ENG 150 (M14-15)
Discussion
MARY ANN J. TOLENTINO
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Competence and Performance • Language and Thought
• Comprehension and Production • Imitation
• Nature vs. Nurture • Practice and Frequency
• Universals • Input
• Systematicity and Variability • Discourse
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Competence and Performance
Competence is the underlying knowledge of the system of a
language –its rules of grammar, its vocabulary, all the pieces of a
language and how those pieces fit together.
Performance is the actual production (speaking, writing)
or the comprehension (listening, reading) of linguistic events.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Comprehension and Production
Comprehension (listening and reading) can be associated with
competence
Production (speaking, writing) is associated with performance.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Nature or Nurture
Evidence has been found that there are common
patterns of linguistic and cognitive development across a number
of languages and that human beings are “bio-programmed” to
proceed from stage to stage and “bloom” when it is time.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Nature or Nurture
Evidence has been found that there are common
patterns of linguistic and cognitive development across a number
of languages and that human beings are “bio-programmed” to
proceed from stage to stage and “bloom” when it is time.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Universals
According to Maratos (1988), universal linguistic categories
such as word order, morphological marking tone, agreement,
reduced reference of nouns and noun clauses, verbs and verb
classes, predication, negation and question formation are
common to all languages.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Systematicity and Variability
Children exhibit great ability to infer the phonological,
structural, and lexical semantic system of language.
But there may also be variability in the process of language
acquisition, which means something children once learned may
easily be changed or forgotten due to the perception of
new language systems.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Language and thought
The issue at stake is to determine how thought affects language,
how language affects thought, and how linguists can best
describe and explain the interaction of the two.
Piaget (1972), who claimed that cognitive development is at the
center of human organisms and that language depends
on cognitive development.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Language and thought
Jerome Bruner (1966), pointed out that there are sources of
language-influenced intellectual development where words
shape concepts, dialogues between parents and children serve to
orient and educate.
For Vygotsky (1978), language and thought were given in the
social interaction where language is a prerequisite to cognitive
development.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Language and thought
The development of speech occurs in three stages: external,
egocentric, and inner speech.
External or social speech occurs from birth until the age of
three. Babies use language to communicate their feelings,
express their emotions, and share simple words. They use
language to state their needs and also respond to their parent’s
speech.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Language and thought
The next stage, egocentric speech, occurs between the ages of
three and seven. As they begin to rationalize internally their
actions or behavior, children begin to talk to themselves. This
inner speech helps them control their reasoning and organize
their thoughts. They continue to interpret meaning from the
reactions of others, further integrating the cultural beliefs into
their own cognitive development.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Language and thought
Sapir-Whorf appointed that each language imposes on its
speaker a particular “world view”.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is a hypothesis about linguistic
relativity. The concept behind it is that the structure and
vocabulary of a particular language will influence or determine the
perception, worldview, or cognition of the native speakers of that
language.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Language and thought
The relationship between language and thinking can be seen in
how language is influenced by cultural factors.
Each unique culture will have a different language or language
variety. Because culture is specific to each group, each group will
develop linguistic structures and different words to describe
phenomena pertinent to their culture.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Imitation
Research has shown that echoing is a particularly salient strategy
in early language learning and an important aspect of early
phonological acquisition. However, the semantic data is not
noticed.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Practice
Children like to play with language just as they do with other
objects and events around them. Children’s language seems to
be a key to language acquisition. When talking about practice, it
is thought of as referring to speaking only. But we can also think
of comprehension practice
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Input
The speech that young children hear is primarily the speech
heard in home, and much of that speech is parental speech or
the speech of older siblings. Children, after consistent repeated
of telegraphic speech in meaningful contexts, eventually transfer
correct forms to their own speech.
ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Discourse
Conversation is a universal human activity performed routinely in
the course of daily living, the means by which children learn to
take part in conversation appear to be complex.
FIN