Language acquisition &language processing

John Israel G. TagudinReporter

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION& LANGUAGE PROCESSING

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSING

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSING

“The capacity to learn language is deeplyingrained in us as a species, just as the capacity

to walk, to grasp objects, to recognize faces.We don’t find any serious difference in children

growing up in congested urban slums, inisolated mountain villages, or in privileged

suburban villas”

Dan Slobin, The Human Language Series 2 (1994)

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSING• Every language is complex.• Before the age of 5, the child knows most of the intricate system of grammar:

Use the syntactic, phonological, morphological and semantic rules of the language

Join sentences Ask questions Use appropriate pronouns Negate sentences Form relative clauses

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGLearning to speak and understand alanguage is different than learning to readand write.

“ We are designed to walk.. That we aretaught to walk is impossible. And prettymuch the same is true of language.Nobody is taught language. In fact youcan’t prevent a child from learning it”

- Chomsky 1994

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGIssues in first language acquisition

• How do children acquire such a complex system so quickly a and effortlessly?

• Does a child decide to consciously pursue certain skills? (e.g., walking)

• Do babies make a conscious decision to start learning a language?

• We correct children’s errors sometimes. Does it help?‘Nobody don’t like me’

• Noisy data

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGTheories of language acquisition:

• Nature vs. Nurture The ancient theories of child language acquisition explore the dilemma of nature versus nurture; that is, whether language is inherent and God-given or learned from environment. • Behaviorism (1950s)

Children learn language through imitation, reinforcement, analogy and similar processes.

As the name implies, behaviorism focused on people’s behaviors, which are directly observable, rather than mental systems underlying these behaviors.

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGTheories of language acquisition:

• Innateness hypothesis

Children are equipped with an innate template for language (Language Acquisition Device and Universal Grammar).

Evidence: we end up knowing more about language than what we hear around us. The same stages in all cultures and languages

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGBasic requirements: Environment and interaction to bring this capacity into operation-

– cultural transmission

The child must be physically capable (being able to hear)

Interaction. All these requirements are related.

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGThe acquisition schedule:• In spite of different backgrounds, different locations, and

different upbringings, most children follow the very same milestones in

acquiring language.• The biological schedule is related to the maturation of the

infant’s brain to cope with the linguistic input.• Young children acquire the language by identifying the

regularities in what is heard and applying those regularities in what they say.

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGCaretaker Speech (motherese/child-directed speech/baby talk)• A type of simplified speech adopted by someone who spends

time with the child characterized by:• Frequent use of questions• Simplified lexicon• Phonological reduction• Higher pitch- extra loudness• Stressed intonation• Simple sentences• A lot of repetition

Example: Oh, goody! Now Daddy will push choo choo!

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGCaretaker Speech (motherese)

MOTHER: Look! CHILD: (touches picture) MOTHER: what are those? CHILD: (vocalizes a babble string and smiles) MOTHER: yes, there are rabbits CHILD: Vocalizes and smiles MOTHER: (laughs) yes, rabbit

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGStage Typical age Description

Cooing 3-5 months Vowel-like soundsBabbling 6-10 months Repetitive patternsOne word stage 12-18 months Single open-class words or word stemsTwo word stage 18-24 months "mini-sentences" with simple semantic relationsTelegraphic stage 24-30 months sentence structures of lexical words no functional or

grammatical morphemesLater multiword stage 30+ months Grammatical or functional structures emerge

3-5 years Competence begins to match performance. Grammaticality, complete syntactic structures. Complex sentences.

4 years 10-15 new words per day

7 years 20 new words per day, academic vocabulary. Registers and styles appear.

12 years Overgeneralizations may continue Adolescence Strive for “correct” or “cool” forms for social identity and ego

enhancement. Adult 40-60,000 words in active vocabulary

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGFirst language acquisition stages

Cooing• Few weeks: cooing and gurgling, playing with sounds. Their

abilities are constrained by physiological limitations.• They seem to be discovering phonemes at this point.• Producing sequences of vowel-like sounds- high vowels [i] and

[u].• 4 months- sounds similar to velar consonants [k] & [g].• 5 months: distinguish between [a] and [i] and the syllables

[ba] and [ga], so their perception skills are good.


Babbling• Different vowels and consonants ba-ba-ba and ga-gaga• 9-10 months- intonation patterns and combination of

ba-ba-ba-da-da• Nasal sounds also appear ma-ma-ma• 10-11- use of vocalization to express emotions• Late stage- complex syllable combination (ma-da-gaba)• Even deaf children babble• The most common cross-linguistic sounds and patterns

babbled the most, but later on they babble less common sounds


The word stage (holophrastic)• Single terms are uttered for everyday objects e.g. ‘milk’,

‘cookie’, ‘cat’• Produce utterance such as ‘Sara bed’ but not yet capable of

producing a phrase.• Differ from adult language

[da] dog[sa] sock[aj] light[daw] down

• Convey a more complex message


Two word stage • Vocabulary moves beyond 50 words• By 2 years old, children produce utterances ‘baby chair’,

‘mommy eat’• Interpretation depends on context• Adults behave as if communication is taking place.


Telegraphic stage• By 2 years & a half, they produce multiple-word speech.• Developing sentence building capacity.

E.g. ‘this shoe all wet’, ‘cat drink milk’, ‘daddy go bye-bye’• Vocabulary continues to grow• Better pronunciation

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGThe acquisition process

The child does not acquire the language by imitatingadults- trying out constructions and testing them.

CHILD: my teacher holded the baby rabbit and we patted themMOTHER: did you say your teacher held the baby rabbit?CHILD: yes. she holded the baby rabbit and we patted themMOTHER: Did you say she held them tightly?CHILD: no, she holded them loosely

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGDeveloping Morphology

• By 2-and-a-half years old- use of some inflectional morphemes to indicate the grammatical function of nouns and verbs.

• The first inflection to appear is –ing after it comes the –s for plural.

• Overgeneralization: the child applies –s to words like ‘foots’ ‘mans’ and later ‘feets’ ‘mens’

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGDeveloping Morphology

• By 2-and-a-half years old- use of some inflectional morphemes to indicate the grammatical function of nouns and verbs.

• The first inflection to appear is –ing after it comes the –s for plural. Overgeneralization: the child applies –s to words like ‘foots’ ‘mans’ and later ‘feets’ ‘mens’

• The use of possessive ‘s’ appears ‘mommy’s bag’• Forms of verb to be appear ‘is’ and ‘are’• The –ed for past tense appears and it is also overgeneralized as in

‘goed’ or holded’• Finally –s marker for 3rd person singular preset tense appears

with full verbs first then with auxiliaries (does-has)

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGDeveloping syntax

• A child was asked to say the owl who eats candy runs fast and she said the owl eat candy and he run fast.

• The development of two syntactic structures- three stages• Forming questions• Forming negatives

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGForming questions

1st stage: Insert where and who to the beginning of anexpression with rising intonation

E.g. sit chair? Where horse go?

2nd stage: More complex expressionE.g. why you smiling? You want eat?

3rd stage: Inversion of subject and verbE.g. will you help me? What did I do?

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGForming negative

Stage 1: Putting not and no at the beginninge.g. not teddy bear, no sit here

Stage 2: Don’t and can’t appear but still use no and not before VERBS

e.g. he no bite you, I don’t want it

Stage 3: didn’t and won’t appeare.g. I didn’t caught it, she won’t go

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & PROCESSINGDeveloping Semantics

During the two-word stage children use their limited vocabulary to refer to a large number of unrelated objects.Overextension: overextend the meaning of a word on the basis of similarities of shape, sound, and size.e.g. use ball to refer to an apple, and egg, a grape and a ball.This is followed by a gradual process of narrowingdown.Antonymous relations are acquired lateThe distinction between more/less, before/after seem to be lateracquisition.

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Language acquisition &language processing