Lecture notes on acquisition of language structure

1. Acquisition of Language
Structure

2. • Language acquisition involves development in various components
• Lexicon
• Phonology
• Morphology
• Syntax
• Semantics
• These different components interact in complex ways to chart an
overall course of language development.

3. • Language acquisition research has shown that children in all speech
communities learn language similarly:
• babbling: about 6 months
• First words: about 1 year
• First grammatical morphemes: about 2 years
• Basic mastery: about 4 years
• Continues learning, especially vocabulary

4. • Before First Words -
• The earliest vocalizations
• Involuntary crying (when they feel hungry or uncomfortable)
• Cooing and gurgling – showing satisfaction or happiness
• ‘Babbling’ especially ‘reduplicative babbling’ e.g. ma ma, ba ba, da da
• babbling sequences sound very similar to the sentences spoken by the
caregivers
• Babies use sounds to reflect the characteristics of the different
language they are learning.

5. Acquisition of phonology
• The child is first exposed to the sounds of its immediate environment.
• From this input, the child learns and realises that certain sounds in that
language have distinctive functions, while others do not.
• The child does not memorise the utterances he or she hears, rather he or
she uses these sounds to construct a grammar which he can use to produce
and understand an infinite number of utterances.
• Most of the utterances he or she produces may be new or not identical to
what he has heard before.

6. • These grammars include how to mark plural, tense and suchlike.
• A child and a linguist do the same thing; a linguist analyses language
data to see how a particular grammar is produced.
• A child observes patterns of organisation of linguistic features of a
language to construct its grammar.
• Child’s language is not merely a gabbled version of adult speech.
• There is consistency in child’s language such that we can predict the
differences between child’s language and adults in regular ways.

7. • Just like in adult language, child’s language depicts issues of
competence versus performance.
• The child’s basic competence far exceeds that which is represented by
his or her speech.
• Regarding acquisition of phonology, one of the main researchers is a
Russian linguist, Roman Jakobson.
• In his 1941 and then 1976 publication Child Language, Aphasia and
Phonological Universals, he introduced the concept of ‘Laws of
irreversible solidarity'.

8. Laws of irreversible solidarity
• These are laws of implication that hold in the description of
phonological structure in languages in general.
• The laws contain that if a language contains a phonological feature Y,
it will contain X; however, the presence of X does not presuppose the
presence of Y.
• Similarly, if a child acquires Y, it means he has already acquired X,
whereas the presence of X does not presuppose the acquisition of Y.
• For instance, back consonants /k/ and /g/ presuppose presence of /p/
and /b/, but the reverse of this is not true i.e. this kind of solidarity is
irreversible.

9. • According to Roman Jakobson, acquisition of phonology proceeds
through eight major stages:
• Stage 1: contrast between consonants and vowels. Acquisition of
vowels begins with the central vowel /a/, and acquisition of
consonants is launched with /p/.
• The two combined produce syllable ‘pa’.
• Stage 2: first consonant opposition of oral and nasal stops
distinguishing ‘ma’ and ‘pa’ in ‘mama’ and ‘papa’.

10. • Stage 3: consonant opposition i.e. distinguishes between labials and
dentals.
• Stage 4: Vocalic opposition – distinguishes between vowels i.e. high
and low. Here, the mid vowel ‘ε’ emerges.
• Stage 5: emergence of the rounded high vowel ‘u’.
• Here, the fundamental vowel triangle is developed.
• These five stages constitute the child’s minimum phonemic system.
• Beyond this, all stages deal with Laws of Irreversible Solidarity, and
not merely the phonemic inventory development.

11. • Stage 6: Acquisition of fricatives. This presupposes acquisition of
stops.
• In earliest stages, child replaces fricatives with corresponding stops.
• Stage 7: Acquisition of back consonants, and this presupposes
acquisition of front consonants.
• Stage 8: deals with vocalic system. Child differentiates between
rounded and unrounded vowels.

12. Theories of phonological development in
children
• Research on phonological development has mostly focused on how
sounds occur as a child acquires language.
• This also includes how children mispronounce certain sounds.
• Put precisely, studies look at children’s perception and production of
speech sounds.
• Four theories have been developed to account for perception of speech
sounds, namely; Perceptual Learning Theory, Attunement Theory;
Universal Theory; and, Maturational Theory.

13. Perceptual Learning Theory
• It is a behaviourist theory.
• It states that the child’s perceptual capacity is blank.
• In the first years of life, the begin to pick up sounds from their
environments.
• Speech sounds that do not exist in their environment will be regarded
as noise.

14. Attunement Theory
• It claims that every child is born with the ability to learn and perceive
sounds.
• It also states that some sounds are universal i.e. they are found in all
natural languages e.g. stops.
• The theory states that children are born with these universal sounds or
basic sounds.
• Thus, as a child develops, he will maintain universal sounds and
acquire more to add on top of these.
• This is a nativist theory.

15. Universal Theory
• It is somehow similar to Attunement Theory in the sense that both
speculate that children are born with the capacity to perceive sounds.
• However, there is a difference between these theories.
• This theory explains that children are born with the capacity to
perceive all sounds in all languages.
• What the child does, according to this theory, is to lose sounds that are
not found in his language.

16. Maturational Theory
• The theory states that sounds develop as the child develops.
• This means that a child will only acquire specific sounds when he or
she reaches specific stages of development.
• Sounds are acquired in stages according to states of biological
development.

17. Methods used to test sound perception
• Three methods can be distinguished:
i. High Amplitude Sucking technique (HAS)
ii. Heartrate technique (HRT)
iii. Head Turning technique

18. High Amplitude Sucking Technique
• It is used on children about a month old.
• The child is given an object which he is supposed to suck. The object
will have wires attached to it and in turn the wires are attached to a
computer to measure the rate of sucking.
• At given intervals, different sounds are produced in a systematic pattern
while the rate of the child’s sucking is measured.
• A sound is produced for some time, and the rate of sucking declines, and
then another sound is introduced. If a child retakes the sucking, it is
concluded that he has perceived the sound, if not then he hasn’t.
• The aim is to see if the child is able to differentiate the sounds.

19. Heartrate technique
• This technique is used for children aged about three or four months
and above.
• The child is connected to wires which are in turn connected to a
computer, and a sound is introduced.
• If the child perceives the new sound, the heartbeat will increase, and if
the new sound is not perceived, the heartbeat will remain the same.

20. Head turning technique
• This is used on children aged 6 months and above.
• They introduce different sounds at given intervals. If the child
perceives the difference that a new sound has been introduced, they
turn their head towards the direction of the sound to see the object.
• If they don’t perceive the new sound, they don’t turn their head.

21. Production of speech sounds
• Research on speech sound production in language acquisition has
predominantly been done on:
i. The order of acquisition of sounds;
ii. Why children mispronounce adult speech sounds.

22. Order of acquisition
• Scholars have argued that the order of acquisition is correlated to the
universal characteristics of the sound system.
• This has been discussed in detail in the foregoing slides.

23. Why children mispronounce certain sounds
• Between the ages of 1 and 4 years, the child’s phonology goes through
predictable developmental stages.
• Children’s pronunciation is different from that of adults.
• Acquisition of phonology is rule governed. Children deviate from
adult pronunciation in a regular and systematic manner.
• The differences in children and adult pronunciations are a result of
phonological processes which changes a sound segment into another.

24. • Common phonological processes include stopping, devoicing,
consonant cluster reduction, syllable deletion, reduplication, vowel
harmony, consonant harmony, gliding, fronting, epenthesis and
metathesis.
Stopping
• A fricative or affricate changes into a stop
adult form child form gloss
tsitsi titi hair
Asisi titi sister

25. Gliding
• A lateral is replaced by a glide.
Adult child gloss
ankolo akoyo uncle
nsalu sayu cloth
galu gayu dog

26. Consonant harmony
• One consonant assimilates to another i.e. it becomes more like a
neighbouring consonant.
Adult child gloss
Nsapato papato shoe
Sopo popo soap
Buku kuku book
Choka koka get out of here

27. Consonant cluster reduction
• A consonant cluster is reduced to a single consonant.
Adult child gloss
Nkhaka kaka cucumber
Ankolo akoyo uncle
Ng’ombe bobe cow
Bwera beya come
Ndagwa aga I have fallen down

28. • Children go through these processes because of articulatory simplicity.
• It is easier to pronounce a stop and to articulate sounds that are the
same in adjacent syllables and the like.