Lang. acqui. 2025 Lect.3-1-1 PDF

1 Chapter Three Key Issues in Language Acquisition ------------------------ Language acquisition is a process which can take place at any period of one's life. In the sense of first langu|age acquisition, however, it refers t...

1 Chapter Three Key Issues in Language Acquisition ------------------------ Language acquisition is a process which can take place at any period of one's life. In the sense of first langu|age acquisition, however, it refers to the acquisition (unconscious learning) of one's native language (or languages in the case of bilinguals) during the first 6 or 7 years of one's life (roughly from birth to the time one starts school). It is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. Language acquisition is one of the quintessential human traits, because non-humans do not communi-cate by using language. Language acquisition usually refers to first-language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language, whether that be spoken language or signed language as a result of pre lingual deafness. This is distinguished from second-language acquisition, which deals with the acquisition (in both children and adults) of additional languages. In addition to speech, reading and writing a language with an entirely different script compounds the complexities of true foreign language literacy. Linguists who are interested in child language acquisition for many years question how language is acquired. Stated that "The question of how these structures are acquired, then, is more properly understood as the question of how a learner takes the surface forms in the input and converts them into abstract linguistic rules and representations." So we know language acquisition involves structures, rules and representation. 2 The capacity to successfully use language requires one to acquire a range of tools including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and an extensive vocabulary. Language can be vocalized as in speech, or manual as in sign. Human language capacity is represented in the brain. Even though human language capacity is finite, one can say and understand an infinite number of sentences, which is based on a syntactic principle called recursion. Evidence suggests that every individual has three recursive mechanisms that allow sentences to go indeterminately. These three mechanisms are: relativization, complementation and coordination. Furthermore, there are actually two main guiding principles in first- language acquisition, that is, speech perception always precedes speech production and the gradually evolving system by which a child learns a language is built up one step at a time, beginning with the distinction between individual phonemes. Characteristics of first language acquisition 1) It is an instinct. This is true in the technical sense, i.e. it is triggered by birth and takes its own course, though of course linguistic input from the environment is needed for the child to acquire a specific language. As an instinct, language acquisition can be compared to the acquisition of binocular vision or binaural hearing. 2) It is very rapid. The amount of time required to acquire one's native language is quite short, very short compared to that needed to learn a second language successfully later on in life. 3) It is very complete. The quality of first language acquisition is far better than that of a second language (learned later on in life). One does not forget one's native language (though one might have slight difficulties remembering words if you do not use it for a long time). 3 4) It does not require instruction. Despite the fact that many non-linguists think that mothers are important for children to learn their native language, instructions by parents or care-takers are unnecessary, despite the psychological benefits of attention to the child. How is language transmitted? Language is obviously passed on from parents to their children. But on closer inspection one notices that it is the performance (in the technical sense) of the previous generation which is used as the basis for the competence of the next. To put it simply, children do not have access to the competence of their parents. 1) Linguistic input from parents (performance) 2) Abstraction of structures by children 3) Internalisation (competence of next generation) The above model is the only one which can account for why children can later produce sentences which they have never heard before: the child stores the sentence structures of his/her native language and has a lexicon of words as well. When producing new sentences, he/she takes a structure and fills it with words. This process allows the child to produce a theoretically unlimited number of sentences in his/her later life. Note that certain shifts may occur if children make incorrect conclusions about the structure of the language they are acquiring on the basis of what they hear. Then there is a discrepancy between the competence of their parents and that which they construct; this is an important source of language change. Language acquisition for any generation of children consists of achieving mastery in four main areas, i.e. acquiring: 4 1) A set of syntactic rules which specify how sentences are built up out of phrases and phrases out of words. 2) A set of morphological rules which specify how words are built up out of morphemes, i.e. grammatical units smaller than the word. 3) A set of phonological rules which specify how words, phrases and sentences are pronounced. 4) A set of semantic rules which specify how words, phrases and sentences are interpreted, i.e. what their meaning is. competence According to Chomsky in his Aspects of the theory of syntax (1965) this is the abstract ability of an individual to speak the language which he/she has learned as native language in his/her childhood. The competence of a speaker is unaffected by such factors as nervousness, temporary loss of memory, speech errors, etc. These latter phenomena are entirely within the domain of performance which refers to the process of applying one's competence in the act of speaking. Bear in mind that competence also refers to the ability to judge if a sentence is grammatically well-formed; it is an unconscious ability. performance The actual production of language as opposed to the knowledge about the structure of one's native language which a speaker has internalised during childhood. Stages of language acquisition One of the firmest pieces of evidence that language acquisition is genetically predetermi-ned is the clear sequence of stages which children pass through in the first five years of their lives. Furthermore there are characteristics of each stage which always hold. For instance up to the two-word stage only nouns and/or verbs occur. No child begins by using 5 conjunctions or prepositions, although he/she will have heard these word classes in his/her environment. Another characteristic is overextension. Children always begin acquiring semantics by overextending meaning, for instance by using the word dog for all animals if the first animal they are confronted with is a dog. Or by calling all males papa or by using spoon for all items of cutlery. The generalisation here is that children move from the general to the particular. To begin with their language is undifferentiated on all linguistic levels. With time they introduce more and more distinctions as they are repeatedly confronted with these from their surroundings. Increasing distinctions in language may well be linked to increasing cognitive development: the more discriminating the child's perception and understanding of the world, the more he/she will strive to reflect this in language. 0) 0.0-0.3 Organic sounds, crying, cooing 1) 0.4-0.5 Beginning of the babbling phase 2) 0.10-1 The first comprehensible words. After this follow one-word, two-word and many-word sentences. The only word stages is known as the holophrastic stage; Telegraphic speech refers to speech with only nouns and verbs. 3) 2.6 Inflection occurs, negation, interrogative and imperative sentences 4) 3.0 A vocabulary of about 1000 words 5) 5.0 The main syntactic rules have been acquired These divisions of the early period of first language acquisition are approximate and vary from individual to individual. 6 What is the diffrernce beteween first and second language acquisition? Generally, the ability to acquire a language with native speaker competence diminishes severly around puberty. There are two suggestions as to why this is the case. 1) Shortly before puberty the lateralisation of the brain (fixing of various functions to parts of the brain) takes place and this may lead to general inflexibility. 2) With puberty various hormonal changes take place in the body (and we technically become adults). This may also lead to a inflexibility which means that language acquisition cannot proceed to the conclusion it reaches in early childhood. Definitions and distinctions Acquisition is carried out in the first years of childhood and leads to unconscious knowledge of one's native language which is practically permanent. Note that acquisition has nothing to do with intelligence, i.e. children of different degrees of intelligence all go through the same process of acquiring their native language. Learning (of a second language) is done later (after adolescence) and is characterised by imperfection and the likelihood of being forgotten. Learning leads to conscious knowledge. FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION This is the acquisition of the mother tongue. Chronology is important here. The degree of competence acquired may vary from individual to individual and may be checked by later switching to another language. Note that language acquisition is 7 largely independent of intelligence, although individuals can and do differ in their mastery of open classes such as vocabulary. BI- AND MULTILINGUALISM This is the acquisition of two or more languages from birth or at least together in early childhood. The ideal situation where all languages are equally represented in the child's surroundings and where the child has an impartial relationship to each is hardly to be found in reality so that of two or more languages one is bound to be dominant. SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION This is the acquisition of a second language after the mother tongue has been (largely) acquired. Usually refers to acquisition which begins after puberty, i.e. typically adult language acquisition. Sometimes replaced by the term further language acquisition. COMPETENCE is the abstract ability to speak a language, i.e. knowledge of a language independent of its use. PERFORMANCE is actual use of language. Its features do not necessarily reflect characteristics of performance, for example, when one is nervous, tired, drunk one may have difficulties speaking coherently. This, however, does not mean that one cannot speak one's native language. Conditions of acquisition NATURAL This is characterised by continuous exposure to language data. This data is not ordered, i.e. the (child) learner is exposed to the performance of adult speakers of the language he/she is acquiring. There is little if any feedback to the acquirer with regard to this intake. 8 CONTROLLED This is interrupted if not to say infrequent. Furthermore it takes place against the background of another language, usually the first language (L1) of the learners. In exceptional cases acquisition can be both natural and controlled, i.e. where one obtains formal instruction (or gives it one to oneself) and lives in an environment where the target language is spoken. Controlled acquisition is further characterised by an ordered exposure to the data of the language. GUIDED LANGUAGE ACQUISITION This is an intermediary type between the two just discussed and is characterised by prescriptive corrections on the part of the child's contact persons, i.e. mother, father, etc. Corrections show the transfer of adult grammars to children whereas natural language acquisition shows the gradual approximation of the child’s grammar to the adult’s. Note that a child is not corrected as often by his/her mother as one might imagine. Self-correction is most common (but not immediate) due to two factors. Most broadly speaking, because of lack of communication (here immediate correction may take place) and secondly by consistently hearing correct usage on the part of the mother, the child eventually drops his/her incorrect forms, which while perhaps communicatively effective, are grammatically wrong. It is also true that children do not learn language just from the mother. If siblings are present, then they too form a source of input for the child. And siblings do not correct others or simplify their language for the younger ones among them. Five stages of second language acquisition Proponents of second language acquisition theories, identify five distinct stages of second language acquisition as originally espoused by linguist Stephen Krashen. These include the following: 9 1. Silent/receptive This stage may last from several hours to several months, depending on the individual learner. During this time, new language learners typically spend time learning vocabulary and practice pronouncing new words. While they may engage in self-talk, they don’t normally speak the language with any fluency or real understanding. This stage is controversial among language educators. Lomba disagrees that second language learners are totally silent while they are in this first learning stage. Instead, Lomba states that “speech is fundamental in language acquisition” and learners excel in language acquisition when they apply what they learn as they learn it. 2. Early production This stage may last about six months, during which language learners typically acquire an understanding of up to 1,000 words. They may also learn to speak some words and begin forming short phrases, even though they may not be grammatically correct. 3. Speech emergence By this stage, learners typically acquire a vocabulary of up to 3,000 words, and learn to communicate by putting the words in short phrases, sentences, and questions. Again, they may not be grammatically correct, but this is an important stage during which learners gain greater comprehension and begin reading and writing in their second language. 4. Intermediate fluency At this stage, which may last for a year or more after speech emergence, learners typically have a vocabulary of as many as 6,000 words. They usually acquire the ability to communicate in writing and 11 speech using more complex sentences. This crucial stage is also when learners begin actually thinking in their second language, which helps them gain more proficiency in speaking it. 5. Continued language development/advanced fluency It takes most learners at least two years to reach this stage, and then up to 10 years to achieve full mastery of the second language in all its complexities and nuances. Second language learners need ongoing opportunities to engage in discussions and express themselves in their new language, in order to maintain fluency in it. The key to learning a new language and developing proficiency in speaking and writing that language is consistency and practice. A student must converse with others in the new language on a regular basis in order to grow their fluency and confidence. In addition, it’s important for students to continue to work with a classroom teacher on specific content area related to the new language such as history, social studies and writing. Second Language Acquisition as a process and as a scientific discipline Second Language Acquisition (SLA) refers to the study of how students learn a second language (L2) additionally to their first language (L1). Although it is referred as Second Language Acquisition, it is the process of learning any language after the first language whether it is the second, third or fourth language. Therefore, any other language apart from the first language is called a second language (SL) or also referred to as a target language (TL). To distinguish between Second Language 11 and Foreign Language, The Collins Dictionary defines Second Language as the language that a person learns after his or her native language and Foreign Language as a language that is used in a country other than one’s native country. There are different ways to acquire second or foreign languages. It can be in a formal way as in a classroom environment or informal way such as when the learner picks up the language by being culturally active participant of the society. This can be done by attending school in the target country, watching local television, listening to radio or/and reading newspapers in L2 Second language acquisition or second language learning is the process by which people learn a second language. Second language acquisition (often capitalized as Second Language Acquisition or abbreviated to SLA) is also the name of the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. Second language refers to any language learned in addition to a person's first language; although the concept is named second language acquisition, it can also incorporate the learning of third, fourth or subsequent languages. The term acquisition was originally used to emphasize the subconscious nature of the learning process, but in recent years learning and acquisition have become largely synonymous. Second language acquisition can incorporate heritage language learning, but it does not usually incorporate bilingualism. Most SLA researchers see bilingualism as being the end result of learning a language, not the process itself, and see the term as referring to native- like fluency. Second language acquisition is also not to be contrasted with the acquisition of a foreign language; rather, the learning of second languages and the learning of foreign languages involve the same fundamental processes in different situations 12 There has been much debate about exactly how language is learned, and many issues are still unresolved. There have been many theories of second language acquisition that have been proposed, but none has been accepted as an overarching theory by all SLA researchers. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field of second language acquisition, this is not expected to happen in the foreseeable future. The interdiscplinary nature of the discipline of SLA: The academic discipline of Second Language Acquisition is a sub- discipline of applied linguistics. It is broad-based and relatively new. As well as the various branches of linguistics, Second Language Acquisition is also closely related to psychology, cognitive psychology, psycholiguistics, Social Psychology , socioliguistics, and education. It is worth noting here, in detail, how these disciplines are relevant to the field of Second Language acquisiton: - Linguistics: Linguists emphasize the characteristics of the differences and similarities in the languages that are being learned and the linguistic competence ( underlying knowledge) and linguistic performance ( actual production) of learners at various stages of acquisition. - Psycholinguistics & Cognitive Psycho-logy: Cognitive sychologists and psycholin-guists emphasize the mental or the cognitive processes involved in acquisition, the functions of mind , the relation between cognitive skills and learning strategies, and the representation of language in the brain. They are mainly concerned with the processes of "com-prehension" and " production". 13 - Sociolinguistics: Sociolinguists emphaize variability in learner linguistic performance and extend the scope to study the communicative competence (underlying knowledge that additionally account for language use, or pragmatic competence.) - Social Psychology: Social psychologists emphasize group-related phenomena such as identity, and social motivation, and the interactional process in larger social contexts of learning. - Education: Educationalists attempt to apply the findings of the above-mentioned disciplines to the practices of education inside the classrooms. One of the major aspects they emphasize is the role of the learners' learning strategies in enhancing their academic ahievemnet at both the lower and the higher levels of cognitive skills. (They apply the thoughts postulated within the framework of Language Acquisition Theory of Connectionism. Influential research in the field Corder & Selinker's influence Because SLA research began as an interdisciplinary field, it is difficult to identify a precise starting date. However, it does appear to have developed a great deal since the mid-1960s. There are two publications in particular that are seen as instrumental to the develop- ment of the modern study of SLA: Pitt Corder's 1967 essay The Significance of Learners' Errors, and Larry Selinker's 1972 article Interlanguage. Corder's essay rejected a behaviorist account of SLA and suggested that learners made use of intrinsic internal linguistic processes; Selinker's article argued that second language learners possess their own individual linguistic systems that are independent from both the first and second languages. 14 Interlanguage The idea of inter-language is founded upon the assumption that an L2 learner, at any particular moment in his learning sequence, is using a language system which is neither the L1, nor the L2. It is a third language, with its own grammar, its own lexicon and so on. The rules used by the learner are to be found in neither his own mother tongue, nor in the Target Language. Thus, foreign learners of English may produce a construction like "What does Pat doing now?" which belongs neither to English, nor to the learners' first language. So, applied linguists such as Pitt Corder and Selinker, suggested that we need to understand the learner's language as a system in its own right. This is both possible, and interesting because learners tend to go through a series of inter- languages in systematic and predictable ways. How does the learner create her inter-language? According to Selinker, there are a number of basic processes, he called "learning strategies" - that is, activities that the learner adopts in order to help him/her acquire the language.. Language transfer - the learner uses her/his own L1 as a resource. This used to be looked upon as a mistake, but it is now recognized that all learners fall back on their mother tongues, particularly in the early stages of language acquisition, and that this is a necessary process.. Overgeneralization - the learner uses an L2 rule in situations in which a native speaker would not. This can occur at a number of levels: - at the phonetic level, for example, learners of English, after having learnt to master the English 'r', may tend to placing it at the end of words, whereas in RP it is not pronounced. 15 - at the grammatical level, a learner in the early stages may use nothing but the present tense. Later, there may be extensive, non-native use of 'be - ing' forms of the verb. - at the lexical level - learners tend to use base terms and to stretch them - thus a 'goose' might be referred to as a 'chicken', or a teaspoon may be a 'little spoon'.. Simplification - both syntactic and semantic - the learner uses speech that resembles that of very young children or of pidgins. This may be either because they cannot, in fact, as yet produce the target forms, or because they do not feel sure of them. Let us look more closely at transfer. It can have several different effects: a) Negative transfer Until the morpheme studies of Dulay and Burt, it was often assumed that most errors were derived from transfer of the L1 to the L2 - this was referred to as interference. It is now no longer clear where errors derive from. As we have seen, Dulay and Burt believe that the majority of errors are not based on transfer. However, it is not always a simple matter to decide whether an error is L1 based or not. For example, when French speakers use 'have -en' forms in inappropriate settings, is it because of overgeneralization, a developmental error, or an interference error based on the Passé Composé? Indeed, it is not always easy to decide whether an error has occurred at all. Take again the case of the 'have -en' forms. A French 16 speaker learning English may use the form in the correct setting, but actually derive it from the French Passé Composé. If speakers of different mother tongues do, in fact, make different mistakes, and if these mistakes do appear to be related to structures in the mother tongue, then it would seem reasonable to speak of 'interference errors b) Positive transfer  Not all effects of language transfer are negative - indeed, we may consider that without some language transfer, there would be no second language learning. It may be that younger children are able to pick up an L2 without reference to their L1, but for adolescents and adults, the mother tongue is a major resource  for language learning. c) Avoidance  Where certain structures are very different from L1, students may simply avoid using them. Schachter (1974) found that Chinese and Japanese learners of L2 English made less errors in the use of relative clauses than did Persian or Arabic learners - but this was because they tried to use them less often. This is because Persian and Arabic relative clauses are structured in a similar way to English ones, while the two oriental languages treat them in a very different way. It is difficult to know when a student is using avoidance as a strategy - he must show some evidence that he knows the structure that he is avoiding, and it must also be so that a normal speaker of the target language would have used the structure in that situation. 17 There are three types of avoidance: o 1. Learner can anticipate that there is a problem, and has some idea of what the correct form is like. o 2. Learner knows the target form well, but believes that it would be too difficult to use in the circumstances in which he finds himself. o 3. Learner knows how to use the target form, but will not do so because it breaks a personal rule of behaviour - ready use of 'tu' (you) form by person coming from a culture where formality is highly valued. d) Overuse  This may be a concomitant of avoidance. Students will use the forms that they know rather than try out the ones that they are not sure of. It may also reflect cultural differences - thus Olshtain (1983) found that American college students, learning Hebrew in Israel, were much more likely to use direct expressions of apology than were native speakers  This also seems to be true of English speakers of French (as the example given above "tu" instead of "vous " Young Learners and SLA It is argued that second language acquisition is learned among children in two ways, simultaneously or sequentially. Young children acquire L1 and L2 what it seems to be almost without any effort through a process that is called simultaneous second language learning. Simultaneous learners are children under the age of three who are exposed to their mother tongue at home and another language in an early educational context such as kindergarten or other early program. 18 However, those learners can also be children from a multi-language home where the child is exposed to two different languages at home, for example Spanish from mom and English from dad. Although being exposed to two different languages at home, children learn both languages the same way without favouring one or the other. As their brain mechanism allows them to learn more than one language, they construct two separate language systems in their brains for each language. Similarly, this language system is almost identical to the process that children develop through exposure to one language. When the child reaches the age of 6 months, they are able to distinguish between the two languages and at this point they may begin to favour one language over the other. If parents expose their child to one language more than the other, the child might focus more on the language that it receives more exposure from. In sequential language learning environ-ment, the child speaks its native language but is also exposed or introduced to a second language. For example, when a Spanish speaking child attends class where English is the dominant language spoken. Contrary to simultaneous language learning, sequential learning is not related to any age factor, but it can be stimulated or influenced by elements like motivation. There are four stages of sequential second language learning which are the following: Stage 1: Home Language Use: Children might refuse to use their native language even though others do not understand them. Stage 2: Silent Period: Children can hardly speak but rely on nonverbal communication. It is argued that the younger the child is, the longer the silent period might last. 19 Stage 3: Telegraphic and Formulaic Speech: At this stage children will start to speak in the target language but only using short phrases or repeat the words of others. Stage 4: Productive Language, children construct their own sentences. Those sentences might be very basic and incorrect but with time it will improve. Although children are exposed to two languages at the same time at an early age, it does not have to mean that they confuse the languages easily. As mentioned, children become bilingual sometimes when one parent converses in one language while the other converses in the second language. Additionally, parents might converse to each other in both languages so children are exposed to both languages. However, being bilingual has its downside also. The Six Stages of Second-Language Acquisition Pre- This is also called "the silent period," when the production student takes in the new language but does not speak it. This period often lasts six weeks or longer, depending on the individual. The individual begins to speak using short words and Early sentences, but the emphasis is still on listening and production absorbing the new language. There will be many errors in the early production stage. Speech becomes more frequent, words and Speech sentences are longer, but the individual still relies Emergent heavily on context clues and familiar topics. Vocabulary continues to increase and errors begin to decrease, especially in common or repeated interactions. 21 Speech is fairly fluent in social situations with Beginning minimal errors. New contexts and academic Fluency language are challenging and the individual will struggle to express themselves due to gaps in vocabulary and appropriate phrases. Communicating in the second language is fluent, especially in social language situations. The individual is able to speak almost fluently in new Intermediate situations or in academic areas, but there will be gaps Fluency in vocabulary knowledge and some unknown expressions. There are very few errors, and the individual is able to demonstrate higher order thinking skills in the second language such as offering an opinion or analyzing a problem. The individual communicates fluently in all contexts and can maneuver successfully in new contexts and when exposed to new academic Advanced information. At this stage, the individual may still Fluency have an accent and use idiomatic expressions incorrectly at times, but the individual is essentially fluent and comfortable communicating in the second language. Chapter Four Theories Of Language Acquisition ------------------------------- Over the last fifty years, several theories have been put forward to explain the process by which children learn to understand and speak a language. They can be summarized as follows: Individual Theory Central Idea with Theory 21 Behaviorists Children imitate adults. Their correct Skinner utterances are reinforced when they get what they want or are praised. Innateness A child's brain contains special language- Chomsky learning mechanisms at birth. Cognitive Language is just one aspect of a child's Piaget overall intellectual development. Interaction This theory emphasizes the interaction Bruner between children and their care-givers. Before considering each of these theories in turn, it is important to recognize that they should not be seen simply as conflicting theories, replacing each other in a sequence. Although Behaviorism is now seen as offering only a very limited explanation, each theory has added to our overall understanding, placing emphasis on different aspects of the process. Behaviorism: The behaviorist psychologists developed their theories while carrying out a series of experiments on animals. They observed that rats or birds, for example, could be taught to perform various tasks by encouraging habit-forming. Researchers rewarded desirable behaviour. This was known as positive reinforcement. Undesirable behaviour was punished or simply not rewarded - negative reinforcement. The behaviorist B. F. Skinner then proposed this theory as an explanation for language acquisition in humans. In Verbal Behaviour (1957), he stated that the basic processes and relations which give verbal behaviour its special characteristics are now fairly well understood. Much of the experimental work responsible for this advance has been carried 22 out on other species, but the results have proved to be surprisingly free of species restrictions. Recent work has shown that the methods can be extended to human behaviour without serious modifications. Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers. Successful attempts are rewarded because an adult who recognizes a word spoken by a child will praise the child and/or give it what it is asking for. Successful utterances are therefore reinforced while unsuccessful ones are forgotten. Limitations of Behaviorism: While there must be some truth in Skinner's explanation, there are many objections to it.  Language is based on a set of structures or rules, which could not be worked out simply by imitating individual utterances. The mistakes made by children reveal that they are not simply imitating but actively working out and applying rules. For example, a child who says "drinked" instead of "drank" is not copying an adult but rather over-applying a rule. The child has discovered that past tense verbs are formed by adding a /d/ or /t/ sound to the base form. The "mistakes" occur because there are irregular verbs which do not behave in this way. Such forms are often referred to as intelligent mistakes or virtuous errors.  The vast majority of children go through the same stages of language acquisition. There appears to be a definite sequence of steps. We refer to developmental milestones. Apart from certain extreme cases (see the case of Genie), the sequence seems to be largely unaffected by the treatment the child receives or the type of society in which s/he grows up. 23  Children are often unable to repeat what an adult says, especially if the adult utterance contains a structure the child has not yet started to use. The classic demonstration comes from the American psycholinguist David McNeill. The structure in question here involves negating verbs: Child: Nobody don't like me Mother: No, say, "Nobody likes me." Child: Nobody don't like me. (Eight repetitions of this dialogue) Mother: No, now listen carefully: say, "Nobody likes me." Child: Oh! Nobody don't likes me. (McNeil in The Genesis of Language, 1966)  Few children receive much explicit grammatical correction. Parents are more interested in politeness and truthfulness. Researchers mentioned that it seems to be truth value rather than well-formed syntax that chiefly governs explicit verbal reinforcement by parents - which renders mildly paradoxical the fact that the usual product of such a training schedule is an adult whose speech is highly grammatical but not notably truthful.  There is evidence for a critical period for language acquisition. Children who have not acquired language by the age of about seven will never entirely catch up. The most famous example is that of Genie, discovered in 1970 at the age of 13. She had been severely neglected, brought up in isolation and deprived of normal human contact. Of course, she was disturbed and underdeveloped in many ways. During subsequent attempts at rehabilitation, her carers tried 24 to teach her to speak. Despite some success, mainly in learning vocabulary, she never became a fluent speaker, failing to acquire the grammatical competence of the average five-year-old. Innateness: Noam Chomsky published a criticism of the behaviorist theory in 1957. In addition to some of the arguments listed above, he focused particularly on the impoverished language input children receive. Adults do not typically speak in grammatically complete sentences. In addition, what the child hears is only a small sample of language. Chomsky concluded that children must have an inborn faculty for language acquisition. According to this theory, the process is biologically determined - the human species has evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain linguistic information at birth. The child's natural predisposition to learn language is triggered by hearing speech and the child's brain is able to interpret what s/he hears according to the underlying principles or structures it already contains. This natural faculty has become known as the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Chomsky did not suggest that an English child is born knowing anything specific about English, of course. He stated that all human languages share common principles. (For example, they all have words for things and actions - nouns and verbs.) It is the child's task to establish how the specific language s/he hears expresses these underlying principles. For example, the LAD already contains the concept of verb tense. By listening to such forms as "worked", "played" and "patted", the child will form the hypothesis that the past tense of verbs is formed by adding the sound /d/, /t/ or /id/ to the base form. This, in turn, will lead to the 25 "virtuous errors" mentioned above. It hardly needs saying that the process is unconscious. Chomsky does not envisage the small child lying in its cot working out grammatical rules consciously! Chomsky's ground-breaking theory remains at the center of the debate about language acquisition. However, it has been modified, both by Chomsky himself and by others. Chomsky's original position was that the LAD contained specific knowledge about language. Dan Isaac Slobin has proposed that it may be more like a mechanism for working out the rules of language: He mentioned that the child is born not with a set of linguistic categories but with some sort of process mechanism - a set of procedures and inference rules, if you will - that he uses to process linguistic data. These mechanisms are such that, applying them to the input data, the child ends up with something which is a member of the class of human languages. The linguistic universals, then, are the result of an innate cognitive competence rather than the content of such a competence. The Cognitive Theory: The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget placed acquisition of language within the context of a child's mental or cognitive development. He argued that a child has to understand a concept before s/he can acquire the particular language form which expresses that concept. A good example of this is seriation. There will be a point in a child's intellectual development when s/he can compare objects with respect to size. This means that if you gave the child a number of sticks, s/he could arrange them in order of size. Piaget suggested that a child who had not yet reached this stage would not be able to learn and use comparative adjectives like "bigger" or "smaller". 26 Object permanence is another phenomenon often cited in relation to the cognitive theory. During the first year of life, children seem unaware of the existence of objects they cannot see. An object which moves out of sight ceases to exist. By the time they reach the age of 18 months, children have realized that objects have an existence independently of their perception. The cognitive theory draws attention to the large increase in children's vocabulary at around this age, suggesting a link between object permanence and the learning of labels for objects. Input or Interactionist Theories: In contrast to the work of Chomsky, more recent theorists have stressed the importance of the language input children receive from their care-givers. Language exists for the purpose of communication and can only be learned in the context of interaction with people who want to communicate with you. Interactionists such as Jerome Bruner suggest that the language behaviour of adults when talking to children (known by several names by most easily referred to as child-directed speech or CDS) is specially adapted to support the acquisition process. This support is often described to as scaffolding for the child's language learning. Bruner also coined the term Language Acquisition Support System or LASS in response to Chomsky's LAD. Colwyn Trevarthen studied the interaction between parents and babies who were too young to speak. He concluded that the turn-taking structure of conversation is developed through games and non-verbal communication long before actual words are uttered. Summary of leading theories in second language acquisition: Second language acquisition (SLA) is a complex and multifaceted process that has long fascinated professionals across domains including 27 linguistics, psychology, neuroscience and education. Their aim has been to understand how people who already know one language can best learn a second. Over time, a number of theories have been developed to explain the process. This blog post delves into eight of the most prominent second language acquisition theories, provides a concise overview of their fundamental tenets and outlines how language educators could use the theories in their own language classrooms. At this point, it is important to note that the theories included below are not mutually exclusive. Considering the challenges involved in learning a new language, most language educators will draw on multiple theories in their language teaching approaches to deliver the best results for their students. Of course, individual learners may also benefit from different approaches based on their own learning circumstances and preferences. 1. Universal Grammar (UG) First proposed by Noam Chomsky, UG argues humans are born with an innate ability for language and that there is a universal grammar that underlies all languages. This language acquisition device (LAD) is a mental blueprint that guides language learning and which enables infants to acquire and produce language. Practical steps for use in your classroom:  Expose L2 learners to a wide variety of authentic language materials.  Encourage exploration and discovery of language patterns rather than explicit rule learning. 28  Employ a communicative approach that emphasizes the underlying structure and patterns of the target language.  Encourage learners to compare and contrast the target language to their native language, highlighting similarities and differences in grammar and syntax. 2. Input Hypothesis Developed by Stephen Krashen, the input hypothesis asserts that comprehensible input, or language input that is slightly beyond the learner’s current level of proficiency, is the primary driver of second language acquisition. This theory highlights the importance of exposing learners to meaningful and understandable target language content. Practical steps for use in your classroom:  Use contextually rich and meaningful materials, such as stories, videos, and real-life situations. Take care to match language complexity to match learners’ abilities.  Utilize authentic materials such as news articles, songs, movies, and conversations with native speakers to enhance engagement and understanding.  Prioritize listening and reading activities and incorporate pre- reading and pre-listening activities to activate learners’ schemata and enhance comprehension. 3. Interaction Hypothesis 29 This theory of second language acquisition argues that meaningful interaction between L2 learners and native speakers (or proficient second language users) is a vital component of second language acquisition. First documented by Michael Long in 1976, the theory also highlights the importance of collaborative problem-solving in supporting language development. Practical steps for use in your classroom:  Group activities, pair / peer interaction (e.g role plays) and collaborative projects should be encouraged.  Discussions and debates in small and large groups help to promote language use in meaningful contexts.  Consider how opportunities for language interaction can be maximized outside of the classroom. 4. Output Hypothesis In 1995, Merrill Swain proposed the output hypothesis, which suggested that the process of producing language, both in written and spoken forms, played a crucial role in second language acquisition. This theory clearly emphasizes the importance of giving learners the opportunities to actively use the target language. Constructive feedback on any language output helps learners to notice gaps in their knowledge and is clearly vital to support students’ improvement. This is, of course, also true for all of the other theories outlined. Practical steps for use in your classroom: 31  Provide ample opportunities for learners to produce the target language through writing, speaking, and presentation tasks.  Offer feedback on learners’ output, focusing on both accuracy and fluency.  Incorporate self-correction exercises to encourage learners to monitor their own language production and identify areas for improvement. 5. Sociocultural Theory (SCT) This theory emphasizes the role of social interactions and key cultural contexts as a vital force in shaping and driving language development. SCT, as pioneered by Lev Vygotsky and expanded upon by Michael Bakhtin, views language acquisition principally as a social and culturally-situated process. The real-world application of the target language and collaboration / group activities is therefore to be prioritized. Practical steps for use in your classroom:  Create a classroom culture that values diversity, different cultural inputs and collaboration.  Integrate culturally authentic materials and activities to promote wider understanding and appreciation of different cultures and belief systems.  Encourage learners to engage in collaborative tasks or projects that involve real-world applications of the target language. 6. Behaviorist Theory 31 Typically associated with B.F. Skinner, the behaviorist approach suggests that language learning is a result of habit formation through imitation, reinforcement, and conditioning. In this manner, learners are rewarded for correct responses and “punished” for incorrect ones. This theory is therefore characterized by its emphasis on repetition and drilling to reinforce key vocabulary and grammar structures. Practical steps for use in your classroom:  Use drill-and-practice activities alongside frequent repetition of core principles to help learners solidify their understanding.  Employ positive reinforcement techniques, such as praise, reward, and encouragement, to motivate learners and maintain their engagement.  Break down complex language tasks into smaller, more manageable steps to provide learners with a sense of accomplishment and progress. 7. Cognitive Theory As the name suggests, cognitive theory focuses on the role of mental processes such as attention, memory and problem-solving in language acquisition. It proposes that learners actively build up their knowledge of a new language through analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Evidently educators should prioritize activities that engage and stimulate such cognitive processes. Practical steps for use in your classroom: 32  Use visuals, graphic organizers and mind maps to aid understanding and memory.  Provide learners with opportunities to engage in meaningful cognitive activities, such as summarizing texts, solving puzzles, and engaging in discussions.  Encourage learners to use metacognitive strategies, such as planning, monitoring, and evaluating their own language learning process.  Create a supportive learning environment that fosters risk-taking and experimentation, allowing learners to make mistakes and learn from them. 8. Affective Filter Hypothesis Also part of Krashen’s work (as referred above in Input Hypothesis), this learning theory proposes that emotional factors, such as anxiety, motivation and self-confidence, can influence language acquisition. It argues that if learners experience excessive anxiety or negative emotions, their ability to process and learn new language input is hindered. The opposite is, of course, also true. The clear recommendation here is that fostering a positive and low- anxiety learning environment is crucial for effective language acquisition. Practical steps for use in your classroom:  Create a positive and supportive learning environment that minimizes anxiety and promotes a sense of belonging.  Connect language learning to learners’ interests and goals to enhance engagement and motivation. 33  Encourage learners to set realistic goals for themselves and celebrate their achievements along the way.  Provide opportunities for learners to personalize their learning, connecting new language concepts to their own interests and experiences. These 8 theories have significantly enriched our understanding of second language acquisition and the key drivers for language learning success. By incorporating these strategies into their teaching approaches, language educators can create engaging and effective learning environments that foster successful second language acquisition for all learners.