15

Language Acquisition

The aim of this unit

• To make you think of how a language is acquired in the natural settings

• To reflect upon how native grammar competence is formed in children

• To analyse the theory of language acquisition in one’s childhood

What do you have to do in this unit?

• Warming up discussions

• Input reading

• Exploratory tasks

• Self-assessment questions (SAQ)

• Integrated task

Warming-up discussion 0

Give your own view on the following questions. Share your opinion with the group and indicate the winning point.

Question	“Yes” and comment	“No” and comment	Winning point of view
Can natural language acquisition be replicated in the classroom?
Should natural language acquisition be replicated in the classroom?
Is natural language acquisition replicated in the classroom?
Do teachers know enough about natural language acquisition?
Will the knowledge about natural language acquisition improve classroom teaching?

Input reading 1

Language acquisition device (LAD)

SAQ 1.0

Mark the following statements as True (T), False (F) or Debatable (D)

Statements	T F D
Children are born with the language in their minds
Children replicate the language of their environment
Small children are unable to analyse language yet
Children of illiterate parents will speak primitive language
Children in different countries acquire different grammars
The order of language acquisition depends on the input
The knowledge of complex structures should be taught
Comprehension of the deep meaning is intuition based
Language acquisition can be successful at any life period

Warming up discussion 1.0

Brainstorm the concept of “Child’s talk” and make up an association mind map.

	Child’s Talk

There is certain evidence that children are programmed to acquire their native language. The innate views on language acquisition are supported by the arguments that all children successfully learn their native language when they are small enough to learn anything as complex as the language system. Children achieve different levels of vocabulary, creativity and language use, but all come to master the structure of the language. The language, which the children produce, is not the replication of the language, to which they are naturally exposed. Language acquisition is an exclusively human faculty as other living beings, even the most "intelligent" animals can't manipulate human language after an intensive training. Children all by themselves acquire the idea of what is "correct" and what is "incorrect" in their native language. The main reason for proposing the hypothesis of the Language Acquisition Device was that behaviourist theory failed to explain the "logical problem" of language acquisition. Children learn more about the grammar of the language than they actually encounter and the language they learn are not the same. As Chomsky puts it, child approaches the language with the task to determine how the language of the community in which he is placed actually works (Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge. MA. P. 27). It is not a simple chain input-output as advocated by behaviourism. There is a lot of internal analysis going on the process of language acquisition. Language acquisition device in the human brain functions as the "language analyser". What the children acquire is not the corpus of the language they hear but their own mental rules about the language. Language acquisition process can be shown as in the figure below (after Chomsky)

Experience

LAD

Grammar

The ability to analyse language develops in children only gradually. At the age of 5 and 6 years the children do not realise yet that sentences such as "The rabbit is nice to eat" and "The rabbit is eager to eat" have completely different underlying meanings. The reason being that they are not yet dealing consciously with the language forms (Aitchison, J. 1999. The Articulate Mammal. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. L., N.Y. P. 84). Later from six to twelve years the children get a better ability to plan their actions and to reflect on what they do. At this period they can start dealing consciously with the language and understand the deep "hidden" meaning of sentences as well as sentence structures. Finally, from the age of twelve formal operations stage begins opening the way to mature abstract thinking. The stages of child’s cognitive development were studied by Piaget (cited in Roth, I. Ed. 1994. Introduction to Psychology. Volume 1. The Open University. P. 88-95). Children are constructing their grammar by making guesses about the rules, which underlie the speech patterns around them. Their first guesses are quite simple. The amended hypotheses about the language are more complex. Gradually their mental grammar becomes more sophisticated. Eventually their internalised rules cover all the possible utterances of the language (Aitchison, J. 1999.The Articulate Mammal. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. L. N.Y. P. 94). If the children acquire two languages at a time, both form separate grammar systems (Houwer A. 1991. The acquisition of two languages from birth: a case study. CUP)

Exploratory task 1.1

Analyse the following examples of the child’s talk and describe the functions that the child can perform and the structures that the child has been able to create. Some have been done for you. Can you understand what children say?

Phrases	Grammar features
Big house Daddy hit Hit ball Daddy ball That ball There ball More ball All-gone ball Daddy chair Book table Go store	Describing past action. Verb and noun, Giving a command with the word “more”

Exploratory task 1.2

Given below are the grammar tasks that aim at enhancing learners’ understanding of how grammar tenses work in the language. Match these tasks with the processes in LAD.

Grammar Task	Processes in LAD
Look at the examples and underline the finite verbs	Generalise the verbs with the same form of grammar tense. E.g. “–ed” Recognise the meaning of the Grammar Tense. E.g. “an event in the past” Form a mental system of grammar tenses Use the correct verb-form Acquire the irregular verbs
Look at the examples and indicate Grammar Tenses
Say what the following Grammar Tenses express
Complete the sentences with the correct form of the verbs in brackets
Choose the most suitable tense form for the following sentences
Complete the gaps in the following text
Look at these examples and say what is in common among them

Creole language and LAD

The proof for the language acquisition device is found in the development of Creole languages ("creole" means "derived"). Creole becomes the native language of children, born to parents speaking Pidgin English (Pidgin is a very primitive variety of English. E.g. Jamaican, Haitian, New Guinea, Hawaiian Creole English) The reasons for Pidgin are lack of genuine bilingual use of English, need for communication with very limited language means, restricted access to English as the target language. Interestingly, the children of parents speaking Pidgin do not copy completely the language of their parents, but analyse it and make it more grammatically complex and consistent. It is believed that this involves the same innate linguistic capacity and universals as in the first language acquisition. Creole is different from standard English as conditioned by the language input from the environment (e.g. absence of copula “be” in the present tense, the use of double negative). (Spolsky, B. 1998. Sociolinguistics. OUP. P. 61-63). Let's consider some examples of Pidgin and Creole English. Example of Pidgin English: Building - high place - wall part - time - nowtime - and them - now temperature every time give you. Example of the same sentence in Creole English: Get one (there is) electric sign high up on da wall of da building show you what time an' temperature get (it is) now. The development of Creole English can be consistently explained with the help of the Language Acquisition Device, which provides for the analysis of Pidgin English and the creation of the more consistent language structure identical in all the language users (Harley, T. 1997. The Psychology of Language. Psychology Press. P. 326).