Language acquisition the early years

1. Language Acquisition: The Early Years
Introduction
In the first five year period, children learn all the major
aspects of language like grammar, vocabulary and
pronunciation that are necessary to speak and understand
their first language. We generally acquire our first
language naturally without any formal education in that
period. According to linguists, every child can acquire
his/her first language if they are exposed to a language
friendly environment regardless their intellectual or
socioeconomic differences.
Goals and Methods
Like all sciences, the study of language acquisition tries to
describes and explain how children acquire their native
language. Identification of problem, hypothesis formation
on the basis of theories, hypothesis testing by experiments
and observation and hypothesis confirmation or
modification are the stages of methods of the study of
language acquisition. In experimenting with how language
acquisition takes place among children, developmental
psycholinguistics develops hypothesis from theories and
tests them empirically. The real utterances produced by
children in natural environment are grouped for sample
data, and they are thoroughly studied.

2. Children's English and the development of Grammar
Children learn the English grammar systematically but
different from adults. They, at this early stage of learning
their first language, mostly use content words such as
nouns, verbs and adjectives, and systematically omit
function words such as auxiliary verbs, articles,
prepositions and pronouns. They have creative ability to
produce utterances according to their own system of rule.
They are also good at generalization of grammatical rules
which they apply in other situations.
For example:
 Bag – Bags, Ball – Balls etc. (Regular Plural)
 Foot – Foots, Mouse – Mouses etc. (Generalization of
Grammatical Rules)
 Foot – Feet, Mouse – Mice etc. (Irregular Plural)
Caregiver Language
The language used by the caregiver of the child from its
birth to the age of five is often termed as Child Directed
Speech (CDS). The child's caregiver systematically use
CDS, and their language has more nouns than pronouns
and speak about topics directly related to the physical
surrounding of the interaction. They also use simple
vocabulary and grammatical forms that the child can
understand. Generally, caregivers do not correct mistakes

3. in children's grammar and pronunciation because children
are reluctant to correct their error.
Theories of Language Acquisition
The major concept of the theory of language acquisition
are as follows:
 Children create original linguistic forms that are not
present in their linguistic environments.
 Children utterancesare rule-governed.
 Children are not good conscious imitator of grammar
or phonology.
 Children's speech grows in phonological and
grammatical complexity until it matches the speech
of their community.
 Caregivers generally do not correct phonological and
grammatical errors in children's developing English.
 Caregivers respond positively to children's attempts
to communicate even though the utterancesare often
linguistically incorrect.
Behaviorist Theory and Creative Construction Theory
have tried to explain the process of the language
acquisition. Behaviorist theory or imitation-
reinforcement theory (IR-Theory) claims that children
learn a language through imitation and reinforcement. In
other words, children are rewarded when they use correct

4. forms of language and given correction when they make a
linguistic errors. But this theory cannot explain why
children create new utterances instead of imitating adult
speech. Similarly, it also fails to explain how children's
utterances are rule-governed. Studies have shown that
children are good creators but bad imitators of language.
Therefore, behaviorist theorycannot explain how the child
really acquires his/her mother tongue.
Unlike IR-Theory, Creative Construction Theory
believes that the children are excellent creators of new
utterances that they have never heard before. This theory
argues that every child is born with an innate capacity to
acquire his/her first language. The child's innate capacity
starts to work as he/she is exposed to meaningful
environment. As the child grows, it helps the child to add
complexity to his rules very similar to the adult's speech.
Although CC theory is more adequatethan the IR-Theory,
the CC theory is also not free from some weaknesses.
In conclusion, many language acquisition theorists and
researchers are still trying to address how language
acquisition process takes place.