Chapter 1. Learning a First Language

1. Chapter 1.Learning a First Language Definitions of “first language”, “second language”, “foreign language”, and “target language” Patterns in L1 development Theoretical approaches to first language learning

2. Definitions: L1 & L2 • Definition of “first language” (L1): • The language(s) that an individual learns first. • Other terms for “first language”- • Native language or mother tongue • Definition of “second language” (L2): • Any language other than the first language learned (in a broader sense). • A language learned after the first language in a context where the language is used widely in the speech community (in a narrower sense). • e.g., For many people in Taiwan, their L1 is Taiwanese and L2 is Mandarin.

3. Definitions: FL & TL • Definition of“foreign language” (FL) • A second (or third, or fourth) language learned in a context where the language is NOT widely used in the speech community. This is often contrasted with second language learning in a narrower sense. e.g., English or Japanese is a foreign language for people in Taiwan. • Definition of “target language” (TL) • A language which is being learned, where it is the first language or a second, third language. e.g., English is a target language for you now.

4. Patterns in L1 Development Characteristics of the language of children: • Their language development shows a high degree of similarity among children all over the world. There are predicable patterns in the L1 development and their L1 developmental patterns are related to their cognitive development (predictability). • Their language reflects the word order of the language that they are hearing. The combination of the words has a meaning relationship (imitation). • Their language shows they are able to apply the rules of the language to make sentences which they have never heard before (creativity).

5. Patterns in L1 Development Before First Words - • The earliest vocalizations • Involuntary crying (when they feel hungry or uncomfortable) • Cooing and gurgling – showing satisfaction or happiness • “Babbling” • reflecting the characteristics of the different language they are learning

6. Patterns in L1 Development First Words – • By 12 months (“one-word” stage): • begin to produce one or two recognizable words (esp. content word); producing single-word sentences. • By age 2 (“two-word” stage): • 1) at least 50 different words • 2) “telegraphic” sentences e.g., “Mommy juice”, “baby fall down” • 3) reflecting the order of the language e.g., “kiss baby”, “baby kiss” • 4) creatively combining words e.g., “more outside”, “all gone cookie”

7. Patterns in L1 Development By age 3 and 1/2or 4: • Able to ask questions, give commands, report real events, and create stories. • By age 4 • have mastered the basic structures of the language or languages that have been spoken to them. e.g., “wug test” – “Here is a wug. Now there are two of them. There are two ___” Children demonstrate that they know the rules for the formation of plural.

8. Patterns in L1 Development • Development of Metalinguistic Awareness • When children begin to learn to read, they see words represented by letters on a page, and thus start to develop metalinguistic awareness (the ability to treat language as an object, separate from the meaning it conveys) e.g., “drink the chair” (age of 3) “cake the eat” (age of 5) “Why is caterpillar longer than train?” (a riddle)

9. Early childhood bilingualism • “Simultaneous bilinguals” • Children who hear more than one language from birth • “Sequential bilinguals” • Children who begin to learn a second language later • Differences between bilingual kids and monolingual kids • Developmental rate of language learning • Amount of metalinguistic knowledge they develop • Type and extent of the vocabulary they acquire

10. Early childhood bilingualism • Language attrition for bilinguals - “Subtractive bilingualism” • When children are “submerged” in a second language for long periods in early schooling, they may begin to lose their native language (L1) before they have developed an age-appropriate mastery of the L2. • It can have serious negative consequences for children from minority groups. • In some cases, children continue to be caught between two languages; not having mastered the L2, but not having continued the L1.

11. Early childhood bilingualism • Solution for “subtractive bilingualism” • Parents should continue speaking the L1 to their children. • Most minority language children do eventually master the majority language, but L2 acquisition takes time. • No evidence shows that a child’s brain has a limited capacity for languages such that their knowledge of one language must shrink if their knowledge of the other one grows.

12. L1 Developmental Sequences • Acquisition of Grammatical morphemes • Acquisition of Negation (to deny, reject, disagree with, and refuse something) • Acquisition of Questions

13. Acquisition of Grammatical morphemes Roger Brown’s study (1973): - approximate order of acquiring grammatical morphemes • Present progressive –ing (running) • Plural –s (books) • Irregular past forms (went) • Possessive -’s (daddy’s hat) • Copula (am/is/are) • Articles (a/an/the) • Regular past –ed (walked) • Third person singular simple present –s (he runs) • Auxiliary ‘be’(He is coming)

14. Acquisition of Negation Lois Bloom’s study (1978) – four stages • Stage 1: ‘no’ – e.g., “No go”. “No cookie.” • Stage 2: subject + no – e.g., “Daddy no comb hair.” • Stage 3: auxiliary or modal verbs (do/can) + not (yet no variations for different persons or tenses) e.g., “I can’t do it “, “He don’t want it.” • Stage 4: auxiliary verbs (did/doesn’t/is/are) + not (sometimes double negatives – e.g., “I don’t have no candies”)

15. Acquisition of Questions Lois Bloom’s study (1978): wh- question words • “Where” and “who” • “What” - Whatsat? Whatsit? • “Why” (emerging at the end of the 2nd year and becomes a favorite for the next year or two) • “How” and “When” (yet children do not fully understand the meaning of adults’ responses)

16. Acquisition of Questions Lois Bloom’s study (1978) – six stages (I) • Stage 1:using single words or single two- or three-word sentences with rising intonation (“Mommy book?” “Where’s Daddy?”) • Stage 2: using the word order of the declarative sentence(“You like this?” “Why you catch it?”) • Stage 3: “fronting” - putting a verb at the beginning of a sentence (“Is the teddy is tired?” “Do I can have a cookie?”)

17. Acquisition of Questions Lois Bloom’s study (1978) – six stages (II) • Stage 4: subject-auxiliary inversion in yes/no questions but not in wh-questions (“Do you like ice cream?” “Where I can draw?”) • Stage 5: subject-auxiliary inversion in wh-questions, but not in negative wh-questions (“Why can he go out?” “Why he can’t go out?”) • Stage 6: overgeneralizing the inverted form in embedded questions (“I don’t know why can’t he go out.”)

18. Theoretical Approaches toL1 Learning • Behaviorism: Say what I say • Innatism (or the Nativist Approach): It’s all in your mind • The Interactionist Position: A little help form my friends

19. Behaviorism: Say what I say • Skinner: language behavior is the production of correct responses to stimuli through reinforcement. • Language learning is the result of imitation (word-for-word repetition), practice (repetitive manipulation of form), feedback on success (positive reinforcement), and habit formation. • The quality and quantity of the language that the child hears as well as the consistency of the reinforcement offered by others in the environment should have an effect on the child’s success in language learning.

20. Behaviorism:Say what I say • Children’s imitations are not random: Their imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning. They choose to imitate something they have already begun to understand, rather than simply imitating what is available in the environment. • They are doing “substitution drills”. • Imitation and practice cannotexplain some of the forms created by children. Children do pick out patterns and then generalize them to new contexts.

21. Innatism:It’s all in your mind • Chomsky: Language acquisition is innately determined; that is, children are biologically programmed for language (just like walking). Children develop language in quite similar ways and on a similar schedule. • Children are born with a special ability (i.e. linguistic competence) to discover for themselves the underlying rules of a language system. This special ability is referred to as a language acquisition device (LAD). • Environmental differences may be associated with some variation in the rate of language acquisition.

22. Innatism:It’s all in your mind • Why do behaviorists fail to recognize “the logical problem of language acquisition”? • The language the child is exposed to in the environment is full of confusing information and does not provide all the information which the child needs. • Children are by no means systematically corrected or instructed on language by parents. • When parents correct, they tend to focus on meaning rather than form, and children often ignore the correction and continue to use their own ways of saying things.

23. Innatism:It’s all in your mind • LAD (an imaginary “black box” existing somewhere in the brain): • LAD contains all and only the principles which are universal to all human languages (i.e.. Universal Grammar – UG). • For the LAD to work, children need access only to samples of a natural language, which serve as a trigger to activate the device. • Once the LAD is activated, children are able to discover the structure of the language to be learned by matching the innate knowledge of basic grammatical principles (UG) to the structures of the particular language in the environment.

24. Innatism:It’s all in your mind • Evidence used to support Chomsky’s innatist position: • Virtually all children successfully learn their native language at a time in life when they would not be expected to learn anything else so complicated. • Language is separate from other aspects of cognitive developments (e.g., creativity and social grace) and may be located in a different “module" of the brain. • The language children are exposed to does not contain examples of all the linguistic rules and patterns. • Animals cannot learn to manipulate a symbol system as complicated as the natural language of a 3- or 4-year-old child. • Children acquire grammatical rules without getting explicit instruction.

25. Innatism:It’s all in your mind • The biological basis for the innatist position: • The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) – Lenneberg: There is a specific and limited time period (i.e., “critical period”) for the LAD to work successfully. The best evidence for the CPH is that virtually every child learns language on a similar schedule in spite of different environments.

26. Innatism:It’s all in your mind • Three case studies of abnormal language development - evidence of the CPH • Victor – a boy of about 12 years old (1799) • Genie – a girl of 13 years old (1970) • Deaf signers (native signers, early learners, vs. late learners)

27. Innatism:It’s all in your mind • Summary of Innatism: • Review all the important terms related to the innatist position – LAD, UG, and CPH. • The innatists placed more emphasis on the linguistic competence of adult native speakers, but not enough on the developmental aspects of language acquisition.

28. Innatism vs. Connectionism • How connectionism differs from innatism – • Connectionists hypothesize that language acquisition dose not require a separate “module of the mind” but can be explained in terms of learning in general. • Connectionists attribute greater importance to the role of the environment than to any innate knowledge in the learner. What children need to know is essentially available in the language they are exposed to.

29. The Interactionist Position • Piaget: language develops as a result of the complex interplay between the human innate capacities and the linguistic environment in which the child develops. • They emphasize the importance of child-directed speech – the language which is not only addressed to children but adjusted (or modified) in ways that make it easier for them to understand. • They see language acquisition as similar to and influenced by the acquisition of other kinds of skill and knowledge.IT does not require a separate module of the mind.

30. The Interactionist Position • Child-directed Speech (modified language interaction): • a slower rate of delivery, higher pitch, more varied intonation, shorter, simpler sentence patterns, frequent repetition, and paraphrase • Limited conversation topics: e.g., the ‘hear and now’ and topics related to the child’s experiences. • More important than modification is the conversational give-and-take. One-to-one interaction gives the child access to language which is adjusted to his/her level of comprehension

31. The Interactionist Position • Vygotsky: sociocultural theory of human mental processing • Language develops entirely from social interaction. A supportive interactive environment enables children to advance to a higher level of knowledge and performance than s/he would be capable of independently. • “Zone of proximal development” (ZPD) refers to what the child could do in interaction with another, but not alone.

32. The Interactionist Position • How Piaget’s view differs from Vygotsky’s: • Piaget hypothesized that language developed as a symbol system to express knowledge acquired through interaction with the physical world. • Vygotsky hypothesized that thought was essentially internalized speech, and speech emerged in social interaction.

33. Summary • Each of the three theoretical approaches explains a different aspect of first language acquisition. • Behaviorists (learning through imitation and practice) – the acquisition of vocabulary and grammatical morphemes • Innatists (LAD / UG) – the acquisition of complex grammar. • Interactionists (social interaction) – the acquisition of how form and meaning are related, how conversations are carried on, and how language is used appropriately.