Language Acquisiton Flashcards
Language Acquisition
Children develop an understanding of pragmatic rules and the lexicon specific to the language they are exposed to.
First Language Acquisition Theories
Cognition, imitation, reinforcement, innateness, interactionist , critical period, input.
Cognition
Children begin speaking because they have ideas they wish to communicate, as proposed by psychologist Piaget.
Imitation
Children acquire language through mimicking others.
Reinforcement
Children learn through positive and negative reinforcement, receiving praise for correct language use and correction for errors.
Innateness
Noam Chomsky, suggests that humans possess a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) inherently, facilitating language acquisition.
Interactionist
Language acquisition in infants is heavily influenced by the linguistic environment and social interactions, particularly with caregivers during early childhood.
Critical Period
The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) operates effectively when it receives appropriate stimulation within a specific timeframe and context
Strong version
Children must acquire their first language before reaching puberty;
otherwise, their ability to learn languages from subsequent exposure will be severely compromised.
Weak version
Children can learn languages at any age, the process becomes more challenging and less comprehensive after puberty
Input
Emphasizes the relationship between language acquisition and the
environment
The Linguistic capacity of children
Children are inherently equipped with a Universal Grammar, aiding them in constructing the grammar of their language
Poverty of the stimulus
The linguistic input children receive is insufficient to explain their detailed language knowledge, thus suggesting an innate ability to learn language.
Language Acquisition Device
A tool proposed by the Innateness Theory, which asserts that language is intrinsic to all human beings
Stages in First Language Acquisition
The acquisition of a first language by children occurs in stages and is a universal phenomenon.
- Pre-talking stage / Cooing (0-6 months)
The baby begins to recognize his mother’s voice, and at the age of 5 and 6 months, he begins to use his voice, saying just vowels.
- Babbling stage (6-8 months)
Babbling is defined as the baby’s attempts at creating, experimenting, and imitating sounds
During babbling stage…
Children demonstrate phonological
development as they produce and experiment with various phonemes (sounds), resulting in phonemic expansion, 150 different sounds during this stage.
- Holophrastic / One-word stage (9-18 months)
Of these sentences, 50% are nouns, 30 % are verbs and modifiers and 20% are questions and negatives.
In one word stage children tend to….
overgeneralize. (a word is given a broader
meaning than it should have)
- Two-Word Stage (18-24 months)
Typically, one word serves as the subject, while the
other functions as the predicate.
What do children employ at the two-word stage?
Infants begin to employ the present continuous
tense or the suffix (-ing) in words to denote actions occurring at the moment of speech.
5.- Telegraphic Stage
The sentences that infants produce contain just enough
information to make sense or be understood.
What happens at the telegraphic stage?
It is said that within this stage, children’s
vocabulary expands from 50 words to 13,000 words.
- Later multiword stage (30+months)
The vocabulary of infants experiences the most rapid
expansion, with numerous new words acquired daily.
Characteristic of the later multiword stage.
Babbling ceases, and infants’ utterances begin to demonstrate communicative intent.
The Acquisition of Phonology, Semantics, Morphology, Syntax,
Pragmatics in the first Language
Throughout these stages, children acquire the phonology, semantics,
morphology, syntax, lexicon, and pragmatics of their first language.
Prosodic bootstrapping
Mechanism by which infants utilize the rhythmic and melodic features of speech to aid in the segmentation and comprehension of linguistic units.
Prosodic cues
Do not explicitly label linguistic units or their
relationships but provide infants with tools to distinguish between different units of speech. (rythm and melody)
Overextension of word meanings
Using a term like “dog” to refer to any fourlegged creature.
Underextend word meanings,
Using “dog” solely to refer to the family pet and not to other dogs
What is guided by general principles?
The development of children’s lexicon and their grammatical skills
