chapter 1 part one

8/6/2019 Chapter 1 Part One

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At interesting thing about first languageacquisition is the high degree of similarity in theearly language of children all over the world.

The earliest vocalization are simply theinvoluntary cry that babies do when they arehungry or uncomfortable.

Soon, however, we hear the cooing and gurgling

sounds of contented baby, lying in their bedslooking at fascinating shapes and movementaround them.


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Researchers have shown that tiny babies can hear

the difference between pa and ba, for example.

By the end of their first year, most babies

understand quite a few frequently repeated words.

They wave when someone say bye-bye; they

eagerly hurried to the kitchen when juice and

cookies are mentioned.At 12 months, most babies will have begun to

produce a word or two that everyone recognizes.


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As children progress through the discovery oflanguage in their first three years, there arepredictable patterns in the emergence and

development of many features of the languagethey are learning.For some language features, these patterns have

been described in terms of developmentalsequences or stages.

These stages in language acquisition are related tochildrens cognitive development.

For example, children dont use temporal adverbslike tomorrow until they understand time.


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In the 1960s, several researchers focused on howchildren acquire grammatical morphemes inEnglish.

In his book (1973), RogerBrown studied(longitudinally) the language development of 3children (Adam, Sarah and Eve).

Brown found that 14 grammatical morphemes

were acquired in a remarkably similar sequence.The following list shows some of the morphemesBrowns studied:


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Present progressive ing(Mommy running)

Plural s (Two books)

Irregular past forms (Baby went)

Possessive s (Daddys hat)

Copula (Annie is happy)

Articles the and a

Regular past ed (She walked) Third person singular simple present s (She runs)

Auxiliary be (He is coming)


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Brown found that a child who had mastered thegrammatical morpheme at the bottom of the listwas sure to have mastered those at the top, but the

reverse was not true.Thus, there was evidence for a developmental

sequence or order of acquisition.However, the children didnt acquire the

morphemes at the same age or rate.Eve mastered all the morphemes before she was

2.5, while Sarah and Adam after 4.


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Jill and Peter de Villiers (1973) confirmedBrowns study in a cross-sectional study of 21children.

Many hypotheses have been advanced to explainwhy these grammatical morphemes are acquiredin the observed order.

However, there has been no simple satisfactory

explanation for the sequence.Most researchers agree that the order is

determined by an interaction of different factors.


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Some carefully designed procedures have beendeveloped to further explore childrens knowledgeof grammatical morphemes.

One of the first and best known is the so-calledwug test developed by Jean Berko Gleason in the1950s.

This kind of experiment shows that childrens

language is not just a list of memorized words; butit demonstrates that they know the rule for theformation of plural in English.


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Children learn the functions of negation veryearly.

Although children understand and express

negation, it takes them some time to express themin sentences using the appropriate word order(Bloom 1991).

The following stages of negation development

have been observed in the acquisition of English.Similar stages have been observed in otherlanguages as well.


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Stage 1Negation is usually expressed by the word no.

No. No cookie. No comb hair.

Stages 2Utterances are longer and may include a subject.

Daddy no comb hair. Dont touch that!

Stages 3

Negation is used with complex sentences. Newforms of negation appear.

I cant do it. He dont want it.


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Stage 4

Children attach negative elements to correct forms

of auxiliary verbs.

You didnt have supper.

She doesn't want it.

Even though their language system is by now

quite complex, they may still have difficulty withother features related to negatives; e.g.,

I dont have no more candies.


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There is a remarkable consistency in the way

children learn to form questions in English.

There is a predictable order in which the wh-

words emerge (Bloom 1991).

The first form of a wh-question seems to be the

chunk whassat?.

Where and who emerge very soon. These seemto be the first wh-questions to be asked by adults,

for example; wheres mommy?, whos that?


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Child when can we go outside?Parent in about 5 minutes.Child 1-2-3-4-5!! can we go now?

The ability to use question words is at least partlytied to childrens cognitive development.

This development is not based on learning new

meanings, but rather learning different linguisticforms to express meanings that are alreadyunderstood.


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Why emerges around the end of the second yearand becomes the favorite for the next year or two.

Children seem to ask an endless number of

questions beginning with why, e.g., why thatlady has blue hair?.

Finally, when the child has a better understandingof manner and time, how and when emerge.

Children sometimes ask the more cognitivelydifficult why, when, and how questions withoutalways understanding the answers they get, e.g.,


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Stage 1

childrens earliest questions are single words or

2/3 word sentences with rising intonation:

cookie? Mommy book?

At the same time, they may produce some correct

questions correct because they have learned as

chunks:when is daddy?

What is that?


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Stage 2

children use the word order of the declarative

sentence, with rising intonation:

You like this?

I have some?

They continue to produce the correct chunk-

learned forms such as whats that? alongsidetheir own created questions.


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Stage 3

children notice that the structure of questions is

different and begin to produce questions such as:

Can I go? Are you happy?

Although some questions at this stage match the

adult pattern, the concept of fronting is not fully

understood:Is the teddy is tired? Do I can have a cookie?

Why you dont have one? Why you catched it?


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Stage 4some questions are formed by subject-auxiliaryinversion. There is more variety in the auxiliary

that appear before the subject:Are you going to play with me?

Children can even use do-support as in thefollowing:

do dogs like ice cream?At this stage, children seem to use either inversion

or a wh- word, but not both.


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Stage 5At this stage, both wh- and yes/no questions areformed correctly:

Are these your boots?Why did you do that?Does daddy have a box?

Negative questions may still be a bit too difficult.

why the teddy bear cant go outside?Children seem to overgeneralize the inversion inembedded wh-questions:

ask him why cant he go out.


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Stage 6

At this stage, children are able to correctly form

all question types, including negative and complex

embedded questions.


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By the age of four, most children can askquestions, give commands, report real events, andcreate stories about imaginary ones using correct

word order and grammatical markers most of thetime.

It is generally accepted that by age four, childrenhave mastered the basic structures of the language

spoken to them in these early years.Three-and four-year-olds continue to learn

vocabulary at the rate of several words a day.


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Although preschool children acquire complexknowledge and skills for language, the schoolsetting will require new ways of using language

and bring new opportunities for languagedevelopment.

Learning to read gives a major boost to this aspectof language development.

Seeing words represented by letters on a pageleads children to a new understanding thatlanguage has form as well as meaning.


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Much of childrens language acquisition effort in

the late preschool years is spent in developing

their ability to use language in a widening social

environment.

They use language in a greater variety of

situations.

They also begin to develop metalinguisticawareness.

Children can tell you that it is silly to say drink

the chair, because it doesnt make sense.


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Another important development in the school

years is the acquisition of different language

registers.

Children learn how written language differs from

spoken language, how the language used to speak

to the principal is different from the language of

the playground, how the language of sciencereport is different from the language of a

narrative.


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One of the most impressive languagedevelopments in the early school years is theastonishing growth of the vocabulary.

Children enter school with the ability tounderstand and produce hundreds or even a fewthousand words.

Many more are learnt at school. Vocabulary grows

at the rate between several hundred and more thana thousand words a year, depending mainly onhow much children read.

chapter 1 part one

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