Language acquisition follows a predictable developmental schedule as children progress through stages of cooing and babbling, single words, two-word phrases, and telegraphic speech before developing adult-like syntax and morphology. Children require interaction with language models to acquire language through various stages of input that includes caregiver speech characterized by exaggerated intonation and slower tempo. The acquisition of language follows similar developmental patterns across languages like Turkish through stages of using pronouns, question words, and forming negatives.

1. Language Acquisition
Betül Gök
Yasemin Aydın
Dilek Göçer

2. What is language acquisition?
*The process by which humans acquire the capacity
to perceive and comprehend language.

3. Language acquisition has some basic requirements;
Children require interaction with language-users
Particular language-using environment
Physical capability of sending&receiving sound
signals.

4. INPUT
 Human infants are helped in their language
acquisition by older children&adults in home
environment who provide input for the child.
 The speech style adopted by someone who spend
a lot of time interacting with a baby is called
caregiver speech.

5. Features of caregiver speech;
 Frequent use of questions
 Using exaggerated intonation
 Extra loudness
 Slower tempo with longer pauses

6. Some examples from Turkey;
-hanimiş annesinin kuzusu?
-senin o buynuşunu yeyim ben
-uçak geliyor aç ağzını bakıyım
-babası ne almış oğluşuna araba mı almış?
-düştü mü kızım hop etti bebeğim hop etti

7. 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.

8. Cooing&Babbling
 Cooing is described as the earliest use of speech-like
sounds.
 0-2 months:Reflexive crying, vegetative sounds (coughs,
sneezes), Sounds reflecting their physical state.
 2-5 months : Cooing and laughter. Early consonants
develop, sounds from the back of throat, laughs and giggles
form (to the enjoyment of parents).
 4-6 months :Vocal play, babbling gets more adult-like,
range and pitch play,, bilabial trills are common
(raspberries).
 6-12 months :Reduplicated babbling ex: mamama, pitch
control develops, ability to sound out some consonants and
vowels.
 9-18 months :Non-reduplicative babbling, varying of
consonants and vowels.

9. First Language Acquisition
The one-word stage
 can begin to utter recognizable words
 phonemes that resemble words or simple
phrases
 Children’s first words typically employ the
same consonants children favor in the late
stages of babbling: stops [p, t, k, b, d, g],
nasals [m, n], and glides [y, w], and often
use consonant-vowel syllable structure. The
most preferred first vowel is a low back [a].
 Ba-ba, ma-ma sounds

10. The two-word stage
 develop more complex phrases
 a more complete thought than in the previous stage.
 ‘anne mama, baba gitti, su ver’, ‘kötü kedi’
 'Baby chair' could mean...
Possession: 'this is baby's chair'
Request/command: 'put baby in chair'
Statement: 'baby is in the chair'

11. Telegraphic speech
 the child’s analytical skills enhance
 their ability to form complete sentences emerges.
 Roughly age two
 Multiple-word
 ‘ deniz çay sevdi’, ‘ anne odada uyuyor’
 their vocabulary increases at a rate of as many as 10
words per week.

12. 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

13. Developing
Morphology
 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

14. Turkish Children
 Plural (çoğul eki –lar, -ler ) is begin to use at 20-23
months. ( arabalar , bebekler etc. )
 Children understand the pronouns at 2.5 years old and
use them at 3 years old (beni , bana , seni , sana , senin
) (benim arabam, senin oyuncağın )

15. Developing Syntax
 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)

16. Forming questions
 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.. )

17. Examples
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)

18. Examples from Turkish
 15-17 months ‘ne’ ( mu ne ? )
 18-20 months ‘nerede’ (neyde abba?)
 23-24 months ‘niye’ (niye vermiyorsun?)
 ‘hangi’ (hangi abba? )
 25-30 months ‘mi-ne zaman’
 INTONATION
 Child : Simiti kim aldı ?
 Mother : Simiti dayın aldı.
 Child : Dayı mı aldı ?
 Mother : Evet , dayın kendi aldı simiti.
 Child : Kendiiiii ???

19. Forming negatives
 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.

20. Examples from Turkish
 Anne yok / baba yok
 Oyun şimdi değil
 Turkish children use – me and –ma at 24. months
( gitme , oynama etc. )

21. Developing Semantics
 Overextension
 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.

22. Examples from Turkish
 A child says ‘Bak baba , araba’ (pointing out a bike ) –
overextension
 A child pointing out a horse and says ‘dog’