Transcript BBI 5210 Second Language Acquisition

BBI 3209
Language Acquisition
Wong Bee Eng
Department of English
Faculty of Modern Languages and
Communication
Universiti Putra Malaysia
Topics
0 Characteristics of first language (L1) acquisition
0 The Behaviourist Theory and L1 acquisition
0 Universal Grammar: the logical problem of L1 acquisition
0 The Language Acquisition Device (LAD): Argument from
the poverty of the stimulus
0 Stages of L1 acquisition: phonological, morphological,
syntactic and semantic development
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0 E-mail:
[email protected]
[email protected]
0 Phone: 03-89468677 / 03-89471456
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First Language Acquisition
0 The process of acquiring language among children
is also known as emergence of language.
0 The outcome of this process is a grammar.
0 2 reasons for saying that the development of
linguistic skills involve the acquisition of a
grammar.
Source: O’Grady, W. & Cho, S. W. (2012), pp. 326-359
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First Language Acquisition
1.
Adult users of language are able to produce and
understand an infinite number of novel sentences – a basic
requisite of normal language use which can only happen if they have acquired a grammar as
children.
2.
Another indication that children acquire a grammar, i.e.
rules of a grammar, comes from their speech errors.
These provide clues about how the acquisition process
works.
Source: O’Grady, W. & Cho, S. W. (2012), pp. 326-359
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First Language Acquisition
0 Since adults don’t talk the way children do, the
errors made by children tell us that children don’t
merely imitate what they hear.
0 They create rules of their own to capture
regularities that they hear in their input.
Source: O’Grady, W. & Cho, S. W. (2012), pp. 326-359
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First Language Acquisition
0 Linguists and psychologists study, i.e. they identify and
describe, the process of language acquisition by analyzing the
emergence grammatical system of children.
0 They look to the study of the following to help them:
phonology
morphology
syntax
Source: O’Grady, W. & Cho, S. W. (2012), pp. 326-359
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First Language Acquisition
Methods
Most studies focus on children’s early utterances, the
order in which they emerge, the kinds of errors made.
2 Complementary Approaches of data collection
0 The naturalist approach
0 The experimental approach
Source: O’Grady, W. & Cho, S. W. (2012), pp. 326-359
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First Language Acquisition
0 Naturalistic approach: usually longitudinal
Observe and record children’s spontaneous utterances, e.g.
a. Diary study (researcher keeps daily notes on a child’s
linguistic progress)
b. Regular taping sessions, often at biweekly intervals, an
hour at a time, of the child interacting with his/her
caregivers. Detailed transcripts are made for subsequent
analysis. (see CHILDES – Child Language Data Exchange
System)
Source: O’Grady, W. & Cho, S. W. (2012), pp. 326-359
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First Language Acquisition
0 Naturalistic studies
Advantage: Provides a lot of information of the emergence
of grammar.
Disadvantages:
Certain structures and phenomena may occur rarely in
children’s daily speech making it difficult to gather enough
data to test hypotheses or draw firm conclusions.
Speech samples from individual children capture only small
portion of their utterances at any given point in
development (15% or less).
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First Language Acquisition
0 Experimental Approach: usually cross-sectional
Researchers make use of specially designed tasks to elicit
linguistic activity relevant to the phenomenon they wish to
study.
The child’s production is used to formulate hypotheses
about the type of grammatical system acquired at that
point in time.
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First Language Acquisition
0 Types of experimental studies
0 Use tasks that test children’s
comprehension (e.g. judge truth statements made about
particular pictures or situations),
production (such tasks may be difficult for children), or
imitation skills (such tasks can provide important clues
about grammatical development)
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First Language Acquisition
0 Experimental studies
Advantage: They allow researchers to collect data of a very
specific sort about particular phenomena or structures.
Disadvantages:
Difficult to design such experiments.
Children’s performance may be affected by extraneous
factors, e.g. inattention, shyness, or a failure to understand
what is expected of them.
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First Language Acquisition
0 Better to use naturalistic observation together with
experimental techniques.
0 Together they have advanced our knowledge of the process.
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PHONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
a. Babbling
b. The developmental order
Consonant inventory at age two
Stops
p b m
t d n
k g
Fricatives
f
s
Other
w
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Consonant inventory at age four
Stops
Fricatives
p b m
f v
t d n
s z
k g ŋ
ʃ
Affricates
ʧ ʤ
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Other
w j
l r
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c. Early phonetic processes
1. Syllable simplification – systematic deletion of
certain sounds in order to simplify syllable structure.
e.g. delete [s] stop  [tɒp]
2. Syllable deletion – deletion of unstressed
syllables.
e.g. spa ghe tti  [gǝ]
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3. Substitution processes – systematic replacement
of one sound by an alternative that the child finds
easier to articulate
stopping
e.g. sing 
fronting
e.g. ship 
gliding
e.g. lion 
denasalization e.g. room 
[tIŋ] change: s  t
[sIp] change: ʃ  s
[jaIn] change: l  j
[wu:b] change: m  b
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4. Assimilation
The modification of one or more features of a
segment under the influence of neighbouring
sounds
- Initial consonants voiced in anticipation of the
following vowel. e.g. tell  [del]
-
To maintain the same place of articulation for all
of the consonants or vowels in a word.
e.g. doggy  [gɒgi:] or [dɒdi:]
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Vocabulary Development
0 By 18 months, the child has a vocabulary of 50 words or
more.
0 Common words refer to
0 Entities – people, food/drinks, animals, clothes,
toys, vehicles, other (e.g. bottle, key, book)
0 Properties – e.g. hot, dirty, here, there
0 Actions – e.g. up, sit, see, eat, go, down
0 Personal-social – e.g. bye, no, yes, please, thank-you
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0 Noun-like words – largest class, followed by verb-like
words, and adjective-like words.
0 Over the next few years – children learn between 10-12
words a day.
0 By age 6, they have 13,000-14,000 words.
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3 Strategies for acquiring word meaning
The Whole Object Assumption
A new word refers to a whole object
The Type Assumption
A new word refers to a type of thing, not just to a
particular thing.
The Basic Level Assumption
A new word refers to objects that are alike in basic ways
(appearance, behaviour, etc.)
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Contextual clues
Ability of the child to make use of contextual clues to draw
inferences about the category and meaning of new words.
e.g. Children can use the presence or absence of
determiners to differentiate between names and common
nouns.
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Meaning Errors
Overextensions
The meaning of the child’s word is more general or inclusive
than that of the corresponding adult form.
e.g. the word dog is frequently overextended to include
horses, cows, etc.
Underextensions
The use of lexical items in an overly restrictive fashion. e.g.
the word kitty might be used to refer to the family pet, but
not to other cats.
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Dimensional terms
Terms describing size and dimensions are acquired in a
relatively fixed order.
1st group of adjectives – big , small (can be used for talking
about any aspect of size – height, area, volume, etc.)
2nd group - tall, long, short, high, low (can only be used for a
single dimension – height-length)
Other modifiers – thick-thin, wide-narrow, deep-shallow –
more restricted in use – describe secondary or less
extended dimension of an object.
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MORPHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
Overgeneralizations or Overregularizations
e.g. *mans
*runned
*felled
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DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCE
A. Typical developmental sequence for non-lexical
morphemes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
-ing
plural –s
possessive – ’s
the, a
past tense –ed
third person singular –s
auxiliary be
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B. Some Determining factors
1. Frequent occurrence in utterance-final position
(children tend to notice elements that occur at the end
of an utterance)
2. Syllabicity (they tend to notice morphemes e.g. –ing,
which are syllables on their own, than those that are
single consonants, e.g. –s)
3. Absence of homophony (this tends to hasten
acquisition of a word)
4. Few or no exceptions in the way it is used (all singular
Ns form possessive with –s but not all verbs form past
tense with –ed; exceptions can hinder acquisition
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process)
B. Some Determining factors
5. Allomorphic invariance (the suffix –ing has the same
form for all verbs, while the –ed has 3 main
allomorphs; the latter can slow down morphological
development)
6. Clearly discernible semantic function (the plural –s
expresses easily identifiable meaning, but 3rd person
singular –s makes no obvious contribution to meaning
of a sentence; thus the latter is acquired more slowly)
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Word formation processes
Derivation and
compounding emerge early
in the acquisition of English.
First derivational suffixes are
the most common ones in
adult language.
Ending Meaning
/-ness/ state
sadness
/-ing/ activity
running
/-er/
doer
/-ie/ diminutive
teacher
doggie
Child’s word
Children’s creativity with
compounds shows a
preference for building
words from other words.
Word
car-smoke
Intended
meaning
N-N exhaust
firetruck-man N-N fire fighter
cup-egg
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N-N boiled egg
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The 2 processes that apply most freely in English,
i.e. the formation of a noun by the addition of the
agentive affix –er to a verb (a derivational process) and
compounding, are the first to emerge.
e.g.
A person who swims is a ___________.
A house for a dog is a
___________.
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SYNTACTIC DEVELOPMENT
I. The one-word stage
0 A child begins to produce one-word utterances
(holophrases = whole sentences)
between the ages of 12 months and 18 months.
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0 A basic property of these one-word utterances is that
they can be used to express the type of meaning that
would be associated with an entire sentence in adult
speech.
E.g. dada can mean I see daddy.
0 Children seem to choose the most informative word that
applies to the situation at hand.
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Semantic relations in children’s one-word
utterances
Utterance
Situation
Agent of an action
dada
Action or state
down
as father enters the
room
as child sits down
Theme
door
as father closes the door
Location
here
as child points
Recipient
mama
as child gives mother
something
Recurrence
again
as child watches lighting of a
match
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Semantic relation
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II. The two-word stage
a.
Within a few months of their first one-word
utterances, children begin to produce two-word minisentences.
b. The vast majority of two-word utterances employ an
appropriate word order, suggesting a very early
sensitivity to this feature of sentence structure.
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Some patterns in children’s two-word speech
Utterance
Intended meaning
Semantic relation
Baby chair
The baby is sitting
on the chair.
agent-location
Doggie bark
The dog is barking.
agent-action
Hit doggie
I hit the doggie.
action-theme
Sam water
Sam is drinking water.
agent-theme
Daddy hat
Daddy’s hat.
possessor-possessed
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III. The telegraphic stage
Early sentences are mainly words from the major
grammatical categories of nouns, verbs, and
adjectives.
The missing elements are determiners, prepositions,
auxiliary verbs, and the bound morphemes that go
on the ends of nouns and verbs. These are the
grammatical morphemes.
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0 It is possible that these grammatical morphemes are
omitted because they are not essential to meaning.
0 Another reason is children have cognitive limitations
on the length of utterance they can produce,
independent of their grammatical knowledge.
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0 Given such limitations, children may sensibly leave out
the least-important parts.
0 Such words may not be stressed in adults’ utterances
and therefore children may be leaving out unstressed
elements.
0 Other researchers also suggest that children’s
underlying knowledge does not include grammatical
categories that govern the use of the omitted
forms.
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IV.
Later development
The development of different sentence forms
1.
Expressing negation
2.
Asking questions
Yes/No questions – can be answered with either
yes or no.
Wh-questions – begin with wh-words such as
who, where, what, why, when, how.
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Development of different sentence forms
Expressing negation – children’s negative sentence form,
in order of development
Stages
i.
Sentences with external negative marker
e.g.
No … wipe finger
No the sun shining
ii. Constructions with internal negative marker but no
auxiliaries
e.g.
I can’t see you
I don’t like you
I no want book
iii. Constructions with auxiliaries
e.g.
I didn’t did it
Tom won’t let go
No, it isn’t
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Children’s question forms, in order of development
Yes/No questions
and Wh-questions
1. Constructions with
external question
marker
Yes/No
questions
Whquestions
I ride train?
Who that?
Sit chair?
What
daddy
doing?
Mommy milk? Where
milk go?
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Children’s question forms, in order of
development (cont.)
Yes/No questions
Wh-questions
Yes/No
questions
Whquestions
2. Constructions with
auxiliaries
but no
subject-auxiliary
inversion in
Wh-questions
Does the
kitty stand
up?
Will you help
me?
What you did
say?
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Why kitty
can’t run?
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Children’s question forms, in order of
development (cont.)
Yes/No
questions
Yes/No questions
Wh-questions
3. Subject-auxiliary
inversion
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Whquestions
-
What you
doed?
-
What does
coffee taste
like?
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The Development of Complex Sentences
After the development of grammatical morphemes and
different sentence forms is well under way, the next
grammatical development is the appearance of
sentences that contain more than one clause.
There are many different types of complex sentences, and
some appear in children’s spontaneous speech much
earlier than others do.
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Children’s complex sentences, in order of development
1. Object complementation
Watch me draw circles.
I see you sit down.
2.
Wh-embedded clauses
Can I do it when we get home?
I show you how to do it.
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Children’s complex sentences, in order of
development (cont.)
3. Coordinating conjunctions
He was stuck, and I got him out.
When I was a little girl I could go “geek-geek” like that,
but now I can go “this is a chair.”
4. Subordinating conjunctions
Here’s a set. It must be mine if it’s a little one.
I want this doll because she’s big.
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Individual Differences in Grammatical Development
Children differ in both the rate and course of grammatical
development.
Differences in rate are the most obvious.
Some children produce multiword utterances at age 18
months, whereas others do not start combining words
until they are 2 years old.
Differences in the kinds of multiword utterances children
produce – some children rote-learn these as wholes;
other children combine separate words from the start.
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Some children pay more attention to syllables and
phonemes; others pay more attention to the overall
prosodic “tune” (Peters, 1997).
0 The tune approach or holistic approach or top-down
approach, results in many unanalysed chunks.
e.g. Idontwanna (for I don’t wanna)
0 The other approach is the analytical or bottom-up
approach.
In this approach, children break down speech into
smaller units and then combine them.
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0 Most children use both top-down and bottom-up
strategies, and most children include both
unanalyzed chunks and smaller units in their
early sentences.
0 However, children vary in how much they rely on
one strategy versus the other, and the route to
syntax some children take seems to be extremely
holistic or extremely analytic (Hoff, 2001: 223).
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What makes language possible?
0 The role of adult speech - caregiver speech
0 The role of feedback – recasts
0 The role of cognitive development
0 The role of inborn knowledge
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Is there a critical period?
0 Normal linguistic development is possible only if children
are exposed to language during a particular time frame or
critical period.
0 Evidence for the existence of such a period – from studies
of individuals who do not experience language during the
early part of their lives, e.g. Genie.
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References
0 O’Grady, W. & Cho, S. W. (2012). First Language Acquisition
(pp. 326-359). In O’ Grady, W. & Archibald, J. Contemporary
Linguistic Analysis: An Introduction (Seventh Edition).
Toronto: Pearson Canada.
0 Hoff, E. (2009). Language Development (Fourth Edition).
Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
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