1、Language Acquisition语言语言语言观察语言观察 语言研究语言研究语语言言学学理论语理论语言学言学应用语应用语言学言学结构语言学生成语言学功能语言学语音学词汇学语义学语法学社会语言学文化语言学语言教学计算语言学病理语言学心理语言学交际语言学法律语言学地理语言学广告语言学词义学词源学语汇学句法学形态学词法学人类语言学语言风格学社会语言学人名学地名学儿童语言学传播语言学对外汉语教学语言学学科体系语言学学科体系语言习得Overview1.Introduction1.Introductiona childs acquisition of his mother tongueHow doe
2、s the child comes to understand and speak the language of his community?How is language learned?to better understand the nature of human languagedevelopmental processIn the acquisition of mother tongues,despite of a certain individual differences,all normal children,brought up with appropriate mothe
3、r tongue input in appropriate linguistic context,can successfully acquire their mother tongues and the stages they experience in the mother tongue acquisition are similar.Language acquisition is primarily the acquisition of the grammatical system.No one can store all the words and expressions in his
4、 mind.A child usually constructs his grammatical rules by listening to the linguistic input that surrounds him and speaks according to his own constructed grammar.Without these productive rules,a language user would be unable to produce and understood an unlimited number of sentences which he has ne
5、ver heard or used before.Language acquisition is mainly the acquisition of grammatical rules.This does not mean that it is the acquisition of each specific rule.What a child has acquired is a limited number of highly abstract and general principles,ignoring the irregular cases.Eg:A child may add“-s”
6、to the end of a noun to form the plural form,whether the noun is regular or irregular.Therefore,the mistakes that a child makes are systematic and predictable.2.Theories of Child LAA behaviorist view imitation and habit formationAn innatist view language acquisition device-UGAn interactionist view I
7、nterplay between the human characteristics of the child and the environmentp Behaviorists view the routine aspectsp The innatist childrens acquiring complex systemp The interactionist how children learn and use the language appropriately in the environment.3.Cognitive Development in Child Language D
8、evelopmentCognitive development relates to language acquisition in two ways:1.Language development is dependent on both the concepts children form about the world and what they feel stimulated2.The cognitive factors determine how the child makes sense of the linguistic system himself.4.Language Envi
9、ronment and the CPHThe role of language environment u Behaviorist view a major role in providing both language models to be imitated and the necessary feedbacku The innatist view a stimulus that triggers and activated the pre-equipped LAD to process the materials provided by the linguistic environme
10、ntu The interactionist view the quality of the language samples available in the linguistic environmentThe role of Ageu the LAD,like other biological functions,works successfully only when it is stimulated at the right time-a specific and limited time period for language acquisition-Critical Period
11、Hypothesis(Eric Lenneberg)5.Features in Child Language Developmentat a given time of life(1.5 4yrs)in an appropriate linguistic environmentbiologically programmed-all human beings are equally possessedchildren follow a similar acquisition schedule across culturesthe role of input,interaction,instruc
12、tion,correction,reinforcement and imitation 6.The Stages in Child Language Development prelinguistic stage(babbling)the one-word stage holophrastic sentences -overextension the two-word stage with clear syntactic and semantic relations,but absent of markers the multiword stage telegraghic speech lac
13、k grammatical morphemes,but follow the principles of sentence formation The development of CLA:phonology bilabials and 3 basic vowels(i:u:a:)syntax NP,VP,negative(No eat.No want some food.I dont want any food.)morphology stems inflectional morphemes(-ing Pl.s“overgeneralization”vocabulary first 2 ye
14、ars(50100)2 yrs(expand rapidly)8 yrs(17,600)semantics doesnt learn the meaning of a word all at once(overextension)daddy:+ADULT +ADULT +MALE +ADULT +MALE +PARENT7.Issues in Child Language DevelopmentThe role of input and interactionGenetically programmed capacity for language is not a sufficient con
15、dition for language acquisition.Successful language acquisition requires appropriate linguistic context in which a child can interact with others linguistically.Otherwise,language acquisition can be severely hampered.Caretaker speech is a modified speech usually for communication with children.Child
16、ren with little or no exposure to caretaker speech do not necessarily acquire their mother tongues more slowly than children with much exposure to caretaker speech.It means the exposure to caretaker speech is not an essential condition for language acquisition.However,caretaker speech can help estab
17、lish the relation between linguistic forms and their meanings,facilitate the comprehension of language and make the acquisition of vocabulary and structures easier.The role of instructionLanguage acquisition for normal children requires little conscious instruction or classroom teaching.In natural s
18、ettings,parents rarely correct young childrens grammatical mistakes in their communication.Even if they do so,their efforts very often seem to achieve little effect.For example:Child:I taked a cookie.Parent:Oh,you mean you took a cookie.Child:Yes,thats right,I taked it.Therefore,conscious instructio
19、n to a normal child plays a minor role at best,if any.The role of correction and reinforcementBehaviourists believe that a childs verbal behavior was conditioned through association between a stimulus and the response.Correct verbal behaviour gets positively reinforced and incorrect verbal behaviour
20、 gets corrected.In this way,a child gradually forms the behaviour of using the language correctly.But modern research has shown that correction and reinforcement only play a minor role in the first language acquisition,for example:Child:Nobody dont like me.Mother:No,say Nobody likes me.Child:Nobody
21、don t like me.This type of exchange is repeated eight times.Mother:No,now listen carefully;say Nobody likes me.Child:Oh!Nobody dont LIKES me.Generally speaking,correction and reinforcement from the parents occur in childrens pronunciation and reporting of truthfulness of utterances.The role of imita
22、tionImitation only plays a minor role in the first language acquisition.Children actively discover and construct their personal linguistic rules from the linguistic input they have received.If childrens first language acquisition involved the passive imitation on the part of children,then many lingu
23、istic mistakes children have made would not be satisfactorily explained because the mistakes they make are not usually heard in the adult speech forms.For example,children are often heard to say my foots instead of my feet,goed instead of went and maked instead of made.In addition,children who can not speak because of some other neurological or physiological defects can learn a language.Children do not imitate blindly.They make selective use of imitation，for example,in learning vocabulary.Imitation does not play a key role in the first language acquisition.
