1. FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

2. DEFINITIONS
1) “First language” (L1):
2) “Second language” (L2):
3) “Foreign language” (FL)
4) “Target language” (TL)

3. CHARACTERISTICS OF
CHILDREN S LANGUAGE
Their language development shows a high
degree of similarity among children all
over the world.
• PREDICTABILITY
• LEARNING THROUGH IMITATION
• CREATIVITY

4. Before First Words -
• The earliest vocalizations
–Involuntary crying
–Cooing and gurgling – showing
satisfaction or happiness

5. Before First Words -
“Babbling”
–Babies use sounds to reflect the
characteristics of the different
language they are learning.

6. First Words
Around 12 months (“one-word”
stage):
–one or two recognizable words
(esp. content word);
–Single-word sentences.

7. By the age of 2 (“two-word” stage):
1) at least 50 different words
2) “telegraphic” sentences (no function
words and grammatical morphemes)
e.g., “Mommy juice”, “baby fall down”
3) reflecting the order of the language.
e.g., “kiss baby”, “baby kiss”
4) creatively combining words.
e.g., “more outside”, “all gone cookie”

8. By the age of 4
– Most children are able to:
 ask questions,
give commands,
report real events,
 create stories about imaginary ones with
correct word order and grammatical
markers most of the time.

9. By the age of 4
–basic structures of the language
–less frequent and more complex
linguistic structures.
–use of the language in a widening
social environment.

10. • Development of Metalinguistic Awareness
• Development of Vocabulary

11. THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO L1
ACQUISITION
1) Behaviorism: Say what I say
2) Innatism: It’s all in your mind
3) Interactionist/Developmental perspectives:
Learning from inside and out
Bibliography: Lightbown, Patsy. Spada, Nina. “How languages are learned” 1993

12. 1) BEHAVIORISM: SAY WHAT I SAY
Skinner: language behaviour is the
production of correct responses to
stimuli through reinforcement.

13. Language learning is the result of:
 imitation (word-for-word repetition),
 practice (repetitive manipulation of form),
feedback on success (positive
reinforcement)
 habit formation.

14. The quality and
quantity of the
language that the
child hears
as well as the
consistency of the
reinforcement
offered by others in
the environment
would shape the
child’s language
behaviour.

15. Children’s imitations are not
random
Their imitation is selective and
based on what they are currently
learning.

16. Children’s practice of new
language forms
– substitution drills.
– It is selective and reflects what they would like
to learn.
– They pick out patterns/rules and then
generalize or overgeneralize them to new
contexts.