english language child language acquisition essay

English Language Acquisition Analytical Essay

The innateness hypothesis theory, theoretical bases, language is innate, universal grammar/ language acquisition device (lad), reference list.

The process of learning a language also known as language acquisitions is a procedure that begins as soon as a child is born (Chomsky, 1986).

During development, children learn to communicate, respond, and even make requests through cries and coos. At a later stage, a child begins to develop sounds that are more complex and when he/ she is between 3 and 6 years old, a child is able to communicate easily. Researchers have tried to explain the process by which children learn language. One theory that has explained the process by which children acquire language is the Innate theory. This paper will discuss and assess the Innate theory of language acquisition.

The Innateness hypothesis theory, which is also referred as Innatist model, Naivist theory, or Rationalist mentalist theory is a model that explains how language is acquired (Chomsky, 1986). Noam Chomsky a linguistic professor developed the Innateness hypothesis model in 1950s (around 1959).

However, although Chomsky is credited as the one who originated with Innate model; this theory was in existence for more than a hundred years (Chomsky, 1986). Chomsky is only considered as one who developed this theory since he brought new ideas making the old concept to be accepted as a formal theory.

Noam Chomsky is a well renowned professor of linguistics who has contributed a lot in the study of language (Fromkin, 2000). His work in linguistic theory especially, the Innateness model of language acquisition has brought major changes in the field of linguistics. The Innateness model is one of the most prominent theories and because of this aspect; it has received a lot of public attention in the past and continue to cause a huge debate among many researchers in the field of linguistics (Fromkin, 2000).

Noam Chomsky developed the Innate theory as a way of reacting to the Behaviorists Language Learning Theory. In the Innate theory of language acquisition, Chomsky contradicted arguments of the Behaviorist theory (Chomsky, 1986). During the past few decades, the Innate theory has caused a lot of debate concerning first language acquisition (L1).

When Chomsky developed the Navist theory, he came up with several assumptions, which formed the bases of the Innate theory. This theory has three assumptions.

First, according to Chomsky (1986, p. 12) “language acquisition is innately determined”. This theory argues that children are born with extraordinary abilities to learn a language. Chomsky particularly argued that when children are born, their mind is biologically programmed to learn a language (Chomsky, 1986).

As such, just like other concepts, children acquire language in the same way they learn any other biological function. This is to say that, just in the same manner children start to crawl or learn to walk, language learning for children is programmed in a similar way.

Secondly, Chomsky also argued that every child is born with a special ability to learn and understand rules of a language system (Pinker, 2007). Every language has rules in the way sentences are formed and how words are uttered and so on. For instance, a Standard English sentence contains a subject, verb, and an object.

According to Chomsky, children are born with abilities to discover such rules and master them in a natural way. Because of this special ability among children, language acquisition only happens within a short time for both easy and complex languages (Pinker, 2007).

The third and the last, yet crucial assumption is that environment has a role to play in determining children’s abilities to learn or acquire a language (Pinker, 2007). Chomsky puts a lot of emphasis on environmental factor saying that this aspect cannot be ignored as it has a role in language learning.

Children brought up in two different environments can vary in terms of how they learn or rather; acquire a language (Blakemore and Cooper, 1970). In a given environment, a child can acquire a language faster while in another one a child can learn a language slowly. For instance, a child who brought up in an environment that has many children is more likely to learn a language faster compared to a child who grows is an environment that has no children. Constant interaction with other children helps in language acquisition.

Generally, in Chomsky’s perspective the Innate model of language acquisition can be categorized in two hypothesis. The first hypothesis says that language acquisition in children does not depend on level of intelligence as children who are even below the IQ of 50 can easily learn a language (Konieczna, 2008).

This is because children have the ability to learn a language “effortlessly” (Blakemore and Cooper, 1970, p. 477). Chomsky further argued that even though language is complex considering it has set grammar principles, children do not need any form of special training to acquire or become competent in any language.

Chomsky further argued that children mind is set and designed to discover language rules even with limited information (O’Grady, 2008). This is because children do not need to imitate words or language in order to become competent in any language. For children to become competent in any language, reinforcements, rewards and special training play little or no role in language acquisition (Pinker, 1994). He also argued that the process of language acquisition is passive and children can sometime utter words/ phrases they have never heard.

For the past few decades, a debate has emerged concerning validity of Chomsky’s work. However, as many critics have opposed the Innate theory, several researchers have been in the front line providing evidence to support the Innate theory. One supporter is Eric Lenneberg. Erick Lenneberg developed the concept of critical period that has provided light and more explanation of the Innate hypothesis of language acquisition (Kampen, 2004).

According to Lenneberg’s critical period, there is a particular period of life or time (critical period) when a child is able to acquire a language without any difficulties (O’Grady, 2008). Lenneberg referred this particular time as biologically pre-determined period (O’Grady, 2008).

According to this concept, if a child does not acquire or learn a language during this particular period, language becomes relatively hard to acquire beyond this period. Through this concept, Lenneberg provided adequate evidence to prove that Chomsky’s argument is valid. This concept does not only confirm that language is innately determined, but it also proves that there is natural set of rules for a language.

Chomsky’s most important bases of his theory argue that, children are born with unique abilities to learn a language (Pinker, 2007). Chomsky has provided more evidence to support his argument, which is widely discussed here. According to Chomsky (1986), Behaviorist theory failed to recognizes “the poverty of the stimulus Argument”.

The concept of “the poverty of the stimulus argument” argues that almost all children learn their mother tongue or native language successfully at a particular time when they are less expected to learn any other complex concept in life (Kampen, 2004). In addition, the concepts also says that the first language that a child is exposed to, depending on the environment is very confusing and it may not necessary provide all basic information needed to learn a language.

This concept also argues that, sometimes children learn to use complex language structures when they have not even understood grammar rules or special instructions. Therefore, children are able to gain knowledge of grammar rules hence learn a language in a natural manner.

Lastly, this concept argues that children are capable of producing words that they have never heard (Pinker, 2007). For example, children can say puted, comed, and eated. This is not out of imitation and neither is it out of training, but it is acquired through creativity.

According to Chomsky (1986), language development does not rely on techniques of teaching although language acquisition varies according to cultures. However, Chomsky emphasized that language is universal.

In general, Chomsky emphasized on the facts that these grammar rules offer restricted possibilities; this is clearer in sentence structure. As a universal grammar, almost all languages have a similar structure. An example is James (S) has (V) a mango (O). Virtually all languages follow this structure of SVO (Pinker, 2007). This is what Chomsky referred as the Universal Grammar (UG).

To support this argument, Chomsky argued that “language is not a set of habits, but it is rule-governed” (Kampen, 2004, p. 56). In his argument, Chomsky explained that the human mind is fully responsible for processing linguistic information since it is designed naturally with a special device, which enables learning or acquisition of language by humans (Fromkin, 2000). This is known as the Language

Acquisition Device (LAD). According to Chomsky, the LAD is responsible for “detecting and learning the grammar rules” (Pinker, 2007, p. 78). This particular device becomes activated once humans hear a language. With the storage capacity of the brain, the LAD helps young children to become skilled at any language that they here or have heard in the past.

In Chomsky argument (1986), the LAD is made of Universal Grammar. All languages have certain universal rules. Universal Grammar (UG) does not mean that all language are formed with one basis rule, it only states that all languages contain some basic grammatical elements or fixed rules that are general. These rules define how people construct sentences in any language. Children also apply the same principle in a language. According to Innate model of language acquisition, there are two universal languages (Fromkin, 2000).

The first one is substantive universal. The substantive universal has fixed features phonemes and other syntactic groups such as noun and verbs (Fromkin, 2000). A good example in this case is the different between some phonological features. One such an example is utterance of vowels and consonants.

The way consonants /f/ and /v/ are voiced in words such as van and fun is distinctive. The second one is formal universal. According to Chomsky, every language has set grammatical rules (Fromkin, Rodman, and Hymans, 2002). The formal universal rules are those principles that establish the manner in which grammatical rules operate in any given language (Chomsky, 1986).

Concerning these two universal principles, Chomsky argued that a child becomes competent in only one of the principles. The first principle, which a child discovers automatically form his/ her core or primary grammar while those principles that are not discovered in the child’s mind automatically become the peripheral or secondary grammar (Guasti, 1993).

During the time when a child is developing, the primary grammar rules become easier to acquire compared to the secondary grammar rules, which are much harder to understand because the mind is not set or programmed to comprehend them.

Chomsky’s work in linguistic theory especially, the Innateness model of language acquisition has brought many changes in the field of linguistics. The Innateness model is one of the most prominent theories and has received a lot of public attention in the past. It continues to cause a big debate among many researchers in the field of linguistics. Different theories have been developed that contrast Chomsky’s work.

In fact, several scholars have criticized the Innate theory arguing that the hypothesis of Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is simply an conceptual that does not have scientific facts. Again, critics have also said that the theory focused much on language competence rather that emphasizing on the developmental feature of language attainment (Konieczna, 2008).

Because of such issues, Innate theory has caused a lot of controversies. Despite all of these critics, Chomsky’s work is good enough to provide a valid explanation of how children acquire a language, especially the L1.

Blakemore, C. & Cooper, G. F., 1970. Development of the brain depends on the visual environment. Nature, 228: 477-478.

Chomsky, N., 1986. Knowledge of language: its nature, origins, and use . Westport, CT; London: Praeger.

Fromkin, V., 2000. Linguistics: An introduction to linguistic theories . Hoboken: Blackwell.

Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hymans, N., 2002. An Introduction to Language . (7th Edn). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Guasti, M. T., 1993. Verb Syntax in Italian child Grammar: Finite and non-finite verbs. Language Acquisition 3: 1-40.

Kampen, V. J., 2004. Acquistional view on optional. In Lingua 114 (10): 1133-1146.

Konieczna, E., 2008. First Language Acquisition . Web.

O’Grady, W., 2008. Innateness, universal grammar, and emergentism. Lingua, 118: 620–631.

Pinker, S., 1994. The Language Instinct: the new science of language and mind . London: Allen Lane.

Pinker, S., 2007. The Language Instinct: How the mind creates language . London: HarperCollins.

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IvyPanda. (2020, May 20). English Language Acquisition. https://ivypanda.com/essays/english-language-acquisition/

"English Language Acquisition." IvyPanda , 20 May 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/english-language-acquisition/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'English Language Acquisition'. 20 May.

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1. IvyPanda . "English Language Acquisition." May 20, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/english-language-acquisition/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "English Language Acquisition." May 20, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/english-language-acquisition/.

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BOOK REVIEW article

Book review: current perspectives on child language acquisition: how children use their environment to learn.

• 1 School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha, China
• 2 Department of Foreign Languages, College of Arts and Sciences, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, China

A Book Review on Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How Children Use Their Environment to Learn

Caroline F. Rowland, Anna L. Theakston, Ben Ambridge, and Katherine E. Twomey (Amsterdam; Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company), 2020, 330 pages, ISBN: 9789027207074 (hardback), 9789027261007 (e-book)

For child language development, the nature vs. nurture debate has been ongoing for a long time, but neither side is presumably persuaded by the other side. Nativists assume children are equipped with learning mechanisms for morpho-syntax innately and the lexicon with access to innate linguistic representations ( Chomsky, 2011 ). In contrast, the usage-based theorists claim that language development is the product of language input as well as children's internal learning mechanism which is domain-general ( Lieven, 2016 ). However, as Karmiloff-Smith (1998) mentioned that “all scientists from the staunchest Chomskian nativist to the most domain-general empiricist agree that development involves contributions from both genes and environment.” The main disputes lie in the relative contribution of genes and environment and their interactions. How children interact with the environment in their language development has long fascinated researchers from different language and cultural backgrounds. The book Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: how children use their environment to learn is a collection of essays of some researchers who have focused on child-environment interaction, and been influenced by the studies of Elena Lieven (Rowland et al., 2020) , to whom this book is dedicated.

The book consists of two parts with a total of 13 essays, 7 in the first part “Levels of Acquisition,” which centers on child-environment interactions across different levels of development. The starting chapter provides readers a review of the early communicative development of infants and some of the theoretical perspectives. Chapter 2 discusses several developmental robotics models of the language acquisition, showing the significance for cross-disciplinary collaboration in future theory development and a rising new outlook of language development in which both non-linguistic and linguistic input triggers language development. Then, the following five chapters (Ch3 to Ch7) elaborate the child-environment interaction in morphosyntactic and semantic acquisition from diverse facets, such as grammatical categorization, transitive-causative overgeneralization errors, construction of form-meaning mappings and complex syntactic structures, and Theory of Mind development, mainly based on the previous research of German and English. Generally speaking, the findings of these research all indicate the significance of language input context.

The second part of the book, “Levels of Variation,” includes 6 essays, which discuss variations across individuals, languages and cultures in language development. Among them, two (Ch8&9) focus on language acquisition of typical developing children. Chapter 8 elaborates a dynamic, interactive explanation of gesture development at prelinguistic stage, in which infants' gestures become social over time via interaction with other more experienced speakers. Chapter 9 illustrates how individual differences provide an essential perspective in the language acquisition from gestures to morphosyntax and proposes three casual factors to explain individual differences. Chapters 10 and 13 introduce a few research into Developmental Language Disorders (DLD) and autism and the implications from usage-based theories of language development. Chapter 11 proposes a maximal diversity method, which samples from structurally diversified languages to avoid sampling bias. Chapter 12 discusses language development in bilingualism by detecting factors that account for children's bilingual experience and its position in the input, the interaction between the processing skills and pragmatic skills, and representations across two languages.

As mentioned in the book's introduction, it's the first attempt to bring some of the new perspectives together in one place. It comprises multiple dimensions of child language development: theories vs. empirical evidence, lexical vs. morphosyntactic development, monolingualism vs. bilingualism, and healthy children vs. children with language disorders and etc. It explores how children make use of collective sources of information from environment, construct linguistic representations at several diverse aspects, and learn how to incorporate these representations to conduct effective communication. These findings have enlightened fresh theoretical perspectives which concentrate more on interpreting learning as a complicated dynamic child-environment interaction.

It would be more comprehensive if the book could include more studies of tone languages. Languages of the world exhibit a natural diversity. It is important to note that the existing theories explaining the child language acquisition are mostly based on findings in children from Romance and Germanic language backgrounds such as English, Spanish, German, French, etc. ( Singh and Fu, 2016 ). Actually, not all theories operate universally regardless of the language background. A natural consequence is that the existing theories explaining child language development may not be generalizable to the tone-language-speaking children.

Author Contributions

XZ and FC selected the book. XZ drafted the book review. XC and FC provided valuable suggestions and revised it. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research was supported by Hunan Provincial Education Reform Program (2019).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Chomsky, N. (2011). Language and other cognitive systems. What is special about language? Lang. Learn. Dev. 7, 263–278. doi: 10.1080/15475441.2011.584041

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1998). Development itself is the key to understanding developmental disorders. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2, 389–398. doi: 10.1016/S1364-6613(98)01230-3

Lieven, E. (2016). Usage-based approaches to language development: where do we go from here? Lang. Cogn. 8, 346–368. doi: 10.1017/langcog.2016.16

Rowland, C. F., Theakston, A. L., Ambridge, B., and Twomey, K. E. (2020). Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How Children Use Their Environment to Learn . Amsterdam; Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi: 10.1075/tilar.27

Singh, L., and Fu, C. S. (2016). A new view of language development: the acquisition of lexical tone. Child Dev. 87, 834–854. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12512

Keywords: child language acquisition, usage-based, grammatical constructions, levels of variation, language disorders

Citation: Zhang X, Chen X and Chen F (2021) Book Review: Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How Children Use Their Environment to Learn. Front. Psychol. 12:710903. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.710903

Received: 17 May 2021; Accepted: 31 May 2021; Published: 25 June 2021.

Edited and reviewed by: David Saldaña , Sevilla University, Spain

Copyright © 2021 Zhang, Chen and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Xiaoxiang Chen, xiaoxiangchensophy@hotmail.com ; Fei Chen, chenfeianthony@gmail.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Child language acquisition (CLA) refers to how children develop the ability to understand and use language. But what process do children go through exactly? How do we study CLA? And what is an example? Let's find out!

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Stages of first language acquisition in children

There are four main stages of first language acquisition in children. These are:

The Babbling Stage

• The Holophrastic Stage

The Two-word Stage

The multi-word stage.

The babbling stage is the first significant stage of language acquisition in children, occurring from around 4-6 months until about 12 months of age. During this stage, the child hears speech syllables (sounds that make up spoken language) from its environment and caregivers and attempts to imitate by repeating them. There are two types of babbling: canonical babbling and variegated babbling .

Canonical babbling is the type of babbling that emerges first. It consists of the same syllables being repeated over and over e.g. a baby saying 'ga ga ga', 'ba ba ba', or a similar string of repeated syllables.

Variegated babbling is when different syllables are used in the babbling sequence. Instead of using one syllable repeatedly, the child uses a variety e.g. 'ga ba da' or 'ma da pa'. This occurs around two months after canonical babbling starts, at around eight months of age. Children may also begin to use intonation that resembles actual speech at this stage, while still only producing meaningless sounds.

The Holophrastic Stage (The One-Word Stage)

The holophrastic stage of language acquisition, also known as the ‘ one-word stage ’, typically occurs around the age of 12 to 18 months. At this stage, children have identified which words and combinations of syllables are the most effective for communicating and may attempt to communicate a full sentence's worth of information. For example, a child may say 'dada' which could mean anything from ‘I want dad’ to ‘where is dad?’. This is known as holophrasis .

A child's first word will often resemble a babble and, while they may hear and understand a wide range of sounds, they can still only produce a limited range themselves. These words are known as proto words . Despite sounding like babbles, they still work as words because the child has assigned meaning to them. Children may also use real words and typically adapt them to suit their speaking ability. Sometimes these words are used incorrectly as the child attempts to learn and use them. For example, they may call every animal a 'cat' if they grew up with one.

The two-word stage occurs at around 18 months of age. At this stage, children are able to use two words in the right grammatical order. However, the words they use tend to exclusively be content words (words that hold and convey meaning) and they often leave out function words (words that hold a sentence together, such as articles , prepositions, etc.).

For example, a child might see a dog jump over the fence and simply say ‘dog jump’ instead of ‘A dog jumped over the fence.’ The order is correct and they say the most important word, but the lack of function words, as well as a lack of tense use, makes the information very context-dependent, much like in the holophrastic stage.

At this stage, the child’s vocabulary starts at around 50 words and consists mostly of common nouns and verbs. These often come from things their caregivers have said or things in their immediate environment. Typically, as the child progresses through the two-word stage, the ‘word spurt’ occurs, which is a relatively short period during which the child's vocabulary grows much larger. Most children know 50 words by around 17 months of age, but by 24 months they may know up to over 600.¹

The multi-word stage of language acquisition in children can be broken up into two distinct sub-stages: the early multi-word stage and the later multi-word stage. Children move on from two-word phrases and begin to form short sentences of around three, four, and five words, and eventually even more. They also begin to use more and more function words and are able to form more complex sentences. Children typically progress rapidly through this stage as they understand many of the basics of their language already.

The early multi-word stage

The early part of this stage is sometimes called the ‘ telegraphic stage ’ as the children's sentences seem to resemble telegram messages due to their simplicity. The telegraphic stage takes place from around 24 to 30 months of age. Children mostly ignore function words in favour of using the most important content words and usually start using negatives (no, not, can't, etc.). They also tend to ask more questions about their surroundings.

For example, a child might say ‘no want veggies’ instead of ‘I don't want vegetables with my food.’ While children at this substage still don't use function words in their own sentences, many do understand when others use them.

The later multi-word stage

The later multi-word stage, also known as the complex stage, is the final part of language acquisition. It starts at around 30 months of age and has no fixed endpoint. At this stage, children start to use a variety of function words and t here is a great increase in the amount of words children can use. Their sentence structures also become a lot more complex and varied.

Children in this stage have a concrete sense of time, quantity, and the ability to engage in simple reasoning. This means they can talk confidently in different tenses , and verbally explain ideas such as putting ‘some’ or ‘all’ of their toys away. They can also start to explain why and how they think or feel things, and may also ask others.

As children reach the age of five and above, their ability to use and understand language becomes more or less fluent. Many children still struggle with pronunciations, but they are able to understand when others use these sounds. Eventually, older children gain the ability to confidently read, write, and explore a variety of new topics and ideas. Typically, school will also help children to further develop their linguistic skills.

Methodology in child language acquisition

So, how exactly do we study child language acquisition?

Types of studies include:

• Cross-sectional studies - comparing different groups of children of different ages. This method helps to get results faster.
• Longitudinal studies - observing several children over a period of time, from several months to decades.
• Case studies - in-depth studies of one or a small number of children. This helps get a more detailed understanding of the child’s development.

There are several methods to measure a child’s development. For example:

• Observations e.g. recording spontaneous speech or repetition of words.
• Comprehension e.g. pointing at an image.
• Act-out e.g. children are asked to act something out or make toys act out a scenario.
• Preferential-looking e.g. measuring the time spent looking at an image.
• Neuroimaging e.g. measuring brain responses to certain linguistic stimuli

Language acquisition example

An example of the study of child language acquisition is the Genie Case Study. Genie had minimal interaction with others as a child due to her abusive upbringing and isolation. Due to this, her case drew many psychologists and linguists who wanted to study her and study the idea of a ' critical period ' for language acquisition. This is the idea that the first few years of a child’s life are a crucial time to learn a language.

Researchers provided Genie with stimulus-rich environments to help her develop her language skills. She began to copy words and could eventually put together utterances of two to four words, leaving researchers optimistic that Genie might be able to fully develop language. Unfortunately, Genie did not progress past this stage and was not able to apply grammatical rules to her utterances. It appeared that Genie had passed the critical period for language acquisition; however, it is also important to remember the impact of abuse and neglect on her childhood. Case studies like Genie’s are key components of research into language acquisition.

The role of the environment in language acquisition in children

The role of the environment in CLA is a key area of study for many linguists. It all comes back to the 'nature vs nurture' debate; some linguists argue that environment and upbringing are key in language acquisition (nurture) whilst others argue that genetics and other biological factors are most important (nature).

The Behavioural Theory is the main theory that argues for the importance of the environment in language acquisition. It proposes that children do not have any internal mechanisms for learning a language; instead, they learn language as a result of imitating their caregivers and those around them. Interactionist theory also argues for the importance of the environment and propose that, whilst children do have the innate ability to learn language, they require regular interaction with caregivers to achieve full fluency.

Opposing theories to these are the Nativist theory and the Cognitive Theory . The Nativist Theory argues that children are born with an innate 'Language Acquisition Device' that provides children with a baseline understanding of language. The Cognitive Theory argues that children learn language as their cognitive ability and understanding of the world develops.

Language Acquisition in Children - Key takeaways

• Child language acquisition (CLA) refers to how children develop the ability to understand and use language.
• There are four main stages of language acquisition: the Babbling stage, holophrastic stage, two-word stage, and multi-word stage.
• There are different types of studies and methodologies that we can use to carry out research on language acquisition e.g. longitudinal studies, case studies, preferential-looking etc.
• An example of the study of child language acquisition is the Genie Case Study. Genie was raised in isolation without speaking a language. Due to this, her case drew many psychologists and linguists who wanted to study her and study the idea of a 'critical period' for language acquisition.
• The nature vs nurture debate is central to studies of child language acquisition. The behavioural and interactionist theories argue that language develops mainly due to the environment of a child whilst the nativist and cognitive theories argue that biological components are most important.

¹ Fenson et al., Lexical development norms for young children, 1993.

Frequently Asked Questions about Language Acquisition in Children

--> what are the different stages of language acquisition of a child.

The four stages are the Babbling stage, holophrastic stage, two-word stage, and multi-word stage.

--> How does age affect first language acquisition?

Many linguists argue for the idea of a 'critical period' of language acquisition. This is the idea that the first few years of a child’s life are a crucial time to learn a language. After this, children are not able to achieve full fluency. 

--> What is the meaning of language acquisition?

Child language acquisition (CLA) refers to how children develop the ability to understand and use language. 

--> What is the first stage of language acquisition in children?

The first stage of language acquisition in children is the Babbling Stage. This occurs at around 6 to 12 months and it where children attempt to imitate speech syllables such as 'ga ga ga' or 'ga ba da'.

--> What is an example of language acquisition?

An example of the study of child language acquisition is the Genie Case Study. Genie had minimal interaction with others as a child due to her abusive upbringing and isolation. Due to this, her case drew many psychologists and linguists who wanted to study her and study the idea of a 'critical period' for language acquisition. 

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Babbling is the _______ major stage of language acquisition. Fill in the blank.

When does the babbling stage of language acquisition occur?

When do infants typically learn their first words?

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What is meant by language acquisition?

The process of humans developing the ability to understand and use language.

Babbling is the  _______ major stage of language acquisition. Fill in the blank.

What happens in the babbling stage of language acquisition?

The child repeats sounds with a combination of consonants and vowels.

What are the types of babbling and how do they differ?

Canonical babbling is the duplication of the same syllables, variegated babbling is the repetition of different vowel and consonant combination syllables. Jargon babbling is when the babbling begins to sound like a conversation.

4-12 months.

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Analysing a spoken language acquisition transcript

Ideal for exam preparation and to help to scaffold students' written responses to child language data, this writing frame template can be used in a range of ways. It includes a series of prompts around the edge to help students to structure their responses to past paper data or child language transcripts.

Focusing on children's lexical, grammatical, phonological, pragmatic and semantic development, there are also reminders of key linguist studies (Nelson, Rescorla, Bellugi, McNeill, Halliday etc.). Enlarge it to A3 and place past paper questions within the frame or place over the top of their own essays or commentaries.  

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Language Acquisition Essay Plan and Revision!

• Created by: lucy98ledger
• Created on: 14-06-16 12:38

Essay Plan and Revision Help

First, underline key instruction words and contextual clues in question.

Introduction

(Short and simple) - Don't spend 15 mins writing your intro because most of your main points will be made in the rest of your essay!!

Speaking Question

• Flag up a ge of speaker(s).
• What stage they could be expected to be at.
• Does the child make utterences straight away?
• Consider setting and relationships and impacts/ effects they have on the conversation.

Writing Question

• Context in which the writing was produced.
• Flag up a ge of writer.
• What stage are they at?
• Form, audience and purpose.

(Sandwich your ideas- this will help to integrate theory into your analsis)

• Start with data
• link to context & theory
• then go back and aaddress the data again

(Avoid tagging theory points onto the ends of paragraphs as an afterthought)

To make sure you have covered all frameworks explore separating your paragraphs into:

• Grammar and Syntax

You obviously won't be able to cover all of these frameworks in enough detail so just pick the most important aspects, in which you have found most points that are covered in your notes.

Important Theories and Concepts Speaking

• Vygotsky - Social Interactionist Theory - Children role-play adult behaviours as part of exploring their environment.
• Catherine Garvey - Children act out storylines and invent objects and settngs as part of role-play. It helps them practise their social interactions .
• Chomsky - Language Acquisition Device (LAD ) - The human brain is pre-programmed to acquire grammatical structures and t he capacity to acquire language is innate within humans.
• Berko and Brown - Fis' test - Found that a child who referred to a fish as a 'fis',substituting the 's' sound for 'sh', couldn't link the adult's use of 'fis' with the same animal
• Katherine Nelson - 50 first words - She found that 60% of first words are nouns .
• Leslie Rescorla - Overextensions - Categorical : Name of one member of a category is used for all members of the category ('Apple' is used for all round fruit). Analogical : Word for one object is extended to one in a different caategory ('ball' is used for a round fruit).
• Jean Aitchison - Labelling : Linking words to objects. Packaging : Exploring labels and to what they can apply. Network Building : Making connections between words and sunderstanding similarities and opposites…
• English Language
• Child language acquisition

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Child Language Acquisition

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AQA A Level Child Language Acquisition Essay Questions

Subject: English

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

23 August 2021

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15 questions focusing on spoken and written essay questions, some past exam-style questions. Some exemplar paragraphs are included, with scaffolds to help support students. Could be used as assessment questions or for students to use as a revision resource. Includes mark schemes to. Some sections for students to complete as a theory knowledge organiser too. Could be used as a homework booklet too.

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Revision Pack P1 and P2

Comprehensive pack covering A Level English Language - Paper 1 and 2. Includes scaffolds, some exemplar answers and mark schemes. Opportunities for students to self review, could also be used as homework booklets.

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