2. What is language acquisition?
Language acquisition is the process by which humans
acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend
language, as well as to produce and use words and
sentences to communicate.
first-language acquisition, which studies infants'
acquisition of their native language
Laily
3. Language acquisition has some basic requirements;
Children require interaction with language-users
Particular language-using environment
Physical capability of sending&receiving sound
signals.
Laily
4. The acquisition schedule
All normal children develop language roughly at
the same time.
The language acquisition schedule has the same
basis as the development of motor skills.
Laily
5. Stages in first language acquisition:
Pre-speech:
• Infants learn to pay attention to speech, intonation and the rhythm of
speech long before they begin to speak.
• Respond to speech more keenly than to other sounds.
• Children learn to recognize the distinctive sounds, the phonemes of the
language they hear from birth long before they are able to pronounce
them.
Babbling stage:
• Begins at several months of age.
• Many native speech sounds may be absent. Very few consonant
clusters and repeated syllables are common.
Laily
6. Prelinguistic Sounds (goo-goo-gaa-gaa)
Cooing Stage
0-1 month (sleep, eat, cry)
1-4 months
Intonational patterns
Babbling Stage
5-12 months
Sounds – enviorement
Internal behaviour – not a response
6-9 months
different – select – sounds - enviorement
Stages in first language acquisition:
Laily
7. Stages in first language acquisition:
One-word Stage (holophrastic)
1 year
emergence of first word
Sounds relate to meanings (functions)
own action or desire action
to convey emotions
Naming function
single word – a whole sentences – meaning
‘Fis’ phenomenon
perception of phonemes ocurrs earlier than
the ability to produce those phonemes.
Laily
8. Two-word Stage
2 years
Two words, different combination of word order
Three possible interpretations
Subject-verb ‘Mary go.’
Verb-modifier ‘Push truck.’
Possessor-possesed ‘Mommy sock’
Words lack morphological and syntactic markers –
there is a word order
Stages in first language acquisition:
Laily
9. Telegraphic Stage
2 years
2-5 words with little extra morphology
Morphological overgeneralization
Easier, more productive morphemes first
Inflectional morphemes appear
Use of simple prepositions
Pronunciation is closer to adult one
Stages in first language acquisition:
Laily
10. The Acquisition Process
Roughly 4 year old child
Repeat what they heard in a different versions
Adopt lots of vocabulary from the speech they
hear
Do not correct the child
Laily
11. 2,5 years old – telegraphic speech forms
Inflectional morphemes
First – ing form
Next – plural s (overgeneralization)
Possessive inflection –’s
Different forms of the verb ‘to be’
First regular past tense forms
Later irregular past tense forms
The regular –s marker on third person singular
present tense verbs
Developing Morphology
Laily
12. In the formation of questions and the use of
negatives,
There are three stages
1. stage ( 18-26 months)
2. stage ( 22-30 months)
3. stage ( 24-40 months)
Developing Syntax
Laily
13. The child’s first stage
has two procedures.
Simply add Wh form
( Where, Who)
Rise in intonation
In the second stage,
more complex expressions
In the third stage ,
the required movement
of auxiliary (Can I have..)
Forming Question ..
Laily
14. Stage 1
Where Momy ?
Where horse go ? Sit chair ?
Stage 2
Why you smiling ? See my doggie?
Stage 3
Can I have ?
Why kitty can’t ( It doesn’t spread to all Wh questions
automatically)
Example,,
Laily
15. Stage 1 : putting no or
not at the beginning
(No sit here , no teddy bear)
In the second stage ,
the additional negative forms
don’t and can’t appear ,with no or not
( He no bite you I don’t want it)
Third stage : incorporation
of other auxiliary forms
( didn’t , won’t )
Children operate their own rules by forming
negatives. Adult correction is useless.
Forming Negative ..
Laily
16. Over extension
Followed by a gradual process of narrowing down
the application of each term as more words are
learned.
Lexical relations
( animal-dog-poodle)
Antonymous relations are acquired quite late.
Developing Semantics
Laily
