading and studying
charts, drawings, and other graphic information, while an auditory style is characterized by a
preference for listening to lectures and audiotapes. Most successful learners utilize both visual
and auditory input, but slight preferences one way or the other may distinguish one learner
from another. (e.g. listen to TV or read captions, Korean students were significantly more
visually oriented than native English-speaking Americans.)
3. Field independence and field dependence A field independent style enables you to
distinguish parts from a whole, to concentrate on something, to analyze separate variables
without the contamination of neighboring variables. On the other hand, too much field
independence may result in cognitive “tunnel vision”: you see only the parts and not their
relationship to the whole. Field independence is closely related to classroom learning that
involves analysis, attention to details, and mastering of exercises, drills, and other focused
activities. Field dependence is the tendency to be “dependent” on the total field so that the
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parts embedded within the field are not easily perceived, although that total field is perceived
more clearly as a unified whole. Primarily field dependence persons will, by virtue of their
empathy, social outreach, and perception of other people, be successful in learning the
communicative aspects of a second language.
4. Ambiguity tolerance It refers to the degree to which you are cognitively willing to
tolerate ideas and propositions that run counter to your own belief system or structure of
knowledge. In second language learning a great amount of contradictory information is
encountered. Successful language learning necessitates tolerance of such ambiguities, at least
for interim periods or stages, during which time ambiguous items are given a chance to
become resolved. However, excess tolerance has the effect of hampering or preventing
meaningful subsumption of ideas. Learning strategies Over the last few decades, within the
field of second /foreign language education, a gradual but marked shift in the focus of
language research and instruction has taken place. There has been less stress on teachers’
teaching and greater emphasis on students’ learning. This change has been reflected in
increasing numbers of studies undertaken from the learners’ perspectives, particularly in
research on language learning strategies. More and more foreign language educators have
now recognized that effective learning strategies can enhance students’ efforts to reach their
language goals. Thus, students are often being encouraged to “learn how to learn English”,
rather than to depend heavily on their teachers’ instructions. Learning strategies are defined
by Oxford (1990) as “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster,
more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations”.
These strategies encompass a wide range of learning behaviors that can help learners become
more autonomous, self-regulated, and goal-oriented, resulting in improving their progress in
developing foreign language skills. Oxford’s (1990) has developed a learning strategies
system as well. She divided learning strategies into two major classes that can be further
subdivided into six strategy categories. The first class refers to direct strategies that involve
the language itself in a variety tasks and situations, and these include memory, cognitive, and
compensation strategies. The second class refers to indirect strategies that deal with the
general management of learning, including metacognitive, affective, and social strategies.
Generally speaking, cognitive strategies involve manipulation or transformation of learning
materials or tasks in order to enhance comprehension.
Examples include practicing, analyzing, reasoning, or reorganizing information.

Memory strategies are devices that help learners link new information with something already
known, such as creating mental linkages, using imagery or physical responses. Compensation
strategies help learners make up for inadequate knowledge in the target language through
guessing or using gestures or a circumlocution.
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Metacognitive strategies refer to higher order executive skills that involve planning,
monitoring and evaluating of the language learning process and production. Affective
strategies enable learners to control over their personal emotions, attitudes, motivations, and
values that relate to language learning, including identifying one’s feelings, using a language
learning diary, or lowering learning anxiety. Then, social strategies facilitate learning with
other people and help learners develop cultural understanding. Examples are asking questions
for clarification, cooperating with peers or more proficient learners, or empathizing with
others.
The relationship of the use of language learning strategies to success in learning a

foreign language has been a focus in the area of language learning strategy research. Most
research findings indicate that successful learners tend to use appropriate strategies leading to
improvement, tend to use more and better strategies than poorer learners do, and are able to
combine effective strategies to meet the requirements of the language task
Learning strategies are especially important to Taiwan’s English learners, since most
of them lack enough exposure to authentic English at school. It is also impossible for English
teachers to follow the learning path of each of their students either inside or outside of
classroom. One of the possible ways to turn this situation around is to help students develop
effective learning strategies and become self-directed learners. In fact, both teachers and
students can benefit from the use of learning strategies, and more research based on Taiwan’s
learning context is needed.
8. Key concepts in second language acquisition
A. Nature vs. nurture
How much of human language learning derives from innate predispositions (genetic
pre-programming) and how much of it derives from social and cultural experiences which
influence us as we grow up? Skinner: Language could be learned primarily by imitating
caretakers’speech. Chomsky: Human language is too complex to be learned. We must have
some innate predisposition to expect natural languages to be organized in particular ways.
B. Competence and performance Competence refers to the abstract and hidden representation
of language knowledge held inside our heads, with its potential to create and understand
original utterances in a given language (e.g. rules of grammar, vocabulary). Performance is an
imperfect reflection of competence, partly because of the processing complications which are
involved in speaking or other forms of language production, and which lead to errors and
slips (e.g. four language skills).
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C. Fossilization Learners seem to cease to make any visible progress, no matter how many
classes they attend, or how actively they continue to use their second language for
communicative purposes.
Psycholinguistic explanation:
The language-specific learning mechanisms available to the young child simply cease
to work for older learners, and no amount of effort and study can recreate them.
Sociolinguistic explanation: Older L2 learners do not have the social opportunities, or the
motivation, to identify with the native speaker community. D. L1 interference as a learner
strategy: Corder (1978) outlines one way in which “interference” can be recast as a learner
“strategy” He suggests that the learner’s L1 may facilitate the developmental process of
learning a L2. When learners experience difficulty in communicating an idea because they
lack the necessary target language resources, they will resort to their L1 to make up the
insufficiency. This explains why the L1 is relied on more at the beginning of the learning
process than later.
A rather similar proposal is made by Krashen (1981), when he suggests that learners
can use the L1 to initiate utterances when they do not have sufficient acquired knowledge of
the target language for this purpose. Both Corder’s and Krashen’s proposals view the L1 as a
resource which learners can use for ad hoc translation to overcome their limitations. E.
Communication Competence.
The term ‘communicative competence’ was coined by Dell Hymes (1967), a

sociolinguist who was convinced that Chomsky’s (1965) notion of competence was too
limited. In the 1970s, research on communicative competence distinguished between
linguistic and communicative competence (Hymes 1967) to highlight the difference between
knowledge ‘about’ language forms and knowledge that enables a person to communicate
functionally and interactively. Cummins (1981) proposed a distinction between
cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) and basic interpersonal communicative
skills (BICS). CALP is that dimension of proficiency in which the learner manipulates or
reflects upon the surface features of language outside of the immediate interpersonal context.
BICS, on the other hand, is the communicative capacity that all children acquire in order to
function in daily interpersonal exchange. Seminal work on defining communicative
competence was carried out by Michael Canale and Merrill Swain (1980).
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In Canale and Swain’s (1980), and later in Canale’s (1983) definition, four different
components make up the construct of communicative competence. The first two
subcategories reflect the use of the linguistic system itself.
(1) Grammatical competence is that aspect of communicative competence that

encompassed ‘knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-
grammar semantics, and phonology”. It is the competence that we associate with mastering
the linguistic code of a language, the ‘linguistic’ competence of Hymes.
(2) Discourse competence: it is the ability we have to connect sentences in stretches

of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of a series of utterances. While grammatical
competence focuses on sentence-level grammar, discourse competence is concerned with
intersentential relationship. The last two subcategories define the more functional aspects of
communication.
(3) Sociolinguistic competence is the knowledge of the sociocultural rules of

language and of discourse. This type of competence ‘requires an understanding of the social
context in which language is used: the roles of the participants, the information they share,
and the function of the interaction. Only in a full context of this kind can judgments be made
on the appropriateness of a particular utterance’ (Savignon 1983).
(4) Strategic competence: “ the verbal and nonverbal communication strategies that
may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to
performance variables or due to insufficient competence” (Canale and Swain1980). It is the
competence underlying our ability to make repairs, to cope with imperfect knowledge, and to
sustain communication through ‘paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, hesitation, avoidance,
and guessing, as well as shifts in register and style’ (Savignon 1983). F. Communicative
Language Teaching (CLT) CLT is best understood as an approach not a method. Brown
(1993) offers the following four interconnected characteristics as a definition of CLT:
Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of communicative competence and not
restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence. Language techniques are designed to
engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful
purposes. Organizational language forms are not the central focus but rather aspects of
language that enable the learner to accomplish those purposes.
Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying

communicative techniques. At times fluency may have to take on more importance than
accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use. In the
communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language, productively and
receptively, in unrehearsed contexts. Students are given opportunities to focus on their own
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learning process through an understanding of their own styles of learning and through the
development of appropriate strategies for autonomous learning. The role of the teacher is that
of facilitator and guide, not an all-knowing bestower of knowledge. CLT suggests that
grammatical structure might better be subsumed under various functional categories.
In CLT we pay considerably less attention to the overt presentation and discussion of
grammatical rules than we traditionally did. CLT often makes it difficult for a nonnative
speaking teacher who is not very proficient in the second language to teach effectively.
Dialogues, drills, rehearsed exercises, and discussions of grammatical rues are much simpler
for the average nonnative speaking teacher to contend with. G. Interlanguage
The term ‘interlanguage’ was coined by Selinker (1969, 1972) to refer to the interim
grammars constructed by second-language learners on their way to the target language. The
term won favor over similar constructs, such as ‘approximative system’ (Nemser 1971) and
‘transitional competence’ (Corder 1967). Since the early 1970s ‘interlanguage’ has come to
characterize a major approach to second-language research and theory. The interlanguage is
thought to be distinct from both the learner’s first language and form the target language. It
evolves over time as learners employ various internal strategies to make sense of the input
and to control their own output.
Selinker (1972) argued that the interlanguage, which he saw to be a separate

linguistic system resulting form the learner’s attempted production of the target language
norm, was the product of five central cognitive processes involved in second-language
learning:
1. Language transfer from the first language.
2. Transfer of the training process used to teach the second language.
3. Strategies of second-language learning.
4. Strategies of second-language communication.
5. Overgeneralization of the target language linguistic material.
The development of the interlanguage was seen by Selinker as different from the
process of first-language development because of the likelihood of fossilization in the second
language. Fossilization is the state of affairs that exists when the learner ceases to elaborate
the interlanguage in some respect, no matter how long there is exposure, new data, or new
teaching. Interlanguage and learning strategy: Selinker et al. (1975) argued that an analysis of
the children’s speech revealed a definite systematicity in the interlanguage.
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For Selinker interlanguage referred to an interim grammar that is a single system
composed of rules that have been developed via different cognitive strategies – for example,
transfer, overgeneralization, simplification, and the correct understanding of the target
language. Interlanguage as rule-governed behavior: In contrast to Selinker’s cognitive
emphasis, Adjemian (1976) argues that the systematicity of the interlanguage should be
analyzed linguistically as rule-govern behavior. Like any language system, interlanguage
grammars are seen to obey universal linguistic constraints and evidence internal consistency.
Whereas Selinker’s use of interlanguage stressed the structurally intermediate nature of the
learner’s system between the first and the target language, Adjemian focused on the dynamic
character of interlanguage systems, their permeability
Interlanguage systems are thought to be by their nature incomplete and in a state of

flux. Interlanguage as a set of styles: Tarone (1979) maintained that the interlanguage could
be seen as analyzable into a set of styles that are dependent on the context of use.
Tarone proposed a capability continuum, which includes a set of styles ranging from
a stable subordinate style virtually free of first-language influence to a characteristically
superordinate style where the speaker pays a great deal of attention to form and where the
influence of the first language is more likely to be felt. The more careful superordinate style
shows the intervention of a consciously learned rule system. (Capability continuum assumes
that the learner’s competence is made up of a continuum of styles, ranging from the careful to
the vernacular.
The style used in a particular situation is determined by the degree of attention paid to
language form, which in turn is a reflection of social factors and personal style.) More
specifically, Tarone (1983) proposed that variability in the interlanguage can be accounted for
by a system of variable and categorical rules based on particular contexts of use. Like
Adjemian, Tarone assumed that the interlanguage is a natural language, obeying the
constraints of the same language universals and subject to analysis by means of standard
linguistic techniques.
She went beyond Adjemian in claiming that language production show systematic
variability, similar to that demonstrated to exist in the speech of native speakers. Thus she
added to Adjemian’s linguistic perspective a sociolinguistic point of view.
For Tarone, interlanguage is not a single system, but a set of styles that can be used in
different social contexts. To summarize, the views of interlanguage that guides early research
saw second-language learners as possessing a set of rules of intermediate grammars. Slinkier
and Adjemian stressed the influence of the first-language on the emerging interlanguage. The
authors differed, however, in that Selinker hypothesized that interlanguages are the product of
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different psychological mechanisms than native languages and hence are not natural
language. Adjemian and Tarone viewed interlanguages as operating on the same principles as
natural languages, but Tarone differed form Adjemian in that she stressed the notion of
variability in use and the pragmatic constraints that determine how language is used in
context.
9. The Role of the First Language Transfer as process:
The end result was the same, but the processes differed because of differences in first
language. Speakers of some languages take longer to learn certain forms than do speakers of
other languages because their own first languages have similar forms. Transfer is predicted to
occur when the perceived similarity between the two languages is great and when the
structures involved are unmarked.
A number of studies (Gass 1979; Jordens 1977; Rutherford 1982) support these
predictions. More marked structures are those that the person thinks of as irregular,
infrequent, and semantically opaque. More regular (unmarked) forms are viewed by learners
as transferable to the target language, assuming that the two languages are thought to be
similar.
The first language does affect the course of interlanguage development, but this
influence is not always predictable. Interlanguage theory concerned with describing a limited
range of second-language phenomena. These include the question of systematicity and
variability in the performance of language learners, the question of how the emerging system
develops and the role of transfer from the first language in this process. Interlanguage theory
has had a relatively minor impact on pedagogy.
Conclusions:
To conclude, language teachers ought to be aware of student personality as a factor,

in order to optimise their students’ learning. Teachers can use a variety of activities and
assessment methods to suit the various learning styles and strategies adopted by the students.
Additionally, the use of computers (CALL) to aid their teaching is also a move that is well
encouraged and celebrated. A good amalgamation of these strategies and tools should be on
its way to achieving effective language learning and effective language teaching, a goal we all
want. Of course, second language learning is a two-way affair. As much as the teachers are
trying their best to cater to their students’ learning styles and optimise the strategies, the
learners have to also do their part in the journey towards SLA.
Summary:
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Language acquisition is the process whereby children learn their native language. It
consists of abstracting structural information from the language they hear around them
and internalising this information for later use. This conception of language acquisition can explain
why one can produce a theoretically unlimited set of sentences in one's native language. This stance is
known as the nativist view and contrasts with an earlier empiricist view.
• Linguists nowadays assume that a large body of general knowledge concerning the structure of
language in general is genetically encoded (in what is sometimes called the Language Acquisition
Device) so that when exposed to a particular language children can grasp very quickly what values
this language has for certain features — so-called parameter setting.
• There are fairly definite stages which a child goes through during early language acquisition. These
form a progression from the babbling stage to that of the multi-word sentence. The first
comprehensible word is usually uttered between nine months and one year. By the age of 6 or 7 a
child has acquired all the structural features of his/her native language.
• In the early stages children exhibit a phenomenon known as overextension in which they use words
with too great a scope. This illustrates a principle of early language acquisition: children move from
the general to the particular, refining their knowledge of their language as they proceed. Furthermore
one can claim that those elements and features which appear earliest are natural and unmarked in a
statistical sense across the world's languages. This applies for instance to syntax where major lexical
categories appear first or to phonetics where vowels and sonorants appear before obstruents.
• A strict distinction exists between first and second language acquisition inasmuch as the latter is
acquired after puberty (the watershed for acquiring a language with native-like competence). Second
language acquisition is usually guided (also called controlled) as opposed to that of the first language
which is natural.
• The knowledge which children build up is very largely unconscious. For instance it is not possible
for a child to verbalise his/her knowledge about syntactic structures although he/she is perfectly well
able to apply this when producing sentences.
• Language acquisition is paralleled by other linguistic situations, notably by that

of creolisation where speakers with little or no linguistic input manage to create a new language is a
very short period. Furthermore, it may be that features of early language acquisition — such
as metanalysis in the history of English — are carried over into adulthood and become permanent in a
given language.
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• There are different models of second language acquisition which reflect the manner in which
learners gain knowledge of the new language, either in a similar manner to their native language —
the identity hypothesis — or against the background of this — the interference hypothesis. There are
also models which emphasise how a second language is produced (monitor model) or which stress the
role of external factors (discourse and acculturation models).
TASK :
Students are ask to summarize the lesson and there will be an oral recitation via ZOOM
POST TEST
1. Which among the following statements is not true?

a. Language is a means of communication
b. Language is symbolic
c. Language is structural
d. Language is the only means of communication
2. Who defined language as “a set or (finite or infinite) sentences, each finite

in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements”
a. Noam Chomsky
b. Ferdinand de Saussure
c. Edward Sapir
d. None of the above
3. Who defined language as “a purely human and non-instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily
produced symbols” ?
a. Noam Chomsky
c. Edward Sapir
4. Which among the following is not a characteristic feature of language?
a. Language is systematic
b. Language is arbitrary
c. Language is dynamic
d. Language is instinctive.
5. The theory which is based on the assumption that language originated

as a result of human instinct to imitate sounds:
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a. Ding Dong theory
b. The Bow-vow theory
c. The Pooh-pooh theory
d. The Gesture theory
6. The theory which is based on the assumption that language originated
in the sense of rhythm innate in man:
a. Ding Dong theory
7. The theory which is based on the assumption that language originated as
a result of the involuntary exclamations of pain, surprise, pleasure or
wonder:
a. Ding Dong theory
8. The theory which Is based upon the assumption that language has been
formed from the words uttered by groups of persons engaged in joint
burdensome labour:
a. The Yo-He-Ho Theory
b. The Gesture theory
c. The Poo-Pooh theory
d. Ding-Dong theory.
9. The Ding-Dong theory of the origin of language was advanced by:
a. Wilhelm Wundt and Sir Richard Paget
b. Noire
c. Max-Muller
d. Otto Jepersen
10. The Yo-He-Ho Theory of the origin of language was advanced by:
b. Noire
c. Max-Muller
d. Otto Jepersen
11. The Musical Theory of the origin of language was advanced by:
b. Noire
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c. Max-Muller
d. Otto Jespersen
12. Words like ‘Buzz’, ‘Hiss’, ‘thud’ etc. which represents the sounds of
their referents are known as --------
a. Onomatopoeia
b. Homophones
c. Homonyms
d. Portmanteau
13. Find the odd one out
a. Ferdinand de Saussure
b. Edward Sapir
c. Leonard Bloomfield
d. Herman Gundert
14. Which among the following is an exception to the property of

arbitrariness of language?
a. Onomatopoeia
b. Homophones
c. Homonyms
d. Portmanteau
15. Human language is structured at the levels of phonemes and morphemes
and at the level of words. This property of language is called-------
a. Duality of structure
b. Recursiveness
c. Displacement
d. Transference.
16. Using a finite set of rules a speaker can produce innumerable
grammatical utterances. This property of language is called-------
b. Recursiveness
c. Displacement
d. Transference.
17. Human beings can talk about experiences, objects and events which
are not present at the time and place of speaking. This property of
language is called-------
b. Recursiveness
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c. Displacement
d. Transference.
18. It is possible to write down spoken language and read aloud the
written material. This property of language is called-------
b. Recursiveness
c. Displacement
d. Transference.
19. Language is never static. It goes on changing. This property of
language is called-------
a. Dynamic
b. Recursiveness
c. Displacement
d. Transference.
20. There is no positive relationship between a speech and sound. This
property of language is referred to as------
a. Arbitrariness.
b. Recursiveness
c. Displacement
d. Transference.
21. The type of study of the changes in language over a span of time is
called--------
a. Synchronic
b. Diachronic
c. Semiotic
d. Onomatopoeic
22. The type of study which focus on the analysis of the systematic
interrelation of the elements of a single language at a particular time is
called--------
a. Synchronic
b. Diachronic
c. Semiotic
d. Onomatopoeic
23. The systematic study of signs is called-----
a. Semiotics
b. Semiology
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c. Both “a” & “b”
d. Neither “a” not “b
24. The term semiotics was introduced by

a. Charles Sanders Pierce
b. Ferdinand de sauddure
c. Noam Chomsky
d. Edward Sapir
25. The term semiology was introduced by
c. Noam Chomsky
d. Edward Sapir
26. Who introduced in linguistics the concept of Langue and Parole?
c. Noam Chomsky
d. Edward Sapir
27. Who introduced in linguistics the concept of Competence and
Performance?
c. Noam Chomsky
d. Edward Sapir
28. Who introduced in linguistics the concept similar to Saussure’s
Langue and Parole?
b. Leonard bloom Filed.
c. Noam Chomsky
d. Edward Sapir
29. Who introduced in linguistics the concept similar to Chomsky’s
competence and Performance?
b. Leonard bloom Filed.
c. Ferdinand De Saussure.
d. Edward Sapir
30. Which among the following implies the underlying rules governing the
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combination and organization of the elements of language?
a. Language
b. Parole
c. Competence
d. Both langue and Competence
31. Which among the following implies the actual meaningful utterance of
the individual speaking or writing a given language?
a. Language
b. Parole
c. performance
d. Both parole and performance
32. -------refers to the linguistic norm specific to a geographical area,
social class or status affecting mutual intelligibility
a. Dialect
b. Idiolect
c. Register
d. Slang
33. --------is the totality of the speech habits of an individual
a. Dialect
b. Idiolect
c. Register
d. Slang
34. A collection of similar Idiolect make up -------
a. Dialect
b. Idiolects
c. Register
d. Slang
5. The language variety which has certain features which are typical of
certain disciplines, topics, fields, occupations and social roles played by
the speaker, is called--------
a. Dialect
b. Idiolect
c. Register
d. Slang
36. A person who has the ability to use only one language is called-----
a. Monologue
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b. Monolingual
c. Monologal
37. A person who can use two languages is called-----
a. Biolingual
b. Bilingual
c. Duo-lingual
d. Duo-langual
38. A person who can use more than two languages:
a. Multilingual
b. Poly-lingual
c. Bilingual
d. Poly-langual
39. -------refers to an individual’s equal and native command of two or
more languages
a. Bilingualism
b. Poly-glotism
c. Multilingualism
40. -------------is the study of how the mentally represented grammar of
language is employed in the production and comprehension of speech
a. Socio-linguistics
b. Psycho-linguistics
c. Neuron-linguistics
d. Physio –linguistics
41. -------is the discipline where the methodological perspectives of both
linguistics and sociology converges
a. Linguistics of sociology
b. Socio-linguistics
c. Sociology of linguistics
d. None of these
42. Which among the following does not constitute the scientific nature of
linguistics
a. Systematic gathering and analysis of data
b. Determination of causal relationship between facts
c. Chronological presentation of data
d. Verification, validation and generalization.
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43. Which among the following does not constitute the general
methodology of science
a. Controlled observation
b. Hypothesis formulation
c. Analysis, generalization and prediction
d. Speculation
44. Which among the following is not an aim of linguistics

a. To study the nature of language
b. To establish a theory of language
c. To propound stories of the origin of language
d. To describe a language and all languages
45. Which among the following is not a branch of linguistics
a. Phonology
b. Morphology
c. Semantics
d. Philology
46. The older term used to designate the study of languages is------
a. Philology
b. Haplology
c. Phonology
d. Semiology
47. The study of elementary speech sounds is called----
a. Phonology
b. Morphology
c. Syntax
d. Semantics
48. The study ordering of speech sounds into the smallest meaningful
groups is called----
a. Phonology
b. Morphology
c. Syntax
d. Semantics
49. The study of the way that sequences of words are ordered into
phrases, clauses, and sentences is called------
a. Phonology
b. Morphology
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c. Syntax
d. Semantics
50. The study of meaning is called----
a. Phonology
b. Morphology
c. Syntax
d. Semantics
REFERENCES:
Boysson-Bardies, B.de. (1999). How Language Comes to Children: From Birth to Two Years.
Massachusetts: MIT Press. Bybee, J. (2010). Language Usage and Cognition. Cambridge, UK; New
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Module For Language Acquisition

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Module For Language Acquisition

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SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES AGRIBUSINESS MARINE AND AQUATIC SCHOOL OF

MALITA, DAVAO OCCIDENTAL

PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE

COMPILED AND EDITED BY:

SHEILA JANE S. YAP, MA

was raised in Malita Davao Occidental married to Mr. Nathan

Davao Oriental State University, Mati City , BSED major in

English. She earned her Master’s degree in Ateneo De Davao

employed at Southern Philippines Agri-Business Marine and Aquatic School Of Technology,

in the English Department of the said school.

TITLE PAGE ………………………………………………………………………………

ABOUT THE COMPILER ………………………………………………………………..

TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………………….

INSTRUCTION TO USERS ………………………………………………………………

GENERAL OBJECTIVES ……………………………………………………………….

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES ……………………………………………………………….

LESSON 1 – THE HUMAN BRAIN …………………………………………………..

LESSON 2 – THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE ………………………………………

LESSON 3 – THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE……………………………..

LESSON 4 – LANGUAGE AND SPEECH DEVELOPMENT……………………..

LESSON 5 – LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT (basic concepts of language system)

LESSON 6 –HUMAN LANGUAGE VS. ANIMAL COMMUNICATION …….

LESSON 7 –FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION…………………………………….

LESSON 8 – SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION…………………………………

POST TEST ……………………………………………………………………………..

LIST OF REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………..

1. The idea that ‘Language is not learnt by groups’ relates to.

2. The use of strategies on second language acquisition relates to

3. The idea that ‘Human beings are emotional creatures’ relates to

A. Gardner’s Educational Model

C. Spolsky’s Model of second language learning

A. Gardner’s Educational Model

B. Skehan Model of Influence on Language Learning

C. Spolsky’s Model of second language learning

B. Brown & Fraser’s Framework

C. The “Good Language Learner’ Model

A. Gardner’s Educational Model

B. Skehan Model of Influence on Language Learning

C. Spolsky’s Model of second language learning

17. The process of becoming adapted to a new culture”

A. Socio Educational Model

18. It states the reciprocity of motivation and language learning

A. Socio Educational Model

19.Write the 4 types of motivation

20. Write the 4 components of language aptitude

24. Techniques of coping with difficulties in communicating in an imperfectly known second

25. This is NOT a learning strategy.

THE HUMAN BRAIN

The Structure And Function Of The Human Brain

Presentation of VIDEO CLIP from YOUTUBE about Brain and Language

Dr. C. George Boeree

THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUSITION

1. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development

2. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior

- The sensorimotor stage from ages 0 to 2 (understanding the environment)

4. Cognitive Theory: The Language Acquisition View

5. The Discourse Theory

6. The Speech Act Theory

8. The Monitor Model

(1) The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

(2) The Natural Order Hypothesis

According to the hypothesis, the acquisition of grammatical structures proceeds in a predicted

(3) The Input Hypothesis