Language Aquisition

Language Aquisition

1. How do children aquire language?

   • Is a matter of naming, repeating and extending vocabulary
     • Language spoken to children is usually marked by many repetitions, a slower speed of speaking, a higher tone, a sometimes exagerated emphasis on particular words.
   • They have to practice the sounds and sound combinations that build up words, and learn how to combine those tings, persons and objects with each other through language.
   • Chomsky postulates that children have an innate language faculty containing the principles to which any language has to confokrm
     • The innate language faculty helps children to develop hypotheses about the rules of their mother tongue.
   • Is very quick and many types of errors are never made
     • Children do not make errors, they are an integral part of the process of language aquisition.
   • Language environment is equally crucial
     • Is the motor of the language aquisition process.
     • The interaction between the child and parents/carers plays a significant part.

2. The order of first Language Aquisition

   • Crying is the beginning of interactional communication
   • Pre-linguistic stage: learning basic rules of communication and experimenting with sounds and sound combinations.
   • Babbling: begins to sound like real language, having intonational patterns, theyy are not yet real words.
   • One-word and Two-word Stage: Begin to combine words, and gradually expand into utterances (1 to 2,5 years old).
     • There are omissions, substitutions and overextensions (the meaning of a word is strectched)
   • Differentiation Stage: all kinds of differents words will appear in the child´s language (2,5 and 5 years old)
     • Longer sentences and different word categories. Conjugation of verbs and declinations of other words (plural, adjetival inflection).
       • Overgeneralisation (Use of a grammatical rule were normally should not be)
       • Developmental errors: "mistakes" constructed as a natural part of the language aquisition.
   • Completion Stage: Know the basics of their first language (5 years old up)

3. Factors that influence the Aquisition of a Second Language

   • Foreign Language Learning usually takes place in schools where the Target Language is not the medium of communication
   • In Second Language Aquisition the target language is learned in the community where this language is spoken.
   • Age It is a critical item for language learning. The notion of critical period presupposes that a child will have aquired its mother tongue very early on. After that point it will be impossible, or very much harder to learn a language.
   • The period between 10 and 12 is often seen as the optimal age for learning a second language.
   • Contact with the Target Language. The more extensive the input and interaction in the second language, the faster and more effectively the language will be learned.
   • Motivation.
   • Attitude.
     • Motivation and attitude are not purely individual. They also invlove socio-cultural factors.
   • Language Aptitude
   • Role of Teaching and Learning. Often takes place in a school situation thet is far mores structured and directive.

4. The order of Secon Language Aquisition

   • Transitional Structures
     • Constitutes a developmental sequence
   • Interlanguage Stage
     • Learners are moving towards a steadily increasing proficiency in the second langiage
   • Fossilisation
     • When the second language aquisition process stops before it has reached the final level.
   • The order in which a second language is aquired is more or less the same as that for the first language. There is a natural, universal order of language aquisition.
   • Positive Transfer
     • The more similarities are between the first language and the second, the better and faster the aquisition process should be.
   • Negative Transfer
     • The fewer similarities, the slower and more difficult when two languages are very different.

5. Bilingual Development

   • Simultaneous bilingualism
     • When a father and a mother communicate with their child in their own language = paralel aquisition.
       • Children who grow uo bilingual may also show a fossilised aquisition in one language at some point in time, specially if that language is not the majority language or if the exposure to that language becomes less over time or restricted in use.
   • Sequential bilingualism
     • The later the bilingualism starts, the more difficult is for the child to learn both languages equally well. It can lead to an imbalance in the language development.