ELD 211: ‘‘Language Acquisition and

Language Teaching’’
Mr. M. Pute
Department of Language Education, UWC

mpute@uwc.ac.za
Child Language Development and
Second Language Learning
PRECONDITIONS FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING
• Children begin to vocalize and then verbalize at different ages
and at different rates.
• Nevertheless, most children will learn their first language (a
highly complex and abstract symbol system) without conscious
instruction from their parents or caretakers and without obvious
signs of even making the effort.
• And they will experience no difficulty in doing so.
PRECONDITIONS FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING

• However, before learning can begin, children

must be ready to learn.
• They must be biologically, socially, and
psychologically mature enough to undertake the
task.
• There are therefore preconditions for language
learning: biological, social and psychological
preconditions.
Preconditions for Language Learning
Preconditions Central Idea Authors

Lenneberg
Biological Preconditions Biological factors play McNeill
an important role in
Lightfoot
language learning
Patterson & Holts
Moskowitz
Social Preconditions Language leaning is McCarthy
enhanced by social
Davis
interaction.
Cazden
McNeill
Language learning is
an intellectual J. Piaget
response two
Psychological Preconditions psychological Ginsburg & Opper
tendencies, i.e. Baldwin
organization &
adaptation.
Biological Preconditions

•Linguists do not agree on exactly how biological

factors affect language learning,
•but most do agree with Lenneberg (1964) that
human beings possess a capacity to learn
language that is specific to this species and no
other.
Biological Preconditions

•Lenneberg also suggested that language might

be expected from the evolutionary process
humans have undergone and that the basis for
language might be transmitted genetically.
Biological Preconditions

•As part of genetically endowed language abilities,

Lenneberg (1967) hypothesized a "critical period"
during which language learning proceeds with
unmatched ease.
Biological Preconditions

•A child's early years are especially crucial for

language development, because that is the period
before the two hemispheres of the human brain
lateralize and specialize in function.
Logical or Creative
analytical side of the
side of the brain.
brain.
Biological Preconditions
• As partial proof, Lenneberg discussed cases where
children in bilingual communities were able to learn
two languages, fluently and without obvious signs of
effort before the age of (about) twelve,
• but to learn a second language after the age of twelve
becomes enormously difficult for most people.
Biological Preconditions

• Some linguists are so impressed by the speed

and uniformity with which children all over the
world learn the complex and abstract system of
language.
• They are convinced that the parameters of what
can be a human language are biologically
determined.
Biological Preconditions

•McNeill (1970: 2-3) has even argued that the

notion of 'sentence' is inherited:
•The facts of language acquisition could not be as
they are unless the concept of a sentence is
available to children at the start of their learning.
Biological Preconditions

•The concept of a sentence is the main guiding

principle in a child's attempts to organize and
interpret the linguistic evidence that fluent speakers
make available to him/her.
Biological Preconditions

• These ideas are one part of the 'nativist'

position (discussed later in this chapter).
• There is not sufficient data to state conclusively
the contribution of biology to human language,
but all linguists acknowledge that biology does
play some role.
• In fact, neurologists know that the infant brain is
only 40% developed at birth.
Biological Preconditions

•The brain will not achieve its final shape for two
years, and many interconnections within the brain
will not be complete until the child reaches 7
years of age.
Biological Preconditions

• Some neurologists insist, therefore, that the

infant who struggles to gurgle and babble is not
attempting to articulate speech sounds.
• This is because the child has not attained
enough neuromuscular, biological, maturity to
control the vocal organs before the age of six
months.
Biological Preconditions

•Similarly, many neurolinguists would argue that

children's brains are biologically too immature to
comprehend several grammatical concepts
commonly used in languages around the world.
Biological Preconditions

•Concepts like plurals, auxiliary verbs, inflectional

endings, and temporal words will develop in all
languages in stages, stages that reflect the
biological maturation of the child's brain.
Biological Preconditions

•The fact that those stages of language

development are identical and predictable in all
languages further suggests that there are strong
biological preconditions for learning language.