Language Acquisition

1
Language Acquisition

• Chapter 8. Fromkin, Rodman Hyams (2003)
  Introduction to Language

2
General

• Language acquisition
• Language learning
• First language (L1) learning instead of Second
  language (L2) or Foreign language learning

3
Innateness

• Language learning is gifted
• Nobody is taught language.
• Before children can add 22 they learn a grammar
  of a language
• You cant prevent the child from learning it.
  (Chomsky 1994)
• The capacity to learn language is deeply
  ingrained in us as a species, just as the
  capacity to walk, to grasp objects, to recognize
  faces. (Slobin 1994)

4
In learning a language

• What a child does not do
• Storing all the words and all the sentences in
  the mental dictionary
• The number of words is finite
• The number of sentences is infinite
• What a child does
• Constructing the rules themselves from very
  noisy data

5
Mechanisms of Language Acquisition

• Based on behaviorism
• Focusing on peoples behaviors which are directly
  observable
• Language ? verbal behavior
• Children learn through Imitation, Reinforcement,
  and Analogy.

6
Imitation

• Children just listen to what is said around them
  and imitate the speech they hear.
• However
• Children produce utterances they never hear
• holded, tooths, two foot, a my pencil
• see more on P.344
• Children unable to speak for neurological or
  physiological reasons learn the language spoken
  to them and understand it. When they overcome
  their speech impairment, they immediately use the
  language for speaking.

7
Reinforcement

• Children learn through positive/negative
  reinforcement
• Correction of bad grammar and reward for good
  grammar
• However
• Reinforcement seldom occurs, and when it does,
  its usually for correcting pronunciation or
  incorrect reporting of facts. (Brown 1973)
• examples) (see more on P.345)
• Her curl my hair ? uncorrected
• Walt Disney comes on Tuesday ? corrected

8
Analogy

• Learning by hearing a sentence and using it as a
  sample to form other sentences
• example
• hearing) I painted a red barn
• analogy) I painted a blue barn
• However, consider false analogy (Gleitman 1994)
• example)
• also hearing) I painted a barn red
• analogy) two words switching possible
• application) I saw a barn red
• But this sentence is not produced.

9
Structured Input

• Learning through simplified language
• eg) motherese, child directed speech (CDS),
  babytalk
• However
• Motherese is not syntactically simpler.
• examples
• question) Do you want your juice now?
• embedded) Mommy thinks you should sleep now.
• imperative) Pat the dogs gently.
• negative tag Q) We dont want to hurt him, do we?

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Therefore

• Analogy, imitation, and reinforcement cannot
  account for language development.
• These are based on the assumption that what the
  child acquires Is a set of sentences of forms
  rather than a set of grammatical rules.
• Structured input theory also places too much
  emphasis on the environment

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Rules Grammar Theory

• Language learning is not really something that
  the child does it is something that happens to
  the child placed in an appropriate environment.
  (Chomsky 1988)
• Language acquisition is a creative process they
  must extract rules of the grammar from the
  language they hear around them.
• ? Innateness Hypothesis

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Innateness Hypothesis

• We end up knowing far more about language than is
  exemplified in the language we hear around us ?
  Poverty of the stimulus
• An answer to the logical problem of language
  acquisition by Chomsky
• What accounts for the ease, rapidity, and
  uniformity of language acquisition in the face of
  impoverished data?
• easy they need not be taught.
• rapid major part of grammar learned at around 3.
• uniform children of all languages go through the
  same stages.
• Impoverished data the language they heard is
  incomplete, noisy unstructured.

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(cntd.)

• Example of impoverished data
• The rules children construct are structure
  dependent
• Is the boy who ___ sleeping is dreaming of a new
  car
• Is the boy who is sleeping ___ dreaming of a new
  car.
• ? They do not produce questions by moving the 1st
  auxiliary as in (1). Instead, they correctly
  invert the auxiliary of the main clause, as in (2)

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Stages in Language Acquisition

• Linguistic competence develops by stages
• Language acquisition is fast but not
  instantaneous
• Those stages are universal
• In different languages
• In spoken languages or in sign languages
• Scientific studies of child language acquisition
• earlier diaries kept by parents
• recent various techniques (eg. hunger,
  discomfort. etc.)

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Stages (cntd.)

• Stages
• First Sounds
• Babbling stage
• First words
• The two-word stage
• Telegraphic stage
• Infinity

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The First Sounds

• Newborn 6 months
• Prelinguistics stage
• earliest cries, whimpers, of newborn, or neonate
• The sounds produced are noises
• involuntary responses to stimuli
• eg) hunger, discomfort

17
(cntd.)

• Infants are highly sensitive to certain subtle
  distinctions in their environment
• Newborn infants respond to phonetic contrasts
• Sucking rate experiment
• pa pa pa paba
• They can learn contrasts of any language
• Japanese(Korean) children distinguish between r
  l
• But they dont respond to sounds that never
  signal phonemic contrasts
• Eg) intermediate sounds between pa ba
• They ignore non-linguistic aspects
• Eg) gender differences

18
(cntd.)

• Children can learn any human language ? natural
  ability
• After 6 months, they begin to lose the ability
• Eg) Japanese infants no longer can distinguish
  bet r l
• They begin to lern the sounds of the language of
  their parents

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Babbling

• Around 6 months old
• Learn to distinguish bet right wrong sounds of
  their language
• Is this stage necessary?
• Earlier not required for lg. acq.
• Recently the earliest stage in lg. acq.
• Prosody begins to resemble adults
• Eg) pitch, intonation contours
• Babbling is not linguistic chaos
• The 12 most frequent consonants in the worlds
  languages make up 95 of the consonants of
  babbling
• Earlier babbles repeated Cs and Vs sequences
• Eg) mama, gaga, dada
• Deaf infants produce babbling

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First Words

• Sometime after 1 year
• Begin to use the same string of sounds repeatedly
  to mean the same thing
• Realize that sounds are related to meanings
• Discover where one word begins and another word
  ends
• Produce their 1st true words
• Examples (see p.355)

21
(cntd.)

• Called holophrastic stage
• One-word utterances convey a more complex
  message.
• Eg) Say down to mean
• put down
• the toy has fallen down from the shelf
• Developing use of language for social purposes
• Naming function and meaning extension
• Cheerios can mean
• The box of cereal in front of him
• Asking for some Cheerios
• They use universal sounds first
• b, m, d, k a

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Two words

• Around 2 years old
• Begin to put two words together
• ? Two-word sentences
• Acquisition of syntax begins
• Examples
• Byebye boat, allgone sticky, sweater chair, (see
  p.364)
• Grammatical characteristics
• No grammatical inflections
• Rare use of pronouns (except me)
• Ambiguity
• Eg) Mommy Sock to mean
• A. subjobj relation mom is putting the sock on
  the child
• B. possessive Mommys sock

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From telegraph to infinity

• No 3-word sentence stage
• Mean Length of Utterances (MLU)
• Frequently used for comparing childrens progress
• Biological age is not indicative anymore, as it
  varies
• Eg) Grammatical acquisition stage
• ? MLU 2.3-3.5 morphemes length
• Characteristics of telegraphic speech
• Function words/morphemes missing
• Sounds as if reading a Western Union message
• Eg) Cat stand up table, what that, Cathy
  build house, No sit there
• See p.365 for childrens examples

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Development of Grammar (Linguistic Knowledge)

• Acquisition of phonology
• Acquisition of word meaning
• Acquisition of morphology
• Acquisition of syntax
• Acquisition of pragmatics

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Acquisition of phonology

• Children first acquire the small set of sounds
  common to all languages of the world
• Eg) p, s, b, m, d, k but not T
• Order of acquisition
• Manner nasalsgtglidesgtstopsgtliquidsgtfricativesgtaff
  ricates
• Place labialsgtvelarsgtalveolarsgtpalatals
• Voicing
• In early stages children may not distinguish
  voicing of consonants
• If they distinguish bet p/b, they also
  distinguish others like t/d, s/z

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(cntd.)

• Errors are rule governed, not random
• (See p.358)
• Children perceive or comprehend many more
  phonological contrasts than they can produce
• Eg) they hear lightlait although they say
  yightjait (p.357)

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Acquisition of Word Meaning

• Children learn approximately 14 words a day until
  6 years old ? 5000 words/year
• Frequent meaning extension
• Eg) Up (get up), dog (animals), papa (all men)
• Syntactic bootstrapping
• Syntax helps the child acquire meaning
• A child shown a picture of a funny animal jumping
  up and down hearing see the blicking or see
  the blick
• Will jump up and down when asked to show a
  blicking
• Will point to the funny animal when asked to show
  a blick

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Acquisition of Morphology

• Morphological errors in morphology another
  evidence of rules
• Eg) overgeneralization bringed, goed, singed,
  foots, sheeps
• Later they learn exceptions to the rules
• Plural formation experiments (Berko-Gleason
  1958)
• Children applied the regular plural-formation
  rule to words never heard before
• a wug ? two wugs (p.361)

29
Acquisition of Syntax

• In the holophrastic stage, children have
  knowledge of some syntactic rules.
• 17-month-old children distinguish between Ernie
  is tickling Bert and Bert is tickling Ernie.
• relying on word order rules (syntax)
• Age 20
• Begin to put words together
• Age 30
• consistent use of function morphemes
• complex sentence structures such as coordinated
  sentences and embedded sentences of various
  kinds (p. 367)

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Acquisition of Pragmatics

• Pragmatic aspects (knowing contexts) are acquired
  relatively late
• Wrong use of pronouns (3 or 4-yr-olds)
• He hit me when mommy doesnt know who he is.
• Difficulty in shifting reference
• You want to take a walk meaning I
• Wrong use of articles
• Use of the definite article as the indefinite
  article for introducing a new referent
• They assume that his listener knows who he is
  talking about

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Parameter Setting

• Two aspects of Language
• principles language universal components
• parameters language particular components
• Examples
• Head parameter (order of VP)
• VO in English / OV in Korean
• Verb movement
• Moving Verb in Dutch Italian but moving Aux in
  English
• Parameters are set early in development and
  cannot be undone

32
Acquisition of Signed Languages

• Language development in deaf children parallels
  the stages of spoken language
• Babbling, single sign stage, single words
  (holophrastic stage), telegraphic stage, combined
  signs
• Eg) in holophrastic stage, function signs are
  omitted
• Deaf children of hearing parents who are not
  exposed to sign language from birth suffer a
  great handicap in acquiring language.
• But they develop their own gestures

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Knowing more than one Language

• Second language (L2) acquisition
• The acquisition of a second language by someone
  who (child or adult) has already acquired a
  first language
• Bilingual language acquisition
• The simultaneous acquisition of two languages
  beginning in infancy (before the age of 3 years)

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Bilingualism

• Bilingual children sometimes mix the two
  languages in the same sentences
• Eg) English words French syntax
• His nose is perdu (His noise is lost)
• A house pink (A pink house)
• Thats to me (Thats mine)
• Some amount of language mixing Is a normal part
  of the early bilingual acquisition process, and
  not necessarily an indication of any language
  problem.

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Theories of Bilingual Development

• Unitary system hypothesis
• A bilingual child initially constructs only one
  lexicon and one grammar
• Evidence mixing of words
• However, there is enough overlap of vocabulary
• Separate systems hypothesis
• A bilingual child builds a distinct lexicon and
  grammar for each language
• Evidence
• using different word order for each language,
• Setting up two distinct sets of phonemes and
  phonological rules

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Second Language Acquisition

• Fundamental difference hypothesis of L2
  acquisition
• L2 acquisition is something different from L1
  acquisition
• Adults do not simply pick up a second language.
  It usually requires conscious attention.
• Adult L2ers do not often achieve nativelike
  grammatical competence especially with respect to
  pronunciation.
• L2 errors my fossilize

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(cntd.)

• Interlanguage grammars
• The intermediate grammars that L2ers creat on
  their way to the target
• Native language influence in L2 acq.
• Transfer of grammatical rules
• Example)
• Korean L2ers confusion of l and r
• French L2ers confusion of z and D
• German L2ers saying haf for have
• English L2ers confusion of Italian ano and anno

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(cntd.)

• Critical period for L2 acquisition?
• Age is an important factor in achieving
  nativelike L2 competence
• Sensitive period instead of critical period
• There is a gradual decline in L2 acquisition
  abilities with age
• The sensitive period for phonology is the
  shortest ? To achieve nativelike pronunciation of
  an L2 generally requires exposure during
  childhood.
• Other aspects of languages, such as syntax, may
  have a larger window.

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L2 teaching methods

• Grammar-translation
• Students memorize words, inflected words,
  syntactic rules, and use them to translate from
  L1 to L2 and vice versa
• Direct method
• Simulating L1 acquisition
• Abandoning memorization
• L1 is never used in class
• Comparison difference is not discussed
• Audio-lingual method
• Based on imitation, repetition reinforcement
• Combination of many methods is required

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Can Chimps Learn Human Language?

• Recently, much effort has been expended to
  determine whether nonhuman primates can learn
  human language.
• Limitations
• Highly stereotyped limited number of messages
• Vocabularies occur primarily as emotional
  responses to particular situations
• It is still controversial whether they have the
  capacity to acquire complex linguistic systems
  similar to human language