PLLT Chapter.2 summary

Chapter2. First Language Acquisition

In the late of 20th century, researchers paid attention to child language by analyzing it systematically and trying to discover the nature of the psycholinguistic process. Even if it looks reasonable to make analogy between the first language and the second language, there are dozens of differences between them. Especially, when it comes to the second language, there is a tremendous cognitive and affective contrast.

Theories of First Language Acquisition
Theories of language acquisition attempt to answer some questions about how people can have the amazing language acquisition ability. There are two polarized positions in the study of acquisition. The one is an extreme behavioristic position. It claims that children’s environment, rather than their nature, can affect the children. On the other hand, the constructivist claims that children came into the world with very specific innate knowledge.

Behavioristic Approach
The behavioristic approach focused on the immediately perceptible aspects of linguistic behavior – the publicly observable responses – and the relationships or associations between those responses and events in the world surrounding them. It claims that a person comes to comprehend an utterance by responding appropriately to production and by being reinforced for that responses. B.F. skinner explained operant conditioning in his book, Verbal Behavior (1957). Skinner insisted that verbal behavior is controlled by its consequence, like other behavior. His point was so controversial at that time. Mediation theory supported the behavioristic theory, which is that the linguistic stimulus elicits a mediating response that is self-stimulating.

The Nativist Approach
The nativist insisted that language acquisition is innately determined and we are born with a genetic capacity. Chomsky mentioned that this innate knowledge is embodied in a language acquisition device (LAD). McNeill saw LAD as consisting of four innate linguistic properties. More recently, researchers expanded the LAD notion into a system of universal linguistic rules. The generative model enabled researchers to take some giant steps toward understanding the process of first language acquisition. The first rule of the generative grammar of the child was described like this : sentence → Pivot word + open word. Here, pivot word is the early grammars of child language. The generative “rule- governed” model in the Chomskyan tradition has been challenged. The parallel distributed processing persists that a child’s linguistic performance may be the consequence of many levels of simultaneous neural interconnections.
Nativist had made three important contributions.
1. Freedom from the restrictions of the so-called “ Scientific method” to explore the unseen, unobservable, underlying, abstract linguistic structures being developed in the child.
2. Systematic description of the child’s linguistic repertoire as either rule-governed or operating out of parallel distributed processing capacities
3. The construction of a number of potential properties of Universal Grammar.

Functional Approaches
Two emphases emerged
1. Researchers began to realize that language was a cognitive and affective ability to communicate with all the things including the self.
2. They dealt with the forms of language, not the deeper functional levels.

Cognition and Language Development
Bloom found three possible underlying relationships: agent-action, agent-object, and possessor-possessed. In addition, he concluded that children learn underlying structures, not superficial word order. Piaget insisted what children learn about language is determined by what they already know about the world. Dan Slobin demonstrated that semantic learning depends on cognitive development.

Social Interaction and Language Development
Social constructivist emphasized on the function of language in discourse. Discourse has a special meaning in that language is used for interactive communication.

Issues in First Language Acquisition

Competence and Performance
Competence means one’s underlying knowledge of a system, event, or fact. It is nonobservable ability to do something, to perform something. Performance is the overtly observable and concrete manifestation or realization of competence. It is actually doing of something.

Comprehension and production
People usually think that comprehension is similar to competence and production is similar to performance, but it’s not true. Children seem to understand more than they actually produce like adults do. We have to differentiate between production competence and comprehension competence.

Nature and Nurture
Even if Nativists insist that a child is born with an innate knowledge toward language, there are a number of problems. The innateness is important, but we should not ignore the environmental factors.

Universal
Some people claim that language universally acquired in the same manner and that the deepest structure level may be common to all language, Much of current UG research is centered around what have come to be known as principles and parameters. According to UG, language cannot vary in a number of ways. Parameters determines ways in which languages can vary.

Systematicity and Variability
Systematicity means that children show a remarkable ability to infer the pronological, structural, lexical and semantic system of language. However, in the midst of all this systematicity, there is an equal amount of variability in the process of learning.

Language and thought
Piaget claimed that cognitive development affects language. On the other hand, others claimed that language has an effect on thought. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development is the distance between a child’s actual cognitive capacity and the level of potential development. The truth is that language and thought are closely related.

Imitation
One of the most important strategies a child uses in language learning is imitation. Behaviorists assume one type of imitation, but a deeper level of imitation is much more important in the process of language acquisition.

Practice
A behavioristic model of first language acquisition would claim that practice - repetition and association – is the key to the formation of habits by operant conditioning. Practice is usually regarded as referring to speaking only. But we can also think about comprehension practice.

Input
The role of input in the child’s acquisition of language is so important. Children can speak what they hear. Adult and peer input to the child is far more crucial that nativists earlier thought. Adult input shapes the child’s acquisition and the interaction patterns between child and parent change according to the increasing language skill of the child.

Discourse
Berko-Gleason mentioned that interaction, rather than exposure, is required in order for successful first language acquisition to take place and children learn language in the context of being spoken to. Sinclair and Coulthard proposed that conversations should be examined in terms of initiations and responses.


In order to understand why it’s not easy to learn second language in spite of the first language acquisition, we should understand the nature of initial acquisition process.