First Language Acquisition Flashcards
How is first language acquisition studied?
1) Naturalistic observation
2) Experimentation
1) Naturalistic observation
= Researchers observe and record children’s spontaneous utterances
- Naturalistic studies are generally longitudinal.
E.g.: Parental diaries, tape recordings
2) Experimentation
= Researchers make use of specially designed tasks to test children’s comprehension, production or imitation skills
- Experimental studies are generally cross-sectional.
E.g.: Picture-choice, elicited production tasks
What do children learn?
1) Vocabulary development
2) Morphological development
3) Syntactic development
1) Vocabulary development
1) First 50 words: The average child has a vocabulary of fifty words around 18 months.
2) Vocabulary spurt = A switch from an early stage of slow vocabulary growth to a later stage of faster growth.
When children reach the 50-word milestone, vocabulary spurt occurs for most (but not all) children.
3) Later development: Word learning becomes even faster, averaging about ten words a day between the ages of 2 and 6.
Strategies for acquiring word meaning:
1) The whole object assumption = A new word refers to a whole object.
2) The type assumption = A new word refers to a type of thing, not just to a particular
individual.
3) The basic level assumption = A new word refers to objects that are alike in basic
ways.
Word meaning errors
1) Overextensions = The meaning of the child’s word is more general or inclusive than that of the corresponding adult form.
E.g.: All furry creatures are cats.
2) Underextensions = The meaning of the child’s word is used in an overly restrictive way.
E.g.: Only Siamese and Persian cats are cats.
2) Morphological development
U-shaped development:
1) Stage 1: Children initially memorise inflected words on a case-by-case basis without regard for general patterns or rules (e.g., feet, drew).
2) Stage 2: Children acquire general patterns and rules. They often overgeneralise the rules to irregular words (e.g., foots, drawed) and even to pseudo-words (see Berko’s Wug test).
3) Stage 3: Children learn that there are exceptions to the general rules and produce correct word forms (e.g., feet, drew).
Developmental order:
The development of bound morphemes and functional categories takes place in an orderly manner. All children typically follow this developmental sequence:
- -ing
- plural -s
- possessive -’s
- the, a
- past tense -ed
- third person singular -s
- auxiliary be
3) Syntactic development
1) One-word stage (1 - 1.5 years)
2) Two-word stage (1.5 - 2 years)
3) Telegraphic stage (2 - 2.5 years)
4) Later development/Complex Syntax
1) One-word stage (1 - 1.5 years)
Children produce single-word utterances that function as an entire sentence in adult speech.
At this stage, comprehension generally precedes production.
E.g.: “Ball” → ‘I am throwing the ball’
2) Two-word stage (1.5 - 2 years)
Children begin to put words together and produce two-word utterances.
E.g.: “Hit ball” → ‘I hit the ball’
3) Telegraphic stage (2 - 2.5 years)
Children produce longer and more complex grammatical structures.
E.g.: “Car make noise” → ‘The car is making noise’
4) Later development/Complex Syntax
1) Inversion in questions = Children find it easier to carry out the Inversion operation in yes/no-questions than in wh-questions (2.5 - 4 years).
E.g.: Should I sleep? → Only one MOVE operation
*Where I should sleep? → Two MOVE operations
2) Passives = Although children produce passive sentences from around age three, they have difficulty interpreting passive constructions until age seven.
E.g.: Utterance: The dog was bitten by the cat.
Child’s interpretation: The dog bit the cat.
Canonical sentence strategy: Children expect the first NP to be the agent and the second NP to be the patient.
Factors in first language acquisition
- Imitation
- Child-directed speech
- Feedback
- Cognitive development
