:Objectives  Know the language system a child of the age 5 acquire.  List the issues that are related to 1L acquisition.  Explain the theories that interpret 1L acquisition.  List the requirements for L1 acquisition.  Explain the role of Caretaker speech (motherese) in L1 acquisition.  Explain the stages of L1 acquisition.  Explain how children develop morphological, syntactic and semantic language systems.

First language acquisition  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

Issues in first language acquisition  How do children acquire such a complex system so quickly 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?

Basic requirement  Environment and interaction to bring this capacity into operation  The child must be physically capable(being able to hear)  Interaction. All these requirements are related.

The 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.

Caretaker Speech (motherese) A type of simplified speech adopts 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??

L1 acquisition StageTypical AgeDescription cooing3-5 monthsVowel-like sounds babbling6-10 monthsRepetitive CV patterns One-word stage12-18 monthsSingle open-class words or word stems Two-word stage months"mini-sentences" with simple semantic relations Telegraphic stage24-30 monthssentence structures of lexical words no functional or grammatical morphemes Later multiword stage30+ monthsGrammatical or functional structures emerge

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  * 10-11months 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 ‘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

The acquisition process  The child does not acquire the language by imitating adults but really they are trying out  constructions and testing them.  CHILD: my teacher holded the baby rabbit and we patted them  MOTHER: did you say your teacher held the baby rabbit?  CHILD: yes. she holded the baby rabbit and we patted them  MOTHER: Did you say she held them tightly?  CHILD: no, she holded them loosely

Developing 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’ and ‘mens’

Developing Morphology  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)

Developing 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

Forming questions 1st stage:  Insert where and who to the beginning of an expression with rising intonation E.g. sit chair? Where horse go? 2nd stage:  More complex expression E.g. why you smiling? You want eat? 3rd stage:  Inversion of subject and verb E.g. will you help me? What did I do?

Forming negatives Stage 1:  Putting not and no at the beginning e.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 appear e.g. I didn’t caught it, she won’t go

Developing 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 narrowing

Developing Semantics  Antonymous relations are acquired late  The distinction between more/less, before/after seem to be later acquired.