Change in Language

CHAPTER 13 B
STAGES OF FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cgpfw4z8cw
First Language Acquisition:
General Characteristics and
Requirements
1- Children are born with a special capacity for language
2-
3-
4-
5-
6-
7-
Things to remember
• We acquire language in stages
• All normal children develop language at roughly same time, along much the
same schedule.
• All of us go through similar stages
• We don’t merely imitate sounds around us
• We are genetically predisposed to acquisition
• Our brains are hardwired to handle language
• A child must be able to hear language being used in order to be able to speak.
• Caregiver speech uses simple sentences, a lot of repetition, and paraphrasing.
• We are focusing on the English acquisition process
Pre-linguistic Stages
Linguistic
Babbling Stage
- 6-12 months
Cooing - primarily
- 2 – 5 months syllable like
- primarily sounds (ba-ba-ba;
Crying
vowel like sounds ma-ma-ma)
- Birth-2 months [i], [u]
-any
involuntary vocal
production
Linguistic Stages
ONE-Word Stage TWO-Word Stage Telegraphic Speech
• 18th to 20th month

• 12 to 18 month: single-
th th
• Between 2 and 2 ½ years old:
unit utterances multiple word speech
• Child’s vocabulary: around 50
• Speech in single terms and words • Strings of words in phrases or
everyday items: ‘milk’, sentences
‘cookie’, ‘cat’, ‘cup’,
‘mama’ • Baby chair, mommy eat, cat play • Almost complete sentences
• Holophrastic = a single • Correct word order
form that functions as a • Communication: after • Inflections (wants, cats) and
phrase or sentence. production of prepositions (in, on)
Example: ‘Milk!’ = “Give speech child receives feedback.
me milk!” This • Variation in word-forms
is interaction • Physical development: running
• Generally used to name
objects and jumping
• 24th month: 200 to 300 words • Adult’s influence in child’s
• Extension of its use to more
complex circumstances speech development
Guess the age of the child
Language acquisition, imitation, and correction
• First language is not taught but acquired over time

• Deaf children stop making utterances after 6 months
• Children’s language journey incorporates a lot of mistakes, errors, repetition, and trial
• Children do not simply imitate adults, they actively construct words and phrases based on
the rules they pick up intuitively.
• Studies show that adult’s correction of children’s speech does not help much, they have
their own way of saying things. They may repeat for a moment but they go back to their
own way after a moment.
• A child neither imitates an adult not accepts correction.
Correction
• Child: Want one other spoon, Daddy.
• Father: You mean, you want the other spoon.
• Child: Yes, I want one other 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 one other spoon.
Quoted in Braine, 1971
Verb “Woodstock”
Noah: This is Woodstock.
(bobbing a stuffed Woodstock toy in Adam’s
face)
Adam: Hey Woodstock, don’t do that.
(Noah persists)
Adam : I’m going home so you won’t
*Woodstock me.
Children’s speech is creative and shows
comprehension, even when the child is unable to
repeat exactly what has been said:
Father: “The owl that eats candy runs fast.”

Child: “Owl eat candy and he run fast.”
Development of Morphology
Children already learn a great deal of vocabulary and grammatical rules by the age of 2 ½
years. After this phase they try to incorporate different morphology in their sentences.
• Begins with –ing ( brother reading, mommy watching, etc.)
• That is followed by the use of regular plural -s (boy-boys, dog-dogs) they overgeneralize
it to the nouns like (foot-foots vs feet vs feets; tooth-tooths vs teeth vs teeths)
• Almost at the same time they start using various forms of ‘be’ verb (am, is, are, was, etc.)
• They use regular past forms (walk-walked; move-moved; play-played)
• The overgeneralize the past making procedure and use it with any verb they come across
to denote past (go-goed vs went vs wented, walk-walked vs walkeded, come-comed vs
came vs camed, do-doed vs did)
Parents do not necessarily be alarmed or vexed to hear the above expressions. They indicate
that their child is trying to use different structures and try to make sense.
Overgeneralization example…
• Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we

patted them.
• Mother: Did you say your teacher held the baby
rabbits?
• Child: Yes.
• Mother: What did you say she did?
• Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.
• Mother: Did you say she held them tightly?
• Child: No, she holded them loosely.
4 year old quoted in Cazden, 1972
Development of Syntax
Syntax is the
arrangement of words
and phrases to create
well-formed sentences in
a language. (Proper
placement of nouns,
verbs, etc.)
Forming Questions
This skills develops in phases:

First Phase (18 months – 26 months): Simply adds –wh expressions before a word or phrase and/or
utters with rising intonation, like
Where mom? Dad? Why go? Where cat go?
Second Phase (22 months-3 months): Still rely on intonation but are able to form complex form, like
See my toy? What book name? You want eat?
Third Phase (24 months -40 months): Able to use auxiliary verbs; know that verbs should precede
nouns; may still feel comfortable to use –wh words; still have some traces of overgeneralization, like
Can I see that? Why she can’t eat an apple? How that opened?
Will you help me?
Forming Negatives
Similar to Question, this skill develops in phases

• First Stage: Children just put the word ‘no’ in front of the expression, like
no mitten not teddy bear no fall no sit here
• Second Stage: use the words ‘no/not’ in front of verbs rather than nouns, more negative
markers like ‘don’t; can’t’ are used, like
She not go. I can’t do it. He don’t give me. They not play.
• Third Stage: Use huge range of auxiliary verbs; adult like competency; still make errors; the
expression ‘isn’t’ does not appear until the beginning of this phase, like
I didn’t catch it. She won’t let go. This isn’t ice cream. Nobody don’t
like me.
Developing Semantics
Meaning making capacity of child grows over time. Funny

anecdotes are available of children who group similar looking
things together.
• Overextension: extension of meaning based on similarities of
shape, sound, size, color (also movement and texture)
Examples:
• Child uses the word apple to mean apple, tomato, and
ball
• Child says ‘daddy’ to every male of her/his father’s age
and ‘mommy’ to the women
• Child uses the word cat to mean cat and dog
http://youtu.be/AgY7nkbYFaw
Discussion Questions
• What are children doing along their process of first language acquisition?
• From your own experiences as learners and users of your first language, what experiences can
you recall of these processes, both at home and at school?
• Why is knowledge in this area necessary for future language teachers? (English Language Arts,
English as a Foreign Language, English as a Second Language)?
• How does this knowledge prepare you to read about and understand Second Language
Acquisition Theories?
How Children Learn Language
http://youtu.be/ir7arILiqxg
Steven Pinker is a
Psychologist
and Linguist at Harvard.

Change in Language

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CHAPTER 13 B

STAGES OF FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

• 18th to 20th month

• First language is not taught but acquired over time

Father: “The owl that eats candy runs fast.”

• Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we

This skills develops in phases:

Similar to Question, this skill develops in phases

Meaning making capacity of child grows over time. Funny

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