LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
A. Language
Acquisition
Language acquisition is one of the
central topics in cognitive science. Every theory has tried to explain it;
probably no other topic has aroused such controversy. There are two
theories of language acquisition :
a. Learning theory. According to this theory, language is learned from
experience alone. Children acquire language based on general learning
mechanisms that are also involved in learning many other phenomena. These
general learning mechanisms are crucially driven by the ‘input’.
b. Nativism. According to this theory, language cannot be learned
from experience alone. Specifically, the proponents of this approach argue that
children do not receive enough information in the input to learn the intricate
rules of grammar. Children are only able to acquire grammar because of innate
grammatical knowledge.( Prof. Dr. Holger Diessel)
Language is the main vehicle by which
we know about other people's thoughts, and the two must be intimately
related. Learning a first language is something every child does
successfully, in a matter of a few years and without the need for formal
lessons. With language so close to the core of what it means to be human, it is
not surprising that children's acquisition of language has received so much
attention. Anyone with strong views about the human mind would like to show
that children's first few steps are steps in the right direction.
1.
Basic
Requirements
The language a
child learns is not genetically inherited, but is aqcuired in a particular
language-using environment. The child must also be physically capable of sending and
receiving sound signals in a language. It’s mean that a child must
be able to hear that language being used. However, hearing a language
is not enough. The most important requirement seems to be the opportunity
to interact with others via language.
2. The
Acquisition Schedule
Language
acquisition schedule has the same basis as the biological determined
development of motor skills. This biological schedule is closely related with
the maturation of the infant’s brain and the lateralization process. If there is
some general biological program underlying language acquisition, it depends on
interplay with many social factors in child’s enviroment. In this view, the
child is seen as actively acquiring the language by working out the
regularities in what is heard and then applying those regularities in what he
or she says.
3. Caretaker
Speech
Caretaker
speech is a simple way of speaking that is used when talking to a child or
other person who is learning to speak a language. [1]
Caretaker
speech is simplified speech style adopted by someone who spends a lot of time
with young children. Some of the features of speech are frequent question,
often using exaggerated intonation. It’s also incorporates a lot of forms
associated with ‘baby talk’. These are either simplified words (e.g. mummy,
nana) or alternative forms with repeated simple sounds for objects in
child’s environment (e.g. choo-choo,
poo-poo, wawa).
One
character of caretaker speech is a type of conversational structure which
involve the child into a simple conversation. Example:
Mother :
there’s your cup of tea
Child :
(takes a cup)
Mother :
you drink it nicely
Child : pretends
to drink
Mother :
oh-is that nice?
Child :
(assents)
Mother :
will mummy drink her tea?
Child :
(assents)
Mother :
I’ll drink my tea.
4. Stages
in Language Acquisition
a. Pre-language
stage
Pre-language
stage is the period from 3 to 10 month and characterized by three stage:
(1). Cooing Stage. Cooing velar
consonants such as [k] and [g] or vowels such as [I] and [u] can be heard by
time the child is 3 month old.
(2). Babbling Stage. By 6
month, child is usually able to sit up and can produce a number of different vowels
and consonants, such as mu and da.
(3). Late-babbling Stage. It
is characterized by a lot of ‘sound-play’ and attempted imitations. At around 9
month, there are recognizable intonation pattern to the consonants and vowel
combination being produced. The tenth and eleventh months, they are capable of
using their vocalization to express emotion and emphasis.
b. The
One-word or Holophrastic Stage
This stage
is period between 12 and 18 month in which the children begin to produce a
variety of recognizable single unit utterances. For example, cookie, cat and cup.
c. The
Two-word Stage
Begin
around 18-20 months. A variety of combinations such as baby chair, mommy
cat, cat bad, will be appearing and he or she will have a vocabulary of
more than 50 words. The child will be treated as an entertaining conversational
partner by the principle caretaker.
d. Telegraphic Speech
Telegraphic
speech is characterized by using string of lexical morphemes in phrases such as
Andrew want ball, cat drink milk and shoe all wet. The child has
clearly developed some sentence-building capacity, and can order the form
correctly. Also’ grammatical inflections begin to appear in some of the words.
5. The
Acquisition Process
One factor
that seems to be crucial in the child’s acquisition process is the actual use
of sound and word combinations, either in interaction with others or in
word-play alone. The practice of this type seems to be an important factor in
the development of the child’s linguistic repertoire.
a. Morphology
As the child is
3 years old , he pr she is incorporating some of the inflection morphemes which
indicate the grammatical functions of the nouns and the verbs used. Individual children may produce
‘good’ forms one day and ‘odd’ forms the next such as goed and foots.
For the child, the use of such forms is simply a means of trying to say what he
or she means during a particular stage of development.
b. Syntax
Two
features which seem to be acquired in a regular way are the formation of question
and the use of negatives.
(1) Stage
1 occurs between 18-26 months
(2) Stage
2 occurs between 22-30 months
(3) Stage
3 occurs between 24-40 months.
Question
In forming
the question,
Ö The 1st stage has two
procedures: add a wh- form to beginning expression or utter the
expression with a rise intonation toward the end. Examples:
Why kitty? Where horse go? Sit
chair? See hole?
Ö The
2nd stage more complex expression can be formed, but the rising
intonation strategy continues to be used. Examples:
What book name? Why you smiling?
You want tea? See my doggie?
Ö The
3rd stage, the required inversion of subject and verb in English
questions has appeared, but the wh- forms do not always undergo the
inversion. Example:
Can I have a piece? Did I caught it?
Why kitty can’t stand up?
Negatives
Ö 1st
stage:
have simple strategy. No or not should be stuck on the beginning
of any expression. Examples:
No mitten No teddy bear No
fail No sit here
Ö 2nd
stage:
the additional negative forms don’t and can’t are used. No or
not begin to be placed in front of the verb than at the beginning of the
sentence. Examples:
I didn’t caught it She won’t let go
He no taking it This not ice cream
c. Semantic
Process of
determining meaning in children language acquisition is overextension: the child
overextend the meaning of a word on the basis of similarities of shapes, sound
and size, movement and texture. Example:
Bow-bow is used to refer to a dog, a fur
piece with glass eyes, a set of cufflinks and even a bath thermometer. Thus, bow-bow
is object with shiny bits.
B. Language
Learning
Language
learning, refers to the "concious knowledge of a second language, knowing
the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them." Thus
language learning can be compared to learning about a language.[2]
1. Acquisition
Barrier
Reasons
for problems experienced in L2 acquisition are:
Ö Most
people learn another language during their teenage or adult years, in a few
hours each week of school time, with a lot of occupations, and with an already
known language available for most of their daily communicative requirement.
Ö Adults
tongue get stiff from pronouncing one type of language and just cannot cope
with the sounds of another language.
2.
Acquisition Aids
a.
Grammar Translation Method
Grammar Translation Method is an approach which
treats second or foreign language learning on par with any other academic
subject. This approach leaves students quite ignorant of how the language is
used. Learners leaving school with high
grade in French, typically find themselves at aloss when confronted by the way
the French in France actually use their language.
b.
Direct Method
Direct Methode is an approach that suggests
recreating the exposure which young children have in language acquisition.
Emphasis was placed on the spoken language, while vocabulary list and
explanations of grammatical rules were avoided. Unfortunately, experience of
the young children at home and the experience of the student in the classroom
is quite different.
c.
Audiolingual Method
Auditolingual Methode is the direct method which
devises more structured material for the student. This involved systematic
presentation of grammatical construction of the L2, moving from simple to
complex.
d.
Communicative Approach
This approach is characterized by lessons organized
around concepts such as “asking for things” in different social contaxts. It
has also coincided with attempts to provide more appropriate materials for L2
learning which has specific purpose(e.g. English for medical personnel or
Japanese for busy people)
3.
Acquisition processes
Error is an indication of the actual acquisition
process in action, not something which hinders student’s progress. It is
probably a cue to the active learning progress being made by students as her or
she tries out strategies of communication in the new language. We might expect
that L2 learners produce overgeneralization
at certain stages.
For example: a spanish say womens might be seen as a
type of creative construction used by the learners.
Some error may be due to the interference of
expressions of the structure from L1. On close inspection, the language
produced by the learners contains a large number off errors that seem to have
no connection to the forms of either L1 or L2. Evidence of this sort suggests
that there may be interlanguage: some
-in- between system used in L2 acquisition which certainly contains aspects of
L1 and L2, but which is inherently variable system with rules of its own.
REFERENCES
Krashen, Stephen D. 1981. Principles and Practice in Second Language
Acquisition. English Language Teaching series. London: Prentice-Hall
International (UK) Ltd. 202 pages.
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[2] Krashen, Stephen D. 1981. Principles and Practice in Second Language
Acquisition. English Language Teaching series. London: Prentice-Hall
International (UK) Ltd. 202 pages.
