THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 1

Differentiate the kind of language

you use when talking to adults
with that of what you utilize when
communicating with
Engage babies/infants/ children.

More on…. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF CHILDREN

► It is said that children are not taught language. Instead, they grasp
the rules from the language around them.
► During the first year of life, children develop the sounds of their
language.
► Deaf children exposed to sign language show the same stages of language
acquisition as do hearing children exposed to spoken languages.
► Children can possibly acquire more than one language at the same time. Bilingual
children may have the some process of stages with that of monolingual children except
that they develop two grammars and two lexicons (dictionary/ list of words)
simultaneously.
► When adults talk to children, they sometimes use ‘Baby talk’.

Examples: choo-choo for “train”

bow-wow for “dog”

Words with baby-talk forms fall into the certain categories like food and animals. Also,
the words are phonetically simpler than the adult forms.

Example: tummy for “stomach” (Fromkin,V.,Rodman, R., & Hyams, N.,2003)

Do Children Learn through Imitation?

Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.

Adult: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?
Child: Yes.
Adult: What did you say she did?
Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them…

Prepared by : Vanderlee M. Batalier

 THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 2

Don’t children just listen to what people around them say and imitate?

Imitation is involved in some way but children do not just simply imitate adult
speech. Even if they try to imitate the words or sentences they hear, they cannot
produce these completely.

Examples:

Adult Child
He’s going out. He go out.
That’s an old-time train. Old-time train.
Adam, say what I say: Where can I put Where can I put them?
them?

Do Children Learn through Reinforcement?

Child: Nobody don’t like me. Reinforcement – It is

Mother: No, say “Nobody likes me.” the action of
Child: Nobody don’t like me. strengthening
(dialogue repeated eight times) something.
Mother: Now, listen carefully, say “Nobody likes me.”
Child: On, nobody don’t likes me.

There is a proposal that children learn to produce correct (grammatical) sentences

because they are rewarded or praised when they say something right, and are
commented or corrected when they say something wrong.

Roger Brown and his colleagues at Harvard University studied parent-child interactions.
Their study proved that such forms of reinforcement (stated above) seldom happen.
Also, attempts to correct a child’s language result to failure. In such situations, children
do not know what they are doing wrong and they cannot make corrections even if these
are pointed out, as shown by the example below.

Child: Want other one spoon , Daddy.

Father: You mean, you want “the other spoon.”
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy.
Father: Can you say, “the other spoon”?
Child: Other…one…spoon.
Father: Say…”other.”
Child: Other.
Father: Spoon.
Child: Spoon
Father: Other… spoon.
Child: Other… spoon. Now give me other one spoon?

Prepared by : Vanderlee M. Batalier

 THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 3

This kind of conversation between parents and children seldom occur. In fact, mothers
and fathers are simply happy when their young children are talking and consider every
utterance a gem.

Do Children Learn through Structured Input?

Another theory says that children are able to learn a language because adults speak to
them in a special “simplified” language sometimes called motherese, child directed
speech (CDS) or baby talk.

When individual baby talks, he sometimes speaks more slowly and clearly, exaggerates
his intonation and produces generally grammatical sentences.

Other examples of motherese/ baby talk:

Do you want your juice now?

Mommy thinks you should sleep now.
Pat the dog gently!
We don’t want to hurt him, do we?

Even if infants prefer to listen to motherese than the language of normal adult,
controlled studies show that motherese does not significantly affect the child’s language
development. The exaggerated intonation and other properties of motherese can be
possibly useful in getting and holding the attention of a child, but these are not a driving
force behind language development (Fromkin,V.,Rodman, R., & Hyams, N.,2003).

A SIMPLE COMIC STRIP.

An instruction will be given prior to our next face-to-face class.

Evaluate

Engage

In 1-2 paragraphs, cite a situation

in your life that manifests the
message of the quote. Expand
your answer and present it orally.
Send a video of yourself.

Prepared by : Vanderlee M. Batalier

 THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 4

VARIOUS TERMS USED FOR FIRST LANGUAGE AND SECOND

LANGUAGE

FIRST LANGUAGE SECOND LANGUAGE

L1 L2
Native Language Non-native Language
Mother Tongue Foreign Language
Primary Language Secondary Language
Stronger Language Weaker Language
Source Language Target Language

ACQUISITION and FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING

ACQUISITION FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
• Ellis (1985) and Krashen (1981)
support the idea that acquisition is
the spontaneous internalization of
rules and formulas.
• It happens in the speech community • It involves conscious process of
where one’s first language or learning through formal school-like
second language is spoken. settings and requires time for
• Generally, it takes place when a processing.
language is acquired naturally, • It is considered a habit formation.
without much focus on form.
• Example: Speakers of other
languages learn English in the • Example: An individual learns
United States. English in China

*** By the time students have acquired enough knowledge on the phonological,
grammatical and lexical patterns of a language, they will develop the habit of using them
as they practice them in numerous activities (Zingzhang,2005).

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 THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 5

COMPETENCE and PERFORMANCE

COMPETENCE PERFORMANCE

• It is one’s knowledge of the • It is the act of showing one’s

language system itself. knowledge or ability to do
something.
It is the knowledge that native
speakers have of their language. It is what an individual does when
he speaks or listens.

• It is the non-observable ability to • It is the observable and concrete

do something. manifestation or realization of
competence.

• It is an individual’s abstract • It is an individual’s use of linguistic

linguistic knowledge. knowledge.

Sources: Theories in Second Language Acquisition

Gleason, J.B.,& Ratner N.B. (2013). The development of language. The 8 th edition.USA.Pearson
Education, Inc.
Zingzhang, Y.(2005). An introduction to linguistics. Higher education press.

Prepared by : Vanderlee M. Batalier

 THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 6

Popular ideas about language learning: facts and opinions

The Most Important Factor in Second Language Acquisition Success is Motivation

Everyone agrees that learners who want to learn tend to do better than those who
don’t. But we must guard against too strong an interpretation of this. Sometimes,
even highly motivated learners encounter great difficulties in improving their
mastery of the language. We know, for example, that learners who begin learning
a second language as adults rarely achieve the fluency and accuracy that children
do in first language acquisition. This failure to achieve native-like ability cannot
be taken as evidence that adult second language learners are not motivated to learn
the language. We also know that in a group of highly motivated second language
learners, there are always those who are more successful than others. This is
sometimes due to differences in language learning aptitude and in how the
instruction interacts with individual learners’ styles and preferences for learning.

The Earlier a Second Language is Introduced in School Programs, the Greater the
Likelihood of Success in Learning

The decision about when to introduce second or foreign language instruction must
depend on the objectives of the language program in the particular social context
of the school. When the objective is native-like performance in the second
language, then it may be desirable to begin exposure to the language as early as
possible. The research evidence is fairly strong that only those who begin second
language learning at an early age will eventually be indistinguishable from native
speakers.

However, even in cases where such high levels of skill are targeted, it is important
to recognize certain disadvantages of an early start, especially when an early start
in second language means that children have little opportunity to continue to
develop their knowledge of their first language. Subtractive bilingualism may
have lasting negative consequences. For children from minority-language
backgrounds, programs promoting the development of the first language at home
an

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 THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 7

and at school may be more important for long-term success in the second
language than an early start in the second language itself. Research shows that a
good foundation in the child’s first language, including the development of
literacy, is a sound base to build on. Children who can begin their schooling in a
language they already know will have more self-confidence, will be able to learn
more effectively in the early school years, and will not lose valuable time in a
period of limbo during which they struggle just to understand what is happening in
the classroom.

Most of the Mistakes which Second Language Learners Make are due to
Interference from their First Language

The transfer of patterns from the native language is undoubtedly one of the major
sources of errors in learner language. However, there are other causes for errors
too, one of which is overgeneralization of target-language rules. For example,
research has shown that second language learners from different first-language
backgrounds often make the same kinds of errors when learning a particular
second language. In such cases, second-language errors are evidence of the
learners’ efforts to discover the structure of the target language itself rather than
attempts to transfer patterns from their first language. Interestingly, some of these
errors are remarkably similar to the kinds of errors made by first language learners.

These observations are a strong indication that second language learning is not
simply a process of putting second-language words into first-language sentences.
Research has also shown that aspects of the second language which are different
from the first language will not necessarily be acquired later or with more
difficulty than those aspects which are similar.

On the other hand, when errors are caused by the overextension of some partial
similarity between the first and second languages, these errors may be difficult to
overcome. This may be particularly problematic if learners are frequently in
contact with other learners who make the same errors ( Lightbown &
Spada,1999).

Prepared by : Vanderlee M. Batalier