The document discusses language acquisition in 3 paragraphs: 1) It describes the stages of language acquisition from birth to 4 years old, including babbling, first words, and early grammar. 2) It outlines continued acquisition from ages 4 to adolescence, noting acquisition is more subtle but semantics and pragmatics continue developing. 3) It lists some research areas related to atypical acquisition and bilingual children.

1. 2012

2.  Language Acquisition
 Historical Change: English in the 18th Century
 Contemporary Language Change
 Maximizing your Marks – Do’s and Don’ts for
the Exam

3.  Summary:
◦ Nurture
◦ Nature
◦ How we know about acquisition
◦ Acquiring the sounds of the language
 Early vocalisations
 Babbling
◦ Acquiring the words of the language
◦ Acquiring the grammar of the language
◦ Acquisition up to around 4 years
◦ Acquisition in later childhood to adolescence
◦ Other research areas
 Described as “a paradox of constrained infinity”
 One idea to consider:
◦ Nature vs. Nurture
 Nature – an innate disposition. We are born with the
understanding of language
 Nurture – language must be taught and acquired.
In fact, both are important: Nature AND Nurture

4.  Children acquire the language they are exposed
to
◦ This can diverge from the adult model as children are
able to create their own utterances that they will not
have heard from adults;
 “doggy been fun time”, “me no blue ice man”
Consider deaf children:
they have no model to follow yet research has found a
spontaneous development of a form of signing (“Homesign”)
- “Even without a model children combined gestures into
strings that functioned like sentences of early child
language”
(Golding Meadow and Mylander 1990)

5.  Are we born with the ability to understand
language and speak fluently without any
prompts?
 Well, no.
 However, some theorists have found that
perhaps we are born with ‘puzzle solving’
equipment which helps us to understand the
complexities of language and help us to
decode it
◦ Chomsky (LAD)

6.  Observational data
◦ Parental diaries
◦ Recorded corpora
◦ Parental questionnaires
 Experimental data
◦ Both on comprehension and production
 E.g. Act-out and imitation
 Different types of studies
◦ Longitudinal studies
 Same children over time
◦ Cross-sectional
 Different children of different ages
◦ Single case studies
 Following one child for several years

7.  Awareness of prosody
◦ Studies have shown that babies in the uterus are
sensitive to stress and intonation of the mother’s voice
 Early differentiation between sounds
◦ Babies show an awareness of the differences between
sounds in their own language and sounds of a different
language, e.g. English compared to German
 Mutual gaze
◦ Babies monitor and copy their mother’s facial
expressions
 “Motherese”
◦ Caregiver speech, also known as CDS
◦ Characteristics of this are virtually universal, cross-
linguistically

8.  0-2 months – reflexive vocalisations
 2-4 months – cooing
 4-6 months – vocal play
Anatomy Sounds
Vocal tract is not developed
-High larynx and the tongue fills most of mouth
Reflexive sounds:
-Crying, Fussing, Coughing, Gargling
Unable to control muscles in tongue, lips and jaw Biological noises
Anatomy Sounds
Vocal tract maturing Cooing (c) V-like structure
Larynx starts descending (3months – 4years) Consonantal sounds – vegetative sound mechanisms
Lowering of jaw Vowel sounds – reflexive sound mechanisms
Increased control of voicing
Anatomy Sounds
Manipulating articulators
- Pitch, amplitude
Squeals and growls
Yelling
Ability to close the vocal tract Nasal murmurs and snorts
Begins marginal babbling

9.  6-9 months
◦ Canonical babbling
 Repeating syllables “gagagaga” “dadada” “mimimi”
 9-15 months
◦ Veriegated babbling
 Changing syllables “damidami” “gagogiga” “mimemi”
 Jargon
◦ The addition of intonation and rhythm begins to
become applied
 Babbling prepares children for words

10.  12 Months
◦ First words appear “protowords”
◦ Approximations and mispronunciations are
common
 E.g. ‘nana’ for ‘banana’
Children are trying to map sounds they hear onto
their own articulatory abilities

11.  From 1½ to 6 years a child acquires the
comprehension of an average of 5 or 6 new
words a day
 A 2 year old knows around 200 words, but by 6,
s/he knows some 14,000 words
 Children must map phonological form onto
meaning
 The ‘Fast-mapping’ phenomenon
◦ Grasping meaning of words on the basis of a few
incidental exposures; there was no explicit act of
teaching meaning
◦ Children remember at least some aspects of the
intended meaning several weeks later

12.  Children demonstrate sensitivity to grammar from
very early on, even before they are able to produce
any language
◦ E.g. Infants are sensitive to clause and phrase boundaries
◦ E.g. Infants can distinguish function words from content
words
 Words have to be ordered in some way – what
decides how?
 Principles of grammar are deemed to be innate and
invariant
 Parameters (a limited number of possible “settings”)
are fixed during the process of language acquisition
◦ E.g. Doggie gone, want juice, big teddy

13.  Between 2-3 years
◦ Sentences containing more than one clause (mostly
co-ordination)
 Around 3 years
◦ Subordinate clauses appear more often
 By around 4 years
◦ The major building blocks of language are in place
 Phonology
◦ Still some problems, e.g. stresses
 Occasional errors in syntax

14.  Changes are slow and much more subtle
 Some less common structures are yet to be mastered
 Carol Chomsky (1969)The Acquisition of syntax in
children from 5 to 10
 Change is obvious only in non-adjacent age groups
(e.g. 9yrs vs. 12yrs)
 Major expansions in semantics (word and sentence
meaning)
 Developments in pragmatics (language use in
context)
 Ability with figurative language continues to increase
throughout lifespan
 Eve V. Clark (2002) First Language Acquisition

15.  Development of children with language
impairment issues
◦ Specific language impairment
◦ Autism
◦ Down syndrome
◦ Dyslexia
 Understanding of language acquisition in bi-
lingual children

16.  Summary:
◦ Linguistic Issues and Developments in 18th Century
English
◦ Context of Change: Trends and Tendancies in the
History of English
◦ Sample Texts

17.  Rise of the normative approach to language:
◦ Huge increase in number of dictionaries (Johnson 1755) and grammars
(Lowth 1762)
◦ These texts were increasingly seen as guides to good/proper usage
 This use of language established social status and intelligence
 Consequences of prescriptive attitudes and process of
language codification:
◦ Previously common features (e.g. Double negatives and final prepositions)
are stigmatized
◦ Language use is increasingly important in terms of social status, identity
and prestige
 But this doesn’t mean there wasn’t still variation and change
in language:
◦ The impact of prescriptive guides and grammars was not immediate
◦ Variation remained, e.g. In terms of the different registers of language
used in different styles/genres of texts
Normative approach:
- Establishing language specifically
Prescriptivism:
- The idea that language change is not good and a specific set of
rules of usage was necessary
Codification:
- The selection of features seen as appropriate

18.  Spellings – standardization
◦ ‘long s’ <ſ> is an allograph (different way of
writing) of <s> until c.1800: <firſt> = first,
<croſſed> = crossed
◦ <-our> alternated with <-or> until mid 19th
century: honor/honour; color/colour
 Color = Latin
 Colour = Anglo Norman
◦ <-ick> in unstressed syllables until early 19th
century: musick, logick

19.  Grammar – changes and innovations that arose in the Early
Modern Period continue
◦ Completion of shift from third person singular <-th> (hath) to <-
s> (has)
◦ Completion of shift to you as 2nd person singular (subject and
object) pronoun from ‘thee’
◦ Completion of development of necessary ‘DO-support’ in
interrogatives and negatives
 Verbs of cognition (know, think, believe) remain an exception to this for a
while
◦ Perfect aux. + verb constructions restricted to HAVE + verb – it has
fallen (no longer it is fallen)
 HAVE rather than BE – this is seen as dramatical and can still be found in
dramatic genre texts
◦ Decrease in the use of subjunctive (if I were you) rather than if ‘I
was you’
◦ Increase in frequency, type and application of progressive
constructions
 Progressives with future meaning : I’m running a marathon next week
 Passive progressives : the house is being built (condemned by some in the
19thCentury)

20.  Rich inflectional
system
 Full unstressed vowel
pronunciations
 Many strong verbs;
various verb parts
 ‘strong’/’irregular’
features
 Sparse inflectional
system
 Reduced (schwa)
unstressed vowel
 Few strong verbs;
fewer verb parts
 ‘weak’/’regular’
features
Further back you Further modern you
go the more: As time progresses go the more:

21.  Some features worth mentioning can be
found after the slides of texts.
 Take into account the DATE of the text and
the GENRE of the text – also WHO wrote it and
WHO received it.

22.  The next Step to our Refinement, was the
introducing of Italian Actors into our Opera; who
sung their Parts in their own Language, at the
same Time that our Countrymen perform’d theirs
in our native Tongue. The Kind or Hero of the
Play generally spoke in Italian, and his Slaves
answer’d him in English [...] One would have
thought it very difficult to have carry’d on
Dialogues after this Manner, without an
Interpreter between the Persons that convers’d
together [...] I hope, we do put such an entire
Confidence in them, they will not talk against us
before our Faces, thought they may do it with the
same Safety as if it were behind our Backs.

23.  Capitalized nouns
◦ “The next Step to our Refinement”
◦ This is a German influence on the English language
which has since faded out of use
 Apostrophe on past tense verbs
◦ “perform’d”
◦ Historically represents the disappearance of an ‘e’ in
possessives
 Complexity of strong verbs with different
multiple parts
◦ ‘sung’ vs. ‘sang’
 Use of prepositions
◦ “after this Manner” instead of ‘in this manner’
◦ Prepositions change their meaning over time

24.  My dear friend: I know it will revive your
spirits to see from whence this Epistle is
dated even from a Place in which the happiest
moments of your life have passed. While the
multitude consider it just as the town of
Edinburgh and no more. How much more
valuable it is to you [...] you have attended
the Theatre, and there had your soul refined
by gentle Music, by the noble feelings of
Tragedy, by the lively flashes of comedy [...]

25.  Fewer capitalized nouns
◦ Used to be only used for emphasis before printing
capitalized all nouns
◦ Consideration of context – it is a letter to a friend =
informal
◦ “Music... Tragedy... comedy”
 Why is comedy non-capitalized in comparison to Music
and Tragedy?
 Lack of apostrophes on past tense verbs
◦ This feature has become less prevalent by this time
period

26.  Many Acknowledgements and thanks are due to
you for your ready compliance with my Request
in giving me a Translation of that hard passage
about ǺɩɑλɛУɛσϑɩɑ [Dialegesthai] which I could
not render into English with any Satisfaction.
Where the Sense so intirely depends on the
Etymology of a Word in ye Original, it requires
more Knowledge than I am Mistress of, to make
it clear in another language; and your friendly
Kindness in doing it for me is felt most cordially
and gratefully.

27.  Capitalization
◦ Sign of printers, and thus a sign of formality
 This is a FORMAL letter to a friend due to serious content, or
perhaps a gender issue as the writer is female yet the
recipient is male.
 The issue of the distorted thorn
◦ “ye” instead of ‘the’ is due to the distorted thorn
◦ Originally carved as:
◦ Then as circular lines became acheivable: þ
◦ Became distorted to:
◦ Which somehow became: y
 Preposition usage
◦ “I am Mistress of” – here the preposition is at the end of
the sentence, which was condemned by grammarians

28. He stayed till Friday morning. When he was gone, ‘What
say you to him, Miss Burney? cried Mrs. Thrale, I am
sure I offer you variety?’
‘Why I like him better than Mr. Crutchley – but I don’t
think I shal pine for either of them’?
‘Mr. Johnson, said Mrs. Thrale, don’t you think Jerry
Crutchley very much improved?’
Dr J. Yes, Madam, I think he is. Mrs T. Shall he
have Miss Burney?
Dr. J. Why – I think not; - at least, I must know more of
him: I must enquire into his connections, his
recreations, his employments, & his Character, for his
Intimates before I trust Miss Burney with him.

29.  Use of ‘DO-support’
◦ “What say you to him”
 ‘DO-support’ missing
◦ “I don’t think”
 ‘DO-support’ used for a cognitive verb is unusual
◦ “I think not”
 No ‘DO-support’ = irregularities throughout the text,
presumably due to different speakers having different
backgrounds and educations

30.  I have a thousand things to write and I Can’t
tell where to begin first – But I think Ill begin
from the time I left Fowey – Just as we was
getting out of the Harbour I saw you and
Cousin Polly out at St Catherines and I look’d
at you till I saw you get out at the Castle and
sit down upon the Bank the other side and I
look’d and look’d and look’d again till you
look’d so small that I Cou’d not discern you
scarcely only your red Cloak.

31.  Apostrophe usage
◦ “look’d”
◦ “Can’t”
◦ “Catherines”
◦ “Ill” (as in I will)
Consider why apostrophes are used and omitted within
this text with these four examples
 Use of subjunctive
◦ “Just as we was getting” – this was falling out of use
during this period, yet is still used here in 1792,
quite late in the period. Why do you think this is?

32.  Linguistic concepts and issues (AO2)
◦ “Who is the master?” (Humpty Dumpty, ‘Alice in Wonderland’)
◦ Diachronic and Synchronic
◦ Prestige and covert prestige
◦ Informalisation & Conversationalisation
 Contextual factors and key constituents of
language (AO3)
◦ Morphology – development of new lexis
◦ Discourse – underlying values

33.  The armchair method
◦ Looking at language change by analysing historical
texts
 The tape-recorder method
◦ Looking at language change by investigating
change as it happens around you

34.  There are 3 separate forms of COMPOUNDS
(2 words which create one meaning)
◦ Open
◦ Hyphenated
◦ Closed
 How would you form these words?
◦ Bath tub, Bath-tub or Bathtub
◦ Nappy rash, Nappy-rash or Nappyrash
◦ Meal time, Meal-time or Mealtime

35.  Diachronic
◦ Over time
 Synchronic
◦ Across regions, registers etc.

36.  Labov’s New York department store study
◦ Most prestigious form = rolled ‘r’ in Fourth Floor
◦ Less pretigious form = Fawth Flaw
◦ The prestigious form was found when people were
reading a word list or passage
◦ The less prestigious form was found in casual and
formal speech

37.  This is when a group use potentially
stigmatized forms, in contexts, that being to
gain prestige
 Is this because society is becoming more
democratic?
 Or is the youth of today becoming more
influential on culture?

38.  Spelling/punctuation
◦ Apostrophes
◦ Capitalizations
 Pronunciation
◦ Glottal stops – buh’er, instead of butter
◦ HRT (high rising tone at the end of sentences – Australian influence)

39.  Fairclough gave us the term
‘Conversationalisation’
◦ He found that the more modern a text is, the more
likely it is to have conversational features in it
regardless of text genre or formality
 Other people now call this ‘Informalisation’
◦ This is often used by advertisements as they break
down barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them’ by breaking
the barriers of formality

40.  Make annotations on all texts you are looking
at for your chosen question
 PLAN YOUR ANSWER in order to have a well-
structured answer that is fluent and cohesive
– this will be awarded the best marks
 Annotations and planning should take around
10-15 minutes

41.  What grammatical changes occurred from the 18th Century?
◦ “It is I”
 The subject pronouns is no longer used
◦ “To whom were you talking”
 Object ‘who’ not used
 This order due to avoiding ending the sentence with a preposition ‘to’
◦ “We have gotten together”
 Past participles beginning to drop ‘-en’
◦ “If it be your wish”
 Losing subjunctives
◦ “I shall”
 Future auxiliaries are changing, ‘I will’
◦ “Fewer” “less”
 Losing the rule that is something is a countable value it is ‘fewer’ and if it
is uncountable it is ‘less’
◦ “Himself” vs. “his self”
 Changing reflexive pronouns

42.  Pronunciation changes
◦ “I’m so heppy will you merry me?”
 Using an ‘e’ instead of an ‘a’ sounds rather archaic as
this would have been the done form a few centuries
ago
◦ “Do you have the tixt?”
 Replacing ‘e’s with ‘i’s sounds rather posh and is
becoming a prestigious form

43.  ‘A conceptualized response’
◦ This means you are looking at whole patterns not
just individual examples within the texts
 Investigation
◦ You can refer to your own findings from your
investigation within the exam
 Show your thought process
◦ Show different interpretations of features and their
usage where you can

44.  Show you’re thinking for yourself and engaging with the text
 Answer the question, do not just give an explanation of language
change or acquisition as a whole
 Make a plan
 Begin with a ‘big idea’/overall context
◦ Big idea – context/ what’s happening?/ what’s the aim of the person?
 Close in on evidence from the text
 You can bring AS topics into the exam also
 Cover a range of levels
◦ For example, look at the significance of one word, then look at the
meaning it implies through the whole sentence, then look at the sentence
structure, then the sentence type.
 Grammar is important to get higher marks
 Be tentative! This means don’t always say something IS what you
say it is, say that PERHAPS it is this because...
 Use precise terminology, the more precise it is the better!
◦ E.g. ‘Deontic modal auxiliary’ is better than ‘auxiliary verb’

45.  Do not tell the story of the English Language
 Do not tell the story of a child from 0+
learning to speak, read and write
 Do not use theorists just to get their names
in, it will award you no points
 Do not skate over an interesting point- go
into detail