Lesson 1-Continuation) The First Language Acquisition

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What is psycholinguistics?

Psycholinguistics is the study of language with reference to human psychology. It has a very
broad scope but is frequently used with specific reference to processes of language acquisition,
especially of one's first language. In the more general psycholinguistics covers the following
areas

1) Neurolinguistics (the study of language and the brain). This has a physical dimension to it
and is the domain of neurologists concerned with impairments of language due to brain lesions,
tumors, injuries or strokes. It also has an observational domain which is the concern of linguists.
Here certain phenomena like slips of the tongue, various performance errors (due to
nervousness, tiredness for instance) are examined for the insights which they might offer about
the structure of the language faculty in the human brain.

2) Language pathology The breakdown of language has been studied intensively from at least
two main angles. The first is that of medicine where attempts are made to help patients regain
at least partially the ability to use language normally. Such patients are typically older people
who have had a stroke (a burst blood vessel in the brain, in this case affecting the Broca or
Wernicke areas) or younger people who have been involved in an accident (typically in a car or
on a motorcycle) and have thus an impairment of the brain due to external injury. A third group
is formed by patients who have had a tumor (cancerous growth) in the brain which impairs their
speech pressing on either of the speech areas (fairly rare as a medical phenomenon though).
Language disorders are known in linguistics and medicine as aphasia. There are many different
types depending on the impairment which a patient shows.

What is language acquisition?

Language acquisition is a process which can take place at any period of one's life. In the
sense of first language acquisition, however, it refers to the acquisition (unconscious learning)
of one's native language (or languages in the case of bilinguals) during the first 6 or 7 years of
one's life (roughly from birth to the time one starts school).

Characteristics of First Language Acquisition

1) It is an instinct. This is true in the technical sense, i.e. it is triggered by birth and takes its
own course, though of course linguistic input from the environment is needed for the child to
acquire a specific language. As an instinct, language acquisition can be compared to the
acquisition of binocular vision or binaural hearing.

2) It is very rapid. The amount of time required to acquire one's native language is quite short,
very short compared to that needed to learn a second language successfully later on in life.

3) It is very complete. The quality of first language acquisition is far better than that of a
second language (learned later on in life). One does not forget one's native language (though
one might have slight difficulties remembering words if you do not use it for a long time).

4) It does not require instruction . Despite the fact that many non-linguists think that mothers
are important for children to learn their native language, instructions by parents or care-takers
are unnecessary, despite the psychological benefits of attention to the child.

What is the watershed separating first and second language acquisition?

Generally, the ability to acquire a language with native speaker competence diminishes
severely around puberty. There are two suggestions as to why this is the case. 1) Shortly before
puberty the lateralization of the brain (fixing of various functions to parts of the brain) takes
place and this may lead to general inflexibility. 2) With puberty various hormonal changes take
place in the body (and we technically become adults). This may also lead to a inflexibility which
means that language acquisition cannot proceed to the conclusion it reaches in early childhood.

Definitions and distinctions

Acquisition is carried out in the first years of childhood and leads to unconscious
knowledge of one's native language which is practically indelible. Note that acquisition has
nothing to do with intelligence, i.e. children of different degrees of intelligence all go through the
same process of acquiring their native language.
Learning (of a second language) is done later (after puberty) and is characterized by
imperfection and the likelihood of being forgotten. Learning leads to conscious knowledge.

FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION This is the acquisition of the mother tongue.

Chronology is important here (see below). The degree of competence acquired may vary from
individual to individual and may be checked by later switching to another language. Note that
language acquisition is largely independent of intelligence, although individuals can and do
differ in their mastery of open classes such as vocabulary.

BI- AND MULTILINGUALISM This is the acquisition of two or more languages from birth or
at least together in early childhood. The ideal situation where all languages are equally
represented in the child's surroundings and where the child has an impartial relationship to each
is hardly to be found in reality so that of two or more languages one is bound to be dominant.

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION This is the acquisition of a second language after

the mother tongue has been (largely) acquired. Usually refers to acquisition which begins after
puberty, i.e. typically adult language acquisition. Sometimes replaced by the term further
language acquisition.

ERROR This is an incorrect feature in language acquisition which occurs because of the
stage at which the child is at a given time (acquisition in as yet incomplete). Errors are regular
and easily explainable. For instance, the use of weak verb forms for strong ones or the over
application of the s-plural to all nouns in English would be examples of errors. Such features
tend to right themselves with time when the child appreciates that many word classes contain a
degree of irregularity.

MISTAKE Here one is dealing with a random, non-systematic and usually unpredictable
phenomenon in second language learning. Mistakes are sometimes termed 'performance
errors' to emphasize that they arise on the spur of the moment when speaking and are not
indicative of any acquisition stage.

COMPETENCE is the abstract ability to speak a language, i.e. knowledge of a language

independent of its use.

PERFORMANCE is actual use of language. Its features do not necessarily reflect

characteristics of performance, for example, when one is nervous, tired, drunk one may have
difficulties speaking coherently. This, however, does not mean that one cannot speak one's
native language.

Conditions of Acquisition

NATURAL This is characterized by continuous exposure to language data. This data is not
ordered, i.e. the (child) learner is exposed to the performance of adult speakers of the language
he/she is acquiring. There is little if any feedback to the acquirer with regard to this intake.

CONTROLLED This is intervallic if not to say sporadic. Furthermore, it takes place against the
background of another language, usually the first language (L1) of the learners. In exceptional
cases acquisition can be both natural and controlled, i.e. where one obtains formal instruction
(or gives it one to oneself) and lives in an environment where the target language is spoken.
Controlled acquisition is further characterized by an ordered exposure to the data of the
language.

GUIDED LANGUAGE ACQUISITION This is an intermediary type between the two just
discussed and is characterized by prescriptive corrections on the part of the child's contact
persons, i.e. mother, father, etc. Corrections show the transfer of adult grammars to children
whereas natural language acquisition shows the gradual approximation of the child’s grammar
to the adult’s.

Note that a child is not corrected as often by his/her mother as one might imagine. Self-
correction is most common (but not immediate) due to two factors. Most broadly speaking,
because of lack of communication (here immediate correction may take place) and secondly by
consistently hearing correct usage on the part of the mother, the child eventually drops his/her
incorrect forms, which while perhaps communicatively effective, are grammatically wrong. It is
also true that children do not learn language just from the mother. If siblings are present, then
they too form a source of input for the child. And siblings do not correct others or simplify their
language for the younger ones among them.

The logical problem of acquisition

The logical problem of language acquisition is that it would seem impossible to learn
anything about a certain language without first already knowing something about language in
general. That is the child must know what to expect in language before he/she can actually
order the data he/she is presented with in his/her surroundings and ascribe meanings to words
he/she encounters.

THE EVIDENCE OF DEAF CHILDREN Deaf children start by babbling and cooing but this
soon peters out because they have no linguistic input. However, they would seem to seize on
other communication systems and if people in their surroundings use sign language then they
pick this up. The interesting point here is that the children usually learn the sign language more
perfectly than the people from which they learn it (note: sign language has grammar with
inflections just as does spoken language). They are creative in this language and create
sentence structures if these are not present in their input. This would seem to suggest that deaf
children use sign language as a medium for activating their knowledge about language which is
innate.

THE EVIDENCE OF PIDGINS Children who have very poor input in their surroundings tend
to be creative in their use of language. Any categories which they deem essential but which are
not present in the input from their environment are then invented by the children. This has
happened historically in those colonies of European powers where a generation was cut off
from its natural linguistic background and only supplied with very poor unstructured English,
Spanish, Dutch, etc. as input in childhood.

Such input, known technically as a pidgin, was then expanded and refined grammatically by
the children of the next generation and is known in linguistics as a creole. Here one can see
that if the linguistic medium of their environment is deficient children create the structures which
they feel are lacking, going on their own abstract innate knowledge of language.
The implication of both the above cases is that children look for language and if they do not find
it they create it somehow, so that they have a system of communication. In this sense language
is a true instinct because it starts to develop of its own accord and does not need to be
consciously triggered.

IS THERE A LANGUAGE GENE? There is a pathological medical condition called Specific

Language Impairment (abbreviated SLI) which covers a range of defects, all of which have in
common that children continually make grammatical mistakes in their mother tongue, i.e. they
would seem to be unaware of the existence of grammatical rules. Now as the Canadian linguist
Myrna Gopnik has shown in her study of a family in Britain, some 16 of 30 members over three
generations suffered from the defect. This would seem to imply that it is genetically transferred
(it looks like a defective gene which is dominant in the family) which would also imply that the
ability to grasp the rules of grammar in first language acquisition is genetically encoded.

IS THE LANGUAGE FACULTY SEPARATE FROM OTHER COGNITIVE ABILITIES? There is

one major piece of evidence that this is the case. Williams syndrome is a medical condition in
which the patients are quite severely retarded, as both children and adults, and have difficulties
counting properly or carrying out simple tasks like tying their shoelaces. However, such people
are good speakers of their native language and just show a slight tendency to overgeneralize
(they might say speaked for spoke). They have a good command of grammatical rules which
shows that their language faculty is intact. The implication of this is that our ability to speak
language is separate from other cognitive abilities.

How is language transmitted?

Language is obviously passed on from parents to their children. But on closer inspection
one notices that it is the performance (in the technical sense) of the previous generation which
is used as the basis for the competence of the next. To put it simply, children do not have
access to the competence of their parents.

1) Linguistic input from parents (performance) ->

2) Abstraction of structures by children ->
3) Internalization (competence of next generation)

The above model is the only one which can account for why children can later produce
sentences which they have never heard before: the child stores the sentence structures of
his/her native language and has a lexicon of words as well. When producing new sentences,
he/she takes a structure and fills it with words. This process allows the child to produce a
theoretically unlimited number of sentences in his/her later life.
 Note that certain shifts may occur if children make incorrect conclusions about the structure
of the language they are acquiring on the basis of what they hear. Then there is a discrepancy
between the competence of their parents and that which they construct; this is an important
source of language change.
Language acquisition for any generation of children consists of achieving mastery in four main
areas, i.e. acquiring:

1) A set of syntactic rules which specify how sentences are built up out of phrases and phrases
out of words.

2) A set of morphological rules which specify how words are built up out of morphemes, i.e.
grammatical units smaller than the word.

3) A set of phonological rules which specify how words, phrases and sentences are
pronounced.

4) A set of semantic rules which specify how words, phrases and sentences are interpreted, i.e.
what their meaning is.

competence According to Chomsky in his Aspects of the theory of syntax (1965) this is the

abstract ability of an individual to speak the language which he/she has learned as native
language in his/her childhood. The competence of a speaker is unaffected by such factors as
nervousness, temporary loss of memory, speech errors, etc. These latter phenomena are
entirely within the domain of performance which refers to the process of applying one's
competence in the act of speaking. Bear in mind that competence also refers to the ability to
judge if a sentence is grammatically well-formed; it is an unconscious ability.

performance The actual production of language as opposed to the knowledge about the

structure of one's native language which a speaker has internalized during childhood.

Stages of language acquisition

One of the firmest pieces of evidence that language acquisition is genetically predetermined is
the clear sequence of stages which children pass through in the first five years of their lives.
Furthermore, there are characteristics of each stage which always hold. For instance, up to the
two-word stage only nouns and/or verbs occur. No child begins by using conjunctions or
prepositions, although he/she will have heard these word classes in his/her environment.
Another characteristic is overextension. Children always begin acquiring semantics by
overextending meaning, for instance by using the word dog for all animals if the first animal they
are confronted with is a dog. Or by calling all males papa or by using spoon for all items of
cutlery. The generalization here is that children move from the general to the particular. To
begin with their language is undifferentiated on all linguistic levels. With time they introduce
more and more distinctions as they are repeatedly confronted with these from their
surroundings. Increasing distinctions in language may well be linked to increasing cognitive
development: the more discriminating the child's perception and understanding of the world, the
more he/she will strive to reflect this in language.

Stages of Language Acquisition

Researchers define language acquisition into two categories: first-language acquisition and
second-language acquisition. First-language acquisition is a universal process regardless of
home language. Babies listen to the sounds around them, begin to imitate them, and eventually
start producing words. Second-language acquisition assumes knowledge in a first language and
encompasses the process an individual goes through as he or she learns the elements of a new
language, such as vocabulary, phonological components, grammatical structures, and writing
systems.

The Six Stages of Second-Language Acquisition

This is also called "the silent period," when the student takes in
Pre-production the new language but does not speak it. This period often lasts
six weeks or longer, depending on the individual.

Early The individual begins to speak using short words and sentences,
production but the emphasis is still on listening and absorbing the new
language. There will be many errors in the early production
 stage.

Speech becomes more frequent, words and sentences are

Speech longer, but the individual still relies heavily on context clues and
Emergent familiar topics. Vocabulary continues to increase and errors begin
to decrease, especially in common or repeated interactions.

Speech is fairly fluent in social situations with minimal errors.

Beginning New contexts and academic language are challenging and the
Fluency individual will struggle to express themselves due to gaps in
vocabulary and appropriate phrases.

Communicating in the second language is fluent, especially in

social language situations. The individual is able to speak almost
fluently in new situations or in academic areas, but there will be
Intermediate
gaps in vocabulary knowledge and some unknown expressions.
Fluency
There are very few errors, and the individual is able to
demonstrate higher order thinking skills in the second language
such as offering an opinion or analyzing a problem.

Advanced The individual communicates fluently in all contexts and can

Fluency maneuver successfully in new contexts and when exposed to
new academic information. At this stage, the individual may still
have an accent and use idiomatic expressions incorrectly at
times, but the individual is essentially fluent and comfortable
 communicating in the second language.

How long does it take for a language learner to go through these stages? Just as in any other
learning situation, it depends on the individual. One of the major contributors to accelerated
second language learning is the strength of first language skills. Language researchers such as
Jim Cummins, Catherine Snow, Lily Wong Filmore and Stephen Krashen have studied this topic
in a variety of ways for many years. The general consensus is that it takes between five to
seven years for an individual to achieve advanced fluency. This generally applies to individuals
who have strong first language and literacy skills. If an individual has not fully developed first
language and literacy skills, it may take between seven to ten years to reach advanced fluency.
It is very important to note that every ELL student comes with his or her own unique language
and education background, and this will have an impact on their English learning process.

It is also important to keep in mind that the understood goal for American ELL students is
Advanced Fluency, which includes fluency in academic contexts as well as social contexts.
Teachers often get frustrated when ELL students appear to be fluent because they have strong
social English skills, but then they do not participate well in academic projects and discussions.
Teachers who are aware of ELL students' need to develop academic language fluency in
English will be much better prepared to assist those students in becoming academically
successful.