Languages & Linguistics
Language Acquisition
Language acquisition refers to the process through which humans acquire the ability to understand and use language. This typically occurs in early childhood and involves the development of linguistic skills such as vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Researchers study language acquisition to understand how children learn language and to explore the underlying cognitive processes involved.
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eBook - ePubThe Cognitive Sciences
An Interdisciplinary Approach
- Carolyn P. Sobel, Paul Li(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
8The Role of Linguistics in Cognitive Science
Language AcquisitionFirst-Language AcquisitionStages in First-Language AcquisitionThe Social Aspect of First- Language AcquisitionSecond-Language AcquisitionLanguage DeprivationBilingualismLanguage Acquisition in Abused or Feral ChildrenLanguage Loss (Language Attrition)Language Acquisition in the Deaf and Hearing ImpairedCauses of Languages LossThe Role of Computational LinguisticsAphasiaLanguage and ThoughtComputational Modeling of LanguageL inguists search for the underlying commonalities among languages. Some reconstruct rules of languages no longer spoken, and some focus on the rules of languages currently spoken. The data they describe contribute to our knowledge of the types of rules and principles underlying languages. From these data we can infer much about the functioning of the cognitive processes that produce them. As you read in Part 1, cognitive psychology attempts to understand the processes our minds engage in, the cognitive architecture that makes it all possible. Thus, language is of great interest to those of us in the field of cognitive psychology, concerned as we are with issues of learning and of the representation of knowledge in the brain. The following is a look at some of the areas in cognitive psychology in which language plays a major role and where the overlap with linguistics is plain.Language Acquisition
First-Language Acquisition
It is helpful to address at this point, because it is far from obvious, the way in which human infants acquire a language (or languages, for many learn more than one in the environment in which they are raised). The word infant
eBook - PDF- Heather Winskel, Prakash Padakannaya(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Part I Language Acquisition (i) Spoken language 1 Studying Language Acquisition cross-linguistically Sabine Stoll and Elena Lieven Introduction One of the fundamental questions in the enterprise of cognitive science is what enables children to learn any of the approximately 7000 languages spoken today and how they cope with the extreme variation exhibited in the structures of these languages? On the one hand, there must be human-specific universals that allow a child to learn any language. On the other, we know from research on linguistic relativity that language influences the way we characterize and categorize the world. Thus the way children learn language sheds light on the question of how language and cognition interact. Prelinguistic children show a similar development of the abilities relevant to producing and understanding language (Callaghan et al., 2011). Some of these abilities are joint attention, pattern recognition, imitation and role reversal. They also show an approximately similar timetable for major land- marks such as babbling and first words. However, as soon as children start producing language, many aspects of development across languages and also, within languages, diversify radically due to the different demands on the learner exhibited by the structures of the language a child is learning and the cultural and social environments a child grows up in. All acquisition theories assume that language learning involves the inter- play of biological and environmental factors but the nature of this interaction is hotly debated. To answer these theoretical issues, empirical acquisition research on a wide range of languages is mandatory. One of the main challenges is to explain how children are able to cope with such a wide variation both of structures and of cultural traditions and beliefs. There have been two somewhat different approaches to the question of variation.
eBook - PDFLanguage Files
Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics, 13th Edition
- Department of Linguistics(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Ohio State University Press(Publisher)
C H A P T E R 8 Language Acquisition © 2015 by Julia Porter Papke 328 F I L E 8.0 What Is Language Acquisition? Many people believe that language is what sets humans apart from other animals. Lan- guages are highly complex and sophisticated systems. So how do we humans manage to learn such complicated systems? This chapter addresses that question. A predominant theory assumes that part of our ability to acquire language is innate and that children learn language by “inventing” the rules specific to their language. When acquiring one or more native language(s), all children go through the same stages of language development: they start by babbling, then learn their first words, go through a so-called one-word stage (during which they can utter only one word at a time), enter the two-word stage, and finally learn the more complex structures of their language(s). Language Acquisition is not limited to children; many people learn a second language later in life. However, second-Language Acquisition can differ from first-Language Acquisition in many respects. Contents 8.1 Theories of Language Acquisition Discusses the innateness hypothesis and introduces a number of theories of Language Acquisition. 8.2 First-Language Acquisition: The Acquisition of Speech Sounds and Phonology Describes how infants perceive and produce sounds, and discusses the acquisition of phonology, including babbling and first words. 8.3 First-Language Acquisition: The Acquisition of Morphology, Syntax, and Word Meaning Discusses the one-word stage, the two-word stage, and later stages of Language Acquisition, and introduces phenomena involved in the acquisition of word meaning. 8.4 How Adults Talk to Young Children Introduces various features of child-directed speech. 8.5 Bilingual Language Acquisition Presents different kinds of bilingual Language Acquisition, discusses code-switching, compares bilingual and monolingual Language Acquisition, and introduces issues in second-Language Acquisition.
eBook - PDFIntroducing Linguistics
Theoretical and Applied Approaches
- Joyce Bruhn de Garavito, John W. Schwieter(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
PART 6 Language Acquisition OVERVIEW In this chapter, you will develop an understanding of first language (L1) acquisition and will: • explore how phonology, vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and communicative development occur in an L1; • discuss how internal factors such as a critical period for Language Acquisition, innate knowledge, and general cognition affect L1 acquisition; • study how external factors such as input and experience, feedback and recasts, and cultural and social factors affect L1 acquisition; • learn about L1 acquisition among atypical populations such as children in situations of deafness or blindness or who may have intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, or a developmental language disorder; • consider the effects of acquiring two L1s from birth; and • review some approaches to studying L1 acquisition. 12.1 What Is First Language Acquisition? Do you remember learning language as a baby? Do you recall anyone explicitly teaching it to you? Chances are you probably answered no to both. L1 acquisition is the study of infants’ and children’s development of language from birth. It is a rather quick process, happening over the first six years or so of life. It is amazing to think that newborn infants who neither speak nor understand any language are soon able to express complex ideas – and sometimes in more than one L1, as we will also discuss later in this chapter. Parents always get excited when hearing their baby’s first word. But they may not real- ize that the baby has been using language before this first word, just not in the conven- tional sense. In fact, the sounds and babbling they make communicate what they need. But when you stop to think about it, the fact that a baby shows signs of language should not be surprising at all – it should be expected. Humans are wired for language, even 12 First Language Acquisition John W. Schwieter
eBook - PDF- Valerie Pang(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
Language Development and Acquisition Learning Objectives LO1 LO2 LO3 LO4 LO5 uni273D CHAPTER 10 STANDARDS COVERED Copyright 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-3 00 308 Chapter 10 Language Development and Acquisition Overview Many students arrive at school knowing how to speak a first language other than English, so it is important for teachers to understand how students learn their home language and a second language. Teachers need to learn how they can use Language Acquisition theories and models to implement various English language learner (ELL) teaching strategies. There are numerous links between learning language and the development of cognition. Lan -guage learning is not only important so that students can communicate with each other, but also language is a critical tool in the development of higher-order thinking, cognitive, and writing skills. The next section discusses the fact that many students arrive in the class -room speaking languages other than English. Social Context: Demographics In the United States, numerous students come to school speaking a language other than English at home. The Migration Policy Institute (2015) reported that students ages 6 to 18 who attended school and had a home language other than English were recognized as English language learners (ELLs). The information was taken from the 2013 American Community Survey (ACS). Nationally, 71 percent of ELLs speak Spanish. In addition, the following nine languages and the percentage of students who speak a language other than English are included in Tableuni00A010.1. In reviewing the table, it is interesting to note that five of the languages are not based on the Latin alphabet; they are Chinese, Arabic, Yiddish, Korean, and Hmong. Immigrants are migrating to the United States from Asian, European, and Middle Eastern countries.
eBook - PDFThe Sounds of Language
An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology
- Elizabeth C. Zsiga(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
This attunement may be seen as a language- particular warping of the perceptual space. • Babies are statistical learners, using transitional probabilities between syllables and seg- ments to discern the recurring patterns that correspond to words. They are sensitive to prosodic patterns from birth, and by the age of one year are using prosodic patterns to aid in word recognition. • Once language-specific articulatory routines and topographies of the perceptual space are learned, they stay learned, allowing automatic and easy processing of the L1, but causing difficulty in switching to an L2. Some linguists argue for a critical period in which Language Acquisition can take place, but after which the cognitive mechanisms that make acquisition effortless are no longer available. • The speech of L2 learners shows both transfer effects from L1 to L2, and developmental effects that reflect universal markedness. • Theories that address the interaction of L1 and L2 categories in perception and produc- tion include the Native Language Magnet model, the Perceptual Assimilation Model and the Speech Learning Model. • Phonological and phonetic theory has benefited from the study of L1 and L2 learners, and should take into account for linguistic systems that are undergoing change. further reading Edwards, J.G.H. and M. Zampini (eds), 2008. Phonology and Second Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kuhl, P. 2004. Early Language Acquisition: Cracking the speech code. Nature Reviews 5: 831–843. review exercises 1. Explain the difference between: Language Acquisition and language learning a longitudinal study and a cross-sectional study ACQUISITION AND LEARNING 463 reduplicated babbling and variegated babbling AX and AXB perception tests 2. Define: L1 L2 motherese neural plasticity critical period velar fronting transfer developmental effects in L2 3. Describe three techniques used to study infant speech perception.
eBook - PDFProcess linguistics
Exploring the processual aspects of language and language use, and the methods of their description
- Thomas T. Ballmer, Wolfgang Wildgen, Thomas T. Ballmer, Wolfgang Wildgen(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
V. Language Acquisition: a hidden curriculum There are three arguments frequently mentioned in the discussions in favor of the innateness hypothesis: i. Language Acquisition takes place in a surprisingly short time. ii. Language is a very complex system? this makes (i) the more surprising. iii. Language Acquisition occurs almost unnoticed. Point i. is doubtful. First of all we cannot compare the child's Language Acquisition period with the adult's second language learning period; for in the latter case the primary language is a confounding variable which on the one hand may accelerate the learning of a second language, but on the other hand produces a certain interference especially at the phonological level. Secondly it is very difficult to determine the exact boundaries of the Language Acquisition period. Does a child start his lin-guistic career when he uses his first two word sentence (18months), 211 when he uses his first intelligible word (12 months), when he uses his first intonational pattern of the mothertongue (between 9 and 12 months)? Or when he produces deliberately cries, ges-tures, and so on to reach a certain effect in the hearer (4 months)? The present question is more interesting with respect to the other bound of the Language Acquisition period. Is lan-guage acquisition finished when the child knows and applies the basic rule system of grammar (around age 5), or when he is able to write complex sentences properly (age 12-14)? With respect to point (ii), it must be mentioned that the lan-guage system is as complex as people think it is, that is to say linguistic theory determines itself to a large extent the com-plexity of the system. It can be questioned whether it is that complex system that a child learns and applies when speaking or listening, in other words, whether Language Acquisition, language production and per-ception, run according the lines suggested by linguistic theory.
- Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams, , Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
Among hundreds of people with probable Alzheimer’s the bilinguals showed their first symptoms of the disease five years later than monolinguals. Summary When children acquire a language, they acquire the grammar of that language—the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic rules. They also acquire the pragmatic rules of the language as well as a lexicon. Children are not taught language. Rather, they extract the rules (and much of the lexicon) from the language(s) spoken around them. The ease and rapidity of children’s Language Acquisition and the uniformity development for all children and all languages, despite the poverty of the stimulus they receive, suggest that the language faculty is innate and that the infant comes to the complex task already endowed with a Universal Grammar. UG is not a grammar like the grammar of English or Arabic, but represents the principles and parameters to which all human languages conform. Children create grammars based on the linguistic input and are guided in this process by UG. Language Acquisition is a creative process. Language development proceeds in stages. During the first year of life chil- dren develop the sounds of their language. This begins in the babbling stage. They first produce and perceive many sounds that do not exist in their linguistic environment. Gradually their productions and perceptions are fine-tuned to their surroundings. Children’s late babbling has all the phonological charac- teristics of the input language. Deaf children who are exposed at birth to sign languages also produce manual babbling, showing that babbling is a universal, biologically-triggered first stage in Language Acquisition that is shaped by the linguistic input received. At the end of the first year, children utter their first words. During the second year, they learn many more words and they develop much of the phonological system of the language.
- Anita K. Barry(Author)
- 2002(Publication Date)
- Praeger(Publisher)
If you are interested in the acquisition of this structure, a good place to begin is Crain and Lillo-Martin, 389-98. 4. As a teacher, you might be interested in exploring language development in the later years of childhood. Here you might begin with the seminal study by Chomsky (1969). Tager-Flusberg (186-97) also offers some interesting insights into later language de- velopment. 5. In this chapter, we touched on some of the theoretical issues concerning the acquisition of language, such as the question of how much language-learning ability is innate Child Language Acquisition 191 and what the role of imitation is in the process. These questions are part of a much broader and long-standing intellectual debate concerning the nature of language. An- other related piece of the debate is the question of whether language learning is different from other kinds of learning. Some psychologists make the case that it is not, while most linguists take the position that it is. If you wish to explore this debate, a good place to start is Bohannon and Bonvillian (279-84). You might also wish to explore the recent claim by some scientists that they have discovered a gene specif- ically related to language. (See "Scientists Report Finding a Gene Enabling Speech," New York Times, October 4, 2001.) More will be said about these issues in Chapter 11. 6. This chapter has not explored the acquisition of the pragmatics of language use, an area that might be of great interest to a teacher who interacts socially with children for many hours each day. How do children learn the conventions of politeness? How do they learn the intent behind an utterance? How do they learn to gauge what their listener already knows and shape their language appropriately? How do they learn to give appropriate feedback in a conversation? At what point do they recognize gender differences in the use of language? These issues are explored in Warren and Mc- Closkey (1997).
eBook - PDF- Margie Berns(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Elsevier(Publisher)
Boxer (2004: 8) identified three theoretical models that offer ‘fairly compatible insights’ into the process-es involved in the development of spoken language ability in both first and second/additional languages. These are: (1) Language Identity, (2) Language Social-ization, and (3) Sociocultural Theory. The Language Identity model focuses on the impact of taking on an additional language in terms of an individual’s identity (see Pavlenko and Lantolf, 2000). For those learning a language, the primary resource, as Boxer (2004: 9) noted, is ‘‘social and interactional, involving face-to-face spoken discourse.’’ Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000) looked at the process that immigrants go through when they are faced with learning a new language. They either choose to appropriate or reject linguistic and cultural aspects of the new language and its culture that can potentially change one’s sense of self. Within the same paradigm, but focusing on the cumulative effect of interaction, relational identities are said to build up over time, and successful interactions for language learners lead to further interaction and in turn promote more opportunities for language develop-ment (see Boxer and Cortes-Conde, 2000). Language Socialization offers a framework for the study of second language speaking in which language is viewed as the symbolic means by which humans appropriate knowledge of norms and rules of verbal and nonverbal behavior in particular speech commu-nities. Becoming a competent member of any speech community means taking on appropriate behaviors of the community. Most of the research in this area focuses on the first and second language devel-opment of children in particular speech communities and the role of parents and teachers who make ex-plicit what ought to be said and done (see Boxer, 2004).
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