Warming up discussion 1.0

Language Acquisition

The aim of this unit

¨ To make you think of how a language is acquired in the natural settings

¨ To reflect upon how native grammar competence is formed in children

¨ To analyse the theory of language acquisition in one’s childhood

What do you have to do in this unit?

¨ Warming up discussions

¨ Input reading

¨ Exploratory tasks

¨ Self-assessment questions (SAQ)

¨ Integrated task

Warming-up discussion 0

Give your own view on the following questions. Share your opinion with the group and indicate the winning point.

Question	“Yes” and comment	“No” and comment	Winning point of view
1. Can natural language acquisition be replicated in the classroom?
2. Should natural language acquisition be replicated in the classroom?
3. Is natural language acquisition replicated in the classroom?
4. Do teachers know enough about natural language acquisition?
5. Will the knowledge about natural language acquisition improve classroom teaching?

Input reading 1

Language acquisition device (LAD)

SAQ 1.0

Mark the following statements as True (T), False (F) or Debatable (D)

Statements	T F D
1. Children are born with the language in their minds
2. Children replicate the language of their environment
3. Small children are unable to analyse language yet
4. Children of illiterate parents will speak primitive language
5. Children in different countries acquire different grammars
6. The order of language acquisition depends on the input
7. The knowledge of complex structures should be taught
8. Comprehension of the deep meaning is intuition based
9. Language acquisition can be successful at any life period

Warming up discussion 1.0

Brainstorm the concept of “Child’s talk” and make up an association mind map.

 

Child’s Talk

There is certain evidence that children are programmed to acquire their native language. The innate views on language acquisition are supported by the arguments that all children successfully learn their native language when they are small enough to learn anything as complex as the language system. Children achieve different levels of vocabulary, creativity and language use, but all come to master the structure of the language. The language, which the children produce, is not the replication of the language, to which they are naturally exposed. Language acquisition is an exclusively human faculty as other living beings, even the most "intelligent" animals can't manipulate human language after an intensive training. Children all by themselves acquire the idea of what is "correct" and what is "incorrect" in their native language. The main reason for proposing the hypothesis of the Language Acquisition Device was that behaviourist theory failed to explain the "logical problem" of language acquisition. Children learn more about the grammar of the language than they actually encounter and the language they learn are not the same. As Chomsky puts it, child approaches the language with the task to determine how the language of the community in which he is placed actually works (Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge. MA. P. 27). It is not a simple chain input-output as advocated by behaviourism. There is a lot of internal analysis going on the process of language acquisition. Language acquisition device in the human brain functions as the "language analyser". What the children acquire is not the corpus of the language they hear but their own mental rules about the language. Language acquisition process can be shown as in the figure below (after Chomsky)

The ability to analyse language develops in children only gradually. At the age of 5 and 6 years the children do not realise yet that sentences such as "The rabbit is nice to eat" and "The rabbit is eager to eat" have completely different underlying meanings. The reason being that they are not yet dealing consciously with the language forms (Aitchison, J. 1999. The Articulate Mammal. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. L., N.Y. P. 84). Later from six to twelve years the children get a better ability to plan their actions and to reflect on what they do. At this period they can start dealing consciously with the language and understand the deep "hidden" meaning of sentences as well as sentence structures. Finally, from the age of twelve formal operations stage begins opening the way to mature abstract thinking. The stages of child’s cognitive development were studied by Piaget (cited in Roth, I. Ed. 1994. Introduction to Psychology. Volume 1. The Open University. P. 88-95). Children are constructing their grammar by making guesses about the rules, which underlie the speech patterns around them. Their first guesses are quite simple. The amended hypotheses about the language are more complex. Gradually their mental grammar becomes more sophisticated. Eventually their internalised rules cover all the possible utterances of the language (Aitchison, J. 1999.The Articulate Mammal. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. L. N.Y. P. 94). If the children acquire two languages at a time, both form separate grammar systems (Houwer A. 1991. The acquisition of two languages from birth: a case study. CUP)

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