2 -What is language?-Language behaviour-Linguistics & Applied Linguistics-Communicative Competence-Learning a first Language-Theories of first language acquisition

What is language?• Language is a complex and dynamic system of conventional symbols

that is used in various modes for thought and communication.• Language evolves within specific historical, social and cultural

context;• Language, are rule-governed behavior, is described at least five

parameters – phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic;

• Language learning and use are determined by the intervention of biological, cognitive, psychosocial, and environmental factors;

• Effective use of language for communication requires a broad understanding of human interaction including such associated factors as nonverbal cues, motivation, and sociocultural roles.

(Committee on Language, 1983)

Language Behaviour

• Language as a medium of human communication– Sender (speaker or writer)– Receiver (listener or reader)

Language behaviour

Language Behaviour

Language Behaviour

Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

• Linguistics= scientific inquiry into human language in all its aspects= structures and uses and relationship between them

• it investigates what is universal to all human languages: • how languages are different, • how language varies over time and between different

societies, • how language is learnt, • how language is used for human communication.

Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

• Applied Linguistics– using linguistic theory to address real-world problems – dominated by the fields of language education and

second language acquisition. – takes the results of those findings and applies them to

other area – Often applied linguistics refers to the use of linguistic

research in language teaching, but results of linguistic research are used in many other areas, as well.

– practical issues involving language in the life of the community.

Communicative Competence

• proposed by sociolinguist Dell Hymes in 1974

• “sociolinguistic and conversational skills that enable the speaker to know how to say what to whom, when”

(Nunan, 1999)

Communicative Competence

• “L2 learners need to know not only the linguistic knowledge, but also the culturally acceptable ways of interacting with others in different situations and relationships”

Hymes (1974, cited in Shumin 2002)

Grammatical Competence= Chomsky’s linguistic competence

Sociolinguistic Competence= when to speak, what to talk about with whom, in

what manner

Discourse Competence= linking ideas

Strategic competence= ability to cope in an authentic communicative

situation and to keep the communicative channel open

Learning a first language

Please look at the questions on pages xvii and xviii in Lightbown and Sapada (2006).

Think about the questions and discuss with your friend sitting next to you (5 minutes)

Learning a first language

• How do children accomplish this?

• Not only learn words, but put them together in meaningful sentences?

• Develop complex grammatical language?

By the age of 1

• One word stage

• Most children will say one or two words that everbody understands

Learning a first languageBy the age of 2 (two-word stage)

• Prototypes emerge– Hav for all dogs– Cik for all birds– Baba for all male looking people

• Telegraphic sentences: • articles, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs are dropped.

Over-extension is obvious‘baba’ (pointing to slippers, remote control)‘bebek’ (with rising tone)‘mommy juice’‘baby fall down’‘Daddy uh-oh’

Learning a first language

• By the age of 3-4.5 years– Ask questions– Give commands– Report real events– Create stories about imaginary events

– Mastered the basic structure of language – Wug test

Learning a first language

• Pre-school years– Metalinguistic awareness

• Ability to think about language • awareness or bringing into explicit consciousness

of linguistic form and structure in order to consider how they relate to and produce the underlying the meaning of utterances

• Ability to treat language as an object, separate from the meaning it conveys

Learning a first language

• Is it true to say

• (conceptual representation develops by the age of five)–Drink the chair–Cake the eat

• Which one is longer?–Train or caterpillar

Early childhood bilingualism

• Exposing more than more language in early childhood

• Simultaneous bilinguals : hearing more than one language from birth

• Sequential bilinguals : beginning to learn a second language later

• Subtractive bilingualism : different language in family and society (children from minority groups)

Developmental sequences• Grammatical morphemes

– Study by Roger Brown indicates an ORDER of acquisitionThree children showed a clear order of acquiring the following morphemes.

• Present progressive –ing (Mommy running)• Plural –s (two books)• Irregular past forms (Baby went)• Possessive ‘s (daddy’s hat)• Copula (Annie is a nice girl)• Articles ‘the’ and ‘a’• Regular past –ed (She walked)• Third person singular simple present –s (She runs)• Auxiliary ‘be’ (He is coming)

• Variation is possbile among learners

• Jill and Peter de Villiers (1973) crosssectional study supported the order of acquision in Brown (1973).

Developmental sequences

• Negation– Deny, reject, disagree with, refuseStage 1No go. No cookie. No comb hair Any bathStage 2Daddy no comb hairStage 3I can’t do it. He don’t want it.Stage 4You didn’t have supper. She doesn’t want it.Some problemd with double negations)I don’t have no more candies.

Developmental sequences

• Questions– Predictable order in wh- words

FROM MORE CONCRETE TO MORE ABSTRACT

• What (Whatsat?, Whatsit?) • Where and who• Why (at the age of two)• When (takes time to develop)

Developmental sequences

• Questions

Child : When can we go outside?

Parent : In about five minutes.

Child : 1-2-3-4-5!! Can we go now?

Developmental sequences• Questions

Stage 1Cookie? Mommy book?

We may have formulaic chunks:Where’s Daddy? What’s that?

Stage 2declaritive word order in affirmative sentence with rising

intonationYou like this? I have some? Why you catch it?

Stage 3Can I go? Is that mine? declaritive word order in wh- questionsWhy you don’t have one?

Stage 4

Subject-auxiliary inversion

Do you like ice-cream?

Can he eat the cookie? What I can draw them?

Stage 5

Wh- word & modal movement

Why can he go out? Why he can’t go out?

Stage 6

I don’t know why can’t he go out?

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• Behaviourism : Say what I say

– In the 1940s and 1950s– Language learning is a result of imitation,

practice, feedback on success and habit formation

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• Behaviourism : Say what I say• Imitation : Word-for-word repetition of all or

part of someone else’s utteranceMother : Would you like some bread and peanut

butter?Katie : Some bread and peanut butter

• Practice : Repetitive manipulation of formMichael I can handle it. Hannah can handle it.

We can handle it

• TASK

• Read the transcripts on page

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• Innatism : It’s all in your mind– Noam Chomsky (early 1960s)– Reacting against behaviourism (fails to

recognize ‘the logical problem of language acquisition’)

– Biologically programmed – Language is developed in the same way that

other biological functions develop

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• Innatism– Children’s minds are not blank slates to be

filled merely by imitating language they hear in the environment

instead– Children are born with a special ability to

discover underlying rules of a language system

• LAD (Language Acquisition Device)

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• LAD = black box in our brain

• For the LAD to work, the child need access only to samples of a language

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• Universal Grammar (Chomsky)– Set of principles which are common to all

languages– Children just have to learn the ways in which

their own language make use of these principles and the variation on these principles

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• Kinds of evidence used to support innatist position1. Virtually all children successfully learn their native language2. They master the L1 in a wide range of conditions: some may

support learning, some not.3. All achieve structural mastery although they may vary in their

mastery of creativity, vocabulary, socio-cultural appropriacy, so structural (language) development may be learned in a different way from other learnings

4. the language children are exposed to does not contain examples of all he linguistics rules and patterns that they eventually know.

5. Animals cannot reach the level of a 3-4 year old human child6. children can identify ungrammatical utterances

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• The biological basis for the innatist position– The Critical Period Hypothesis

• LAD works successfully only when it is stimulated at the right time – a time called ‘critical period’

• The ability to develop normal behaviours and knowledge does not continue indefinitely

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• The interactionist position : A little help from my friends

• Language develops from a complex interaction between the child and his/her environment

• Children learn language in the same way as they learn other skills and knowledge

• Importance of child-directed speech

• Interactionism (Piaget)

• Language is acquired through physical interaction with the environment

• Language represents the knowledge that children develop through physical interaction with the environment

• Interactionism: Vygotsky

• Language develops through social interaction

• In a supportive interactive environment, child is able to advance to a higher level of knowledge and performance than he/she could achieve alone

• Zone of proximal development

Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning

• Child directed speech– Slower rate of delivery– Higher pitch– more varied intonation– shorter, simpler sentence patterns– repetition– paraphrase– topics limited to here and now