Language Acquisition

Maria Cora E. Cabacang, DALL, Llb

Associate Professor III
Theories of Language and LA
Second semester 2021-2022 UEP
Language Acquisition

The acquisition of language is doubtless the greatest intellectual feat anyone of us is ever required
to perform.
Leonard Bloomfield, Language, 1933.

o The capacity to learn language is deeply ingrained in us as especies, just as the capacity to walk,
to grasp objects, to recognize faces. We don’t find any serious differences in children growing up in
congested urban slums, in isolated mountain villages or, in privileged suburban areas.
Dan Slobin, The Human Language Series program 2, 1994.
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive
and comprehend language ( in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language
and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to
communicate.
Language is extremely complex. Yet, very young children - before the age of five
already know most of the intricate system that is the grammar of language. Before
they can add 2+2, children are conjoining sentences, asking questions, using
appropriate pronouns, negating sentences, forming relative clauses, inflecting verbs
and nouns and in general, have the creative capacity to produce and understand a
limitless number of sentences. They do not learn a language by simply memorizing the
sentences. Rather, they acquire a system of grammatical rules.
Child: Want other one spoon daddy. Child Mother
Daddy: You mean, you want the other spoon? It fall. It fell?
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy. Where is them? They’re at home.
Daddy: Can you say, “the other spoon”? It doing something. It’s
dancing, yes.
Child: Other…one…spoon.
Daddy: Say…”other”
Child: Other.
Daddy: Spoon.
Child: Spoon.
Daddy: Other…spoon.
Child: Other…spoon. Now give me other one spoon?
Language acquisition seems so natural and effortless that
parents, elated with the addition of each successive word,
take it for granted, that children will acquire their native
language without a hitch. It seems obvious to anyone who has
interacted with children that the process of acquiring a first
language is automatic.
LA is a feat that human beings are gifted at. This universal success has
convinced linguists and psycholinguists that infants come to the task of
acquiring a language with a genetic predisposition to do so and with
certain analytical advantages that facilitates the process. There is little
doubt that, at the very least, children are born with certain mechanisms
or cognitive strategies that help in the task of language acquisition, and
certain structures or kinds of structure may be innate as well.
Comparing First and Second Language Acquisition

 First language acquisition involves an initial linguistic experience while a second

language is mastered only by someone who already speaks another language. However
blank the language slate may be at birth, it is certainly not blank after the first-
language acquisition is completed.
 First language is usually acquired in a home environment by an infant in the care of
parents and other caretakers, with many activities- linguistic and otherwise-jointly
focused on the child. In contrast, second- language learning is seldom so context
bound. Ordinarily, an adult speaking a second language in a classroom is using it to
discuss imaginary or decontextualized events removed from the learning situation.
 A third difference has to do with the adaptability and malleability of
learners as a consequence of age and of social identity.
 Second-language learners ordinarily have linguistic meta-knowledge
that is lacking at least in the early stages of a first language. That is,
with a second language, speakers may already possess a vocabulary for
referring to language structures and language uses.
Acquisition vs. Learning

The Acquisition-Learning distinction is the most

fundamental of the five hypotheses in Krashen's theory
and the most widely known among linguists and
language teachers. According to Krashen, there are two
independent systems of foreign language performance:
'the acquired system' and 'the learned system'.
The 'acquired system' or 'acquisition' is the product of
a subconscious process very similar to the process
children undergo when they acquire their first
language. It requires meaningful interaction in the
target language - natural communication - in which
speakers are concentrated not in the form of their
utterances, but in the communicative act.
The "learned system" or "learning" is the product of formal
instruction and it comprises a conscious process which results
in conscious knowledge 'about' the language, for example
knowledge of grammar rules.
According to Krashen, 'learning' is less important than
'acquisition'.
What is first language?

First language or L1 is also referred to as native language, primary

language, and mother tongue.
The important feature of L1 is that it is a language which is
acquired during early childhood, commonly before the age of three.
L1 is usually acquired in the process of growing up with the people
who speak the same language.
 What is Second Language?

L2 refers to two things; first, the study of individuals or groups who are learning
a language ensuing their L1 which they have learned as children and second, the
process of learning that particular language.
This additional language is called L2 albeit it might be the third, fourth, or the
eighth language to be acquired.
Researchers have debated this issue for years by using theoretical models such as
Behaviorist, Innatist and Interactionist to further comprehend the phenomena
of L1 acquisition and L2 learning.
How do we acquire our first language (L1)?

L1 is one of the unexplainable mysteries surrounding us in our

daily lives (Gallaso, 2003).
A child learns language naturally, almost miraculously, as their
language acquisition is rapidly developed with an apparent speed
and accuracy that baffles parents.
“The only language [people] ever speak perfectly is the one they
learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!” (as
cited in O'Grady & Cho, 2011, p. 326).
Many parents believe that nothing is more pivotal in
their children's lives than the ability to acquire
language.
Most children acquire language effortlessly, giving the
impression that the process of L1 acquisition is simple
and direct. However, this is not the case as children go
through several stages in acquiring L1.
The ability to produce speech sounds emerges around six months of age,
with the onset of babbling.
Babbling gives children the chance to experiment and to practice their
vocal apparatus, which is important for later speech development.
Babbling will continue until the age of about twelve months, when during
this age, children will produce intelligible words. When they have
acquired fifty words or so, usually around the age of eighteen months,
they will begin to adopt fairly regular patterns of pronunciation.
Children's L1 acquisition continues to flourish with the holophrastic
stage where they utter single words. When they are around 18
months to 24 months, they are able to combine words in two-word
stages.
By the age of around 24 months to 30 months, they develop to the
telegraphic stage where they are capable of uttering a clear
phrase structure with head-complement and subject-VP patterns.
Children use babbling and cooing as well as crying to send and receive an
astonishing number of messages from the people around them, especially
their parents and family members who in return sometimes use ‘Baby
Talk’ to regulate their speech to suit the children's still-developing-L1
competence.
As the children grow up physically, so does their linguistic ability as they
internalize more complex structures through an expansion of their
vocabulary bank and also from their immediate social surroundings.
How Do We Learn a Second Language (L2)?

An L2 learner is different from a child acquiring the L1 in terms of the

learners‘ characteristics and the environments in which L1 and L2 typically
occur (Lightbown & Spada, 2006).
First, learners' characteristics, especially learners‘ age, for L2 is usually older
than children acquiring the L1.
Moreover, L2 learners have already acquired at least one language and the
prior knowledge in the L1 may prove to be an advantage to them as they
already have the idea of how language works.
On the other hand, this knowledge might interfere with the
learning of L2 where learners may make incorrect guesses on
how L2 and its system differ from L1, a phenomena called
interlanguage.
L2 learners also possess cognitive maturity and metalinguistic
awareness that would be useful for them in solving problems
while engaging in discussions using L2.
The second difference is the environment, specifically the
conditions in which L2 learning happens can also affect the rate
of success in L2 learning.
If the L2 learners are exposed to a nurturing and non-
threatening environment, they are most likely to succeed in
learning L2.
These external factors can contribute to the development of L2
learning for older children and adults.
The brains of monolingual and bilingual people work in different ways
(Wenner, 2009).
According to Wenner, children who are bilinguals can solve problems
much more easily compared to their monolingual counterparts.
In addition, possessing knowledge of L2, despite it having been learned
in adolescence, will affect reading in L1 because after learning L2,
people never look at the words the same way as they did before
learning L2.
Based on a study conducted, it concluded that even when
one is reading in one's native language; there is an
influence from the knowledge of the non-dominant L2. It
also proves that being bilingual helps to change one's
automatic reading skills.