The document discusses language acquisition, highlighting that children learn complex grammatical systems innately without formal teaching. It outlines various stages of language development and introduces concepts like the innateness hypothesis, the role of the environment, and bilingual language acquisition theories. Additionally, it touches upon differences in second language acquisition and teaching methods suited for learners.

1. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
We are designed to walk… That
we are taught to walk is
impossible. And pretty much the
same is true of language. Nobody
is taught language. In fact you
can’t prevent the child from
learning it.
Noam Chomsky, The Human Language Serie 2 (1994)

2. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Language is extremely complex
• Children before 5 already know the complex system that
make up the grammar of a language:
– Syntactic
– Phonological
– Morphological
– Semantic and pragmatic rules of grammar
• Children acquire a system of rules that enables them to
construct and understand sentences, most of them have
never produced or heard before.
• Children are creative in the use of language
• Nobody teach grammatical rules to the children

3. Mechanism of language acquisition
REINFORCE
MENT
ANALOGY
IMITATION
BEHAVIOURISM

4. COMPUTER MODEL
CONNECTIONISM MODEL
No grammatical rules are stored
anywhere
ANALOGY
Child’s environment has
Specific properties.
Reinforcement

5. MOTHERESE
HYPOTHESIS
Emphasize on
the role of the
environment in
facilitating
language
acquisition
Adults speak to
children in a special
language
CDS

6. Analogy, imitation, and reinforcement
• Cannot account for language development.
• What the child acquires is a set of sentences rather than
a set of grammatical rules

7. Language Acquisition is a creative process
The innateness Hypothesis
Language faculty Children acquire Children create Brain is
Is innate. The a complex grammar grammars based equipped
Infant is endowed quickly and easily on the linguistic for
With a UG. Input and are acquisition
UG helps children guided by UG of human
to extract the rules language
of their language. grammar

8. STAGE IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Babbling: linguistic ability. Auditory input
• Holophrastic stage. Children’s utterance is one word.
• Telegraphic stage: Starting to put words together into sentences.
• The words and sentences that children produce at each stage of
development conform to the set of grammatical rules.
• Humans are born with a predisposition to discover the units that serve to
express linguistic meaning.

9. THE DEVELOPMENT OF GRAMMAR
PHONOLOGY
SYNTAX
PRAGMATIC
MORPHOLOGY
Children acquire the small set of
sounds
Common to all languages
Overgeneralization. Children
Acquire rules of their particular
language
Children understand word order
rules.
Language in context
By manner of articulation: nasal, glides
Stops, liquids, fricatives, and
africates.
Children’s utterances reflect
Their internal grammar.
Child assumes that his listener knows
Who is talking about.
By place of articulation features:
Labials, velars, alveolars and
palatals

10. KNOWING MORE THAN ONE LANGUAGE
• Second language acquisition or 2 acquisition, refers to the
acquisition of a second language by someone who has already
acquired a first language.
• Bilingual language acquisition refers to the simultaneous acquisition
of two languages beginning in infancy. (before 3)
Some amount of language mixing is normal part of early bilingual
acquisition process and not necessarily an indication of any
language problem.

11. THEORIES OF BILINGUAL DEVELOPMENT
• The unitary system hypothesis children initially construct
one lexicon one grammar
• The separate system hypothesis the bilingual child builds a
distinct lexicon and
grammar for each
language.
• Bilingual children develops their grammar along the same line as
monolingual children.
The rule of the thumb is that children receive equal input in the two
languages to achieve native proficiency in both.

12. Second Language Acquisition
• L2 learners construct grammars of the target language.
• Fundamental difference hypothesis: L2 acquisition is different from L1
• Interlanguage grammar- stages
• Transfer of grammatical rules from L1 to L2
• Age is a significant factor in L2 acquisition

13. Second language
Teaching Methods
Synthetic Approach
Bottom- up method
Analitical Approach
Top- down method
Teaching of the grammatical,
lexical,
phonological, and functional
Units of the language
The goal is to select topics, tasks
that are relevant to the needs
and Interests of the learner
Grammar translation
Content- based
instruction