Pattern of First Language Acquisition

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PATTERN OF FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

DB. HOSTANDI ASRIFAN NOVALIA TANASY SUMARTI

Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa

Program Studi Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris

Universitas Negeri Makassar

Group Presentation

Mata Kuliah : Psycholinguistics

Dosen Pembimbing : 1. Prof. Dr. Andi Qashas Rahman, M.Hum

2. Dr. Syarifuddin Dolla, M.Pd


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PATTERN OF FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

DB. HOSTANDI ASRIFAN NOVALIA TANASY SUMARTIJurusan Pendidikan Bahasa

Program Studi Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris

Universitas Negeri Makassar

ABSTRACT

We have discussed several times historical knowledge of psycholinguistics; biological

function of the language; language and cognition; speech perception and production. This

chapter looks at some patterns of first language acquisition.Keywords:

First Language The stage of first language acquisition

I. INTRODUCTIONThere are two important terms to look first before defining FLA. They are First Language

and Language Acquisition.

a. First language (L1) is defined as (generally) a persons mother tongue or thelanguage acquired first. In multilingual communities, however, where a child may

gradually shift from the main use of one language to the main use of another (e.g.

because of the influence of a school language), first language may refer to the

language the child feels most comfortable using. Often this term is used

synonymously with NATIVE LANGUAGE (Longman Dictionary: see first language);

and

b. Language Acquisition, as stated by Chaer (2003), can be defined as a process takingplace in a childs brain when she/he acquired his/her first language (mother tongue).

Here language acquisition is differentiated from language learning. Language

learning usually refers to processes happening when child learn his second language.

While language acquisition is closely related to first language.

Considering the two propositions, we can define that First Language Acquisition

(FLA) as the childs process of attaining/acquiring his very first language in life.

Language acquisition refers to the childs acquisition of his mother tongue, i.e. how the

child comes to understand and speak the language of his community.


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Definition of language acquisition: the process by which the language capability

develops in a human. First language acquisition (children), Second language acquisition

(adults and children)

Language acquisition is a process, one which includes a biological base and

environmental effects following. Language itself is what is learned but it is the ability of

the brain to allow this phenomenon to occur. David Caplan, M.D., PH.D. feels that there

is a language code that constitutes a persons understanding of language. Modern

linguistics has taught us that, in its essence, language is a special kind of code. A

"standard" code consists of a set of symbols that can be connected to the words and

phrases in a language. When we crack a code, we understand an encoded message

because we understand the language that we have translated the code into. Natural

language is a different sort of code, because its forms are related to meaning directly

(Caplan).

The biological aspect of learning language begins with the left hemisphere of the brain.The left side of the brain controls language skills. In a recent study published in

Nature, researchers concluded that the left half of the brain does more than just

process information; it plays an extremely important role in language skills. A small part

of the brains cortex is responsible for language processing; this region lies around the

sylvian fissure, and seems to be responsible not only for written language but sign

language as well. Clearly, much of our understanding of language and our ability to learn

and speak it, is due to the left side of the brain. It would be much easier to understand

how the brain learns, stores, and processes language if there were animals that had a

symbol system as complex as language to observe and experiment with. Over the past

decade new technologies such as using positron emission tomography, special analysesof electroencephalograms, functional magnetic resonance imaging, magneto

encephalography, and other tools (Caplan) have emerged allowing us to gain more

ground on the quest to completely understanding the brains relationship with language.

Dr. Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., agrees that language itself is learned. Through his

research he has concluded that We are born with the capacity to make 40 sounds and

our genetics allows our brain to make associations between sounds and objects, actions,

or ideas. The combination of these capabilities allows the creation of language. Sounds

come to have meaning. The babbling sound "ma - ma - ma" of the infant becomes

mama, and then mother. In the first years of life children listen, practice, and learn(Perry). During infancy adults can help children learn language predominantly by talking

with them. Encouraging young children to speak their feelings and tell their stories

regardless of whether they make complete grammatical sense are simple ways to

strengthen their language skills.

As was addressed earlier in the paper, a pressing question is how such young childrens

brains, so seemingly undeveloped, have the capacity to produce thoughts and words.

Yoko Ondas findings prove the problem of "how the brain generates words" has come

to challenge the frontiers of brain research and is accepted as a major difficulty even

among big problems. It is that language is an advanced brain function, and is thereforeat the zenith of the mental function called recognition or thought - volition - emotions.


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The meaning of what is called zenith is because of the ability to express these mental

functions through language, even if not everything. Isn't the fact of children chatting,

which is accomplished by an ability to understand, likely to be a phenomenon filled with

absolute wonder in their development? (Onda).

The question of how language acquisition occurs in children is complex. In Yoko Ondas

Reading Kuniyoshi Sakai's Language and Brain Science a prior study by Chomsky is

cited. Onda feel that The theory put forward by Chomsky to elucidate these questions

is called "nativism". Nativism claims that language is not acquired entirely through

conditioning and education after birth. Instead, it is claimed that the mother language is

"acquired" through innate linguistic abilities. Chomsky hypothesizes that humans have

innate linguistic abilities, which he terms the "language acquisition facility" (Onda). This,

in some ways, opposes Dr. Perrys views. It is clear that the nature vs. nurture debate

will continue.

II. THE STAGE OF FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITIONDeveloping speech

By the end of the first year:

Understand a few frequently repeated words Produce 1-2 recognizable wordsBy the age of two:

Produce fifty words or more Make up telegraphic sentences ( Mommy juice; Baby fall down) Combine words creativelyFeatures of telegraphic English: No function words No grammatical morphemes Word order reflects meaning kiss baby; baby kissMore progress

In the first three years there are predictable patterns of features of language closelyrelated to the childs cognitive development.

Children do not use tomorrow or last week until they understand the concept oftime.

Children understand the difference sg.- pl. long before they are able to use the pluralendings.

Irregular plurals are only mastered during the school years.

Stage of language development (Stephenson, Brenda, 2009)

Hearing

Respond by crying Sensitive to loud noises


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Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Respond by crying Sensitive to lights, shadows and smellsPre-linguistic stage

Brain research shows that during the babys first year, sensory input shapes thebrains organization

Hearing infants are sensitive to auditory Infants with hearing loss are sensitive to visual input and touchTypical Sequence of normal language development

0-6 early pre-linguistic 6-12 later pre-linguistic 12-18 single sign/word 18-24 early word combinations 24-26 multiword combinations 3-4 yrs multiword combinations 5 yrs adult-like language

(BlondKelly, 2009) explained three expansions of Beginnings of language as follow as:

A. Pre birth has been scientifically proven that a baby can recognize the mothers voice. Before the child is born it can recognize words. Music can develop a babys brain.Stage 1: BASIC BIOLOGICAL NOISE STAGE (0-8 weeks)

Child expresses itself through crying. They show reflexive responses and not conscious responses. Child starts with vowel A sounds. They learn to control their air stream mechanism.Stage 2: COOING & LAUGHING STAGE (8-20 weeks)

Make different cooing noisese.g. coo, goo ga-ga

Recognize parents faces and speech. Towards the end of the stage they begin to string cooing noises. They recognize language has a structure. Learn to express themselves through laughing and chuckling. Have control over their tongue.Stage 3: VOCAL PLAY (20-30 weeks)

Begin to use consonant and vowel sounds. Able to adjust pitch. playing and experimenting


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Stage 4: BABBLING STAGE (25-50 weeks)

2 types of babbling sounds---> RE-DUPLICATING- repeat sounds (e.g. woof woof)

--> VARIGATED- use different sound patterns and put them together.

The words have no meaning to the child as they think they are just makingsounds.

Stage 5: MELODIC UTTERANCE STAGE (10-13 months)

A variation in rhythm, melody and tone is shown The child begins to see some meaning to what they say. Proto words used- when the child doesnt say words it recognizes but realizes

that words are parts of a sound.

B. AGE 12-18 MONTHS Developments occur rapidly. Intonations used to show feelings and purpose. Kids begin to develop at different levels. Single word utterances concrete nouns Holophrastic phrases couple of words put together which have no grammatical

concept

Child learns about 10-20 words each month. Over extension when child uses 1 word to describe lots of things.

1. No concept of differentiating2. e.g. 4 legged object = dog

Under extension - cant understand that there are many numbers of the samething in the world ( e.g. lots of cars in world)1. Cant understand the concept of concrete nouns.

Mismatch get the name of something wrong (e.g. car = doll) Begin to use modifiers so add extra words in front of another word (e.g. go sleep)

C. AGE 18-24 MONTHS Have a vocabulary of 200 words shows how quickly they are learning. Pronunciation - some syllables dropped (e.g. tomato = mato)

1. Consonant clusters avoided i.e. sky - guy2. Re-duplicate sounds- e.g. baby = baybay3. No consistency of speaking

III. STAGES IN CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITIONUNIVERSAL RESEARCH1. Pre-speech: Much of importance goes on even before the child utters his first word:

infants learn to pay attention to speech, pays attention to intonation and the rhythm

of speech long before they begin to speak.


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Infants respond to speech more keenly than to other sounds. Speech elicits greater

electrical activity in the left side of the 2 month old infant's brain than do other

sounds. Experiment with microphone and nipple showed that infants suck more

vigorously if the action triggers a human voice as opposed to music or other sounds.

Child learns to recognize the distinctive sounds, the phonemes of the language theyhear from birth long before they are able to pronounce them. Infants can distinguish

between /p/ and /b/ at three or four months (in an experiment with /ba/ played vs.

/pa/, a two month infant showed awareness of the change). But children do not

learn how to use these sounds until much later-- around the second year or later--as

shown by the experiment with /pok/ and /bok/. The same is true for rising vs. falling

intonation, which only becomes systematically funtional much later. Infants know

the difference between one language and another by recognition of phonological

patterns (Story of the Russian fairy tale book.)

2. Babbling stage. Begins at several months of age. Characterized by indiscriminateutterance of speech sounds-- many of which may not be used in the given language

but are found in other languages-- clicks. Many native speech sounds may be

absent-- some are naturally harder to pronounce-- /r/ /th/. Very few consonant

clusters and repeated syllables are common.

3. One word (holophrastic) stage. Infants may utter their first word as early as ninemonths: usually mama, dada (these words resemble babbling). Deaf babies whose

parents use sign language begin making their first word/gestures around eight

months. This stage is characterized by the production of actual speech signs. Often

the words are simplified: "du" for duck, "ba" for bottle. When the child has acquired

about 50 words he develops regular pronunciation patterns. This may even distortcertain words-- turtle becomes "kurka". Incorrect pronunciations are systematic at

this time: all words with /r/ are pronounced as /w/. sick--thick, thick--fick. Children

tend to perceive more phonemic contrasts than they are able to produce

themselves.

The first 50 words tend to be names of important persons, greetings, foods,

highlights of the daily routine such as baths, ability to change their environment-

give, take, go, up, down, open.

The meaning of words may not correspond to that of adult language:

Overextension-- dog may mean any four legged creature. Apple may mean any

round object. Bird may mean any flying object. Child can still distinguish between

the differences, simply hasn't learned that they are linguistically meaningful.

Dissimilarities linguistically redundant.

Two patterns in child word learning--

a. referential-- names of objects.b. expressive-- personal desires and social interactions: bye-bye, hi, good,


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This is a continuum. Child's place on this continuum partly due to parent's style:

naming vs. pointing.

The extra-linguistic context provides much of the speech info. Rising and falling

intonation may or may not be used to distinguish questions from statements at the

one-word stage. Words left out if the contexts make them obvious. At this stage,utterances show no internal grammatical structure (much like the sentence yes in

adult speech, which can't be broken down into subject, predicate, etc.)

4. Combining words-- 18 mo--2 years. By two and a half years most children speak insentences of several words--but their grammar is far from complete. This stage

rapidly progresses into what has been termed a fifth and final stage of language

acquisition, the All hell breaks loose stage. By six the child's grammar approximates

that of adults.

Children learning any language seem to encode the same limited set of meanings intheir first sentences:

ownership-- Daddy's shoes; describing events-- Me fall; labeling-- That dog;

locational relations-- toy in box.

Sentences usually two words. Children can repeat more complex sentences spoken

by adults but cannot create them until later (called prefabricated routines) not

indicative of the child's grammar.

Other patterns in early speech

The ends of words learned more quickly: -raff for giraff, -mato for tomato, -narna

for banana. This is true even in lang. where the stress in always on the first syllable.

Avoidance of exceptionsoverextension of a pattern: go--goed; good--gooder.

The rest of the acquisition of grammar is idiosyncratic-- some children repeat more,

others create more. Some children produce a great number of words before

beginning to combine them into sentences. Others immediately begin to make

sentences. There may be several individual routes to mastering one's native

language.

IV. ATYPICAL DEVELOPMENTThe atypical language development includes:

1. Hearing impairment (which may cause a delayed language acquisition),2. Mental retardation (which may cause a delayed language acquisition),3. Autism (language impairment from the very beginning),4. Stuttering (repetition of sounds, syllable, or phrases where the speaker can not

release the words),


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5. Aphasia (partial or total loss of language due to brain damage) and dyslexia anddysgraphia (disorders in reading and writing which may be acquire or

developmental).

V. CONCLUSIONSAll of the above studies have revealed a few universally accepted facts about child

language acquisition.

1. Child Language acquisition is a natural consequence of human society. All childrenexposed to language acquire it naturally without deliberate efforts of teaching or

learning.

2. The outcome of first language acquisition will be the same regardless of individualdifferences in intelligence. Two children with quite different intellectual abilities will

both acquire a highly complex native language by age six.

3. Although the basic ability to acquire language is innate to the child, no specificstructural property of language has yet been proven to be innate. Therefore, any

infant is equally capable of acquiring any language. Infants born of different racial

stocks will acquire the same form of language if raised in the same linguistic

environment.

Works Cited

Anonym, 2009. Language Acquisition. (Online),(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition, retrieved June, 7, 2009)

BlondKelly, 2009. Revision: Child Language Acquisition Speaking. (Online),

(http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Revision:Child_Language_Acquisition_-

_Speaking, retrieved June, 7, 2009)

Caplan, David. 2009. Language and the brain. (Online),

(http://www.med.harvard.edu/publications/On_The_Brain/Volume4/Number4/F9La

ng, retrieved June, 7, 2009)

Chaer, Abdul. 2003. Psikolinguistik: Kajian Pengantar. Jakarta: PT Rineka Cipta

Gass & Selinker. 2001. SLA: An Introductory Course. Lawrence Erbaum Associates,

Publishers. London

Gwen and Lancaster. 2008. Developing Speech and Language Skills: A resource book for

teachers, teaching assistants, and speech and language therapists. Routledge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisitionhttp://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Revision:Child_Language_Acquisition_-_Speakinghttp://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Revision:Child_Language_Acquisition_-_Speakinghttp://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Revision:Child_Language_Acquisition_-_Speakinghttp://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Revision:Child_Language_Acquisition_-_Speakinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition


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Jenny R. Saffran, Ann Senghas, and John C. Trueswell, 2009. The acquisition of language by

children. (Online), (http://www.pnas.org/content/98/23/12874.full, retrieved June,

7, 2009)

Onda, Yoko. 2009. Language and Brain Science. (Online), (http://www.matsuishi-lab.org/languagebrain1J-E(final), retrieved June, 7, 2009)

Perry, Bruce D. 2009. How Young Children Learn Language. (Online),

(http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/ect/learn_language.htm, retrieved June, 7,

2009)

Pinker, Steven.____________. Language Acquisition. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Saleh Muslimin, Ahmad. (nd). A paper of psycholinguistics: THE CONTRIBUTION OF AGE IN

FLA: a CASE study to iRvan, Faqih, AND AzKA. Le Indonesian University

Stilwell Peccei, Jean. 2006. Child Language: A resource book for students. Routledge

Stephenson, Brenda. 2009. PPT: Language Acquisition in Children who are Deaf and Hard of

Hearing. The University of Tennessee

Richard, J. 1992. Longman Dictionary: LANGUAGE TEACHING AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS.

London: Longman Group UK
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Pattern of First Language Acquisition