WEEK 7

FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
 How do we acquire a first language?
 Do we all go through the same stages?
 What are the common stages of acquisition?
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First Language Acquisition: Features

First language acquisition is remarkable:
 The speed: before school, a child has become an
extremely sophisticated language user
 Without overt instruction: all children, regardless
of great differences in their circumstances,
“acquire” a native language
 Innateness: there is an innate predisposition in the
human infant to acquire language. This is a special
capacity for language with which each newborn
child is endowed.  The “language faculty”
  However, this inborn language capacity is not
enough. What else is needed?
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Acquisition: Some Basic Requirements

 Input and Interaction
 During the first 2 or 3 years, a child requires
interaction with other language-users: Genie’s
Case (Chapter 12), a child who does not hear or is
not allowed to use language will learn no language.
 Cultural Transmission (Chapter 2)
 The particular language a child learns is not
genetically inherited but is acquired in a particular
language-using environment.
 Physical Capability
 Physically capable of sending and receiving sound
signals.
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Acquisition: Some Basic Requirements

 Linguistic input has to be delivered in a
communicative context:
 Hearing language sounds itself is not enough.
 A normal-hearing child has ample exposure to
television and radio programs, but did not acquire
an ability to speak/understand English.

 Human Interaction is needed!

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Input
 Older children and adults at home provide language samples.
e.g. Oh, goody, now Daddy push choo choo?
 Characteristically simplified speech style
1. Simplified words (tummy, nana)
2. Alternative forms with repeated simple sounds and syllables
(choo-choo, poo-poo, pee-pee, wa-wa)
3. Frequent use of questions
4. Exaggerated intonation
5. Extra loudness
6. Slower tempo with longer pauses, described as “motherese”
or “child-directed speech”, more known as “caregiver speech”
7. Simple sentence structure
8. Repetition and paraphrasing
9. Restricted to the here and now, the simplified models may
serve as good clues to the basic structural organization
involved
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Care-giver speech
 Babies are exposed to human interaction mainly by
care-givers, with ‘motherese’

https://youtu.be/O8ETEajtfUs?si=S1sOd3p5JOJoH3rt
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Care-giver speech: fatherese

https://youtu.be/E5VCHnIFmPs?si=BWNJLbe83hB_KXzp
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Caregiver Speech
 Assign an interactive role to the young child even
before he/she becomes a speaking participant:
Mother: Look!
Child: (touches pictures)
Mother: What are those?
Child: (vocalizes a babble string and smiles)
Mother: Yes, there are rabbits.
Child: (vocalizes, smiles looks up at mother)
Mother: (laughs) Yes, rabbit.
Child: (vocalizes, smiles)
Mother: Yes. (laughs)
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The Acquisition Schedule

 Children develop language at roughly the
same time, along much the same schedule.
 Language acquisition schedule has the
same basis as the biologically determined
development of motor skills such as sitting
up, crawling, standing, walking, using the
hands and many other physical activities.
 The child has the biological capacity to
identify aspects of linguistic input at
different stages.  bio-linguistics
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The Four Stages in Acquiring Language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxtLhgzntg8
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The Acquisition Schedule (1-3 mons)

 Stage I: Pre-cooing (1-3 months)
 Long before children begin to talk, they have been
actively processing what they hear.
 Evidence: increase or decrease “sucking
behavior” in response to speech sounds or turn
their heads in the direction of those sounds.
 At 1 month, an infant is capable of distinguishing
between [ba] and [pa].
 During the first 3 months, the child develops a
range of crying styles.
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The Acquisition Schedule (3-6 mons)

 Stage II: Cooing (3-6 months)
 During the first 3-6 months, capable of producing
sequences of vowel-like sounds, high vowels
similar to [i] and [u]
 By 4 months old, create sounds similar to the velar
consonants [k] and [g] as “cooling” or “gooing”
 By 5 months old, babies can already hear the
difference between the vowels [i] and [a] and
discriminate between syllables like [ba] and [ga].
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The Acquisition Schedule (6-8 mons)

 Stage III: Babbling (6-8 months)
 The child is sitting up and producing a number of
different vowels and consonants as syllables:
ba-ba-ba and ga-ga-ga.
 Around 9-10 months, there are recognizable
intonation patterns to the consonant and vowel
combinations ba-ba-da-da.
 ma-ma-ma and da-da-da interpreted as versions
of “mama” and “dada” and repeated back to the
child
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The Acquisition Schedule (10-11 mons)

 Late Babbling Stage:
 10 ~11 months: become capable of using their
vocalizations to express emotions and emphasis
 However, there is substantial variation among children in
terms of the age at which particular features of linguistic
development occur.
 Albert Einstein was reported to have been very slow in
developing spoken language skills.
 Characterized by:
1. More complex syllable combinations (ma-da-ga-ba)
2. A lot of sound-play
3. Attempted imitations as “pre-language” use
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The Acquisition Schedule (12-18 mons)

 Stage IV: The One-word Stage
 Between 12~18 months, produce a variety of
recognizable single unit utterances
 Single terms are uttered for everyday objects such
as “milk”, “cookie”, “cat”, “cup” and “spoon” (usually
pronounced [pun])
 Holophrastic Speech
 Single form functioning as a phrase or sentence
 Single-unit What’s that produces as [ʌsæ]
 Holophrastic utterances can be used to name
objects:
 An empty bed may elicit the name of a sister who
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The Acquisition Schedule (18-20 mons)

 Stage V: The Two-word Stage
 Between 18~20 months, vocabulary moves beyond
50 words
 A variety of combinations, similar to baby chair,
mommy eat, cat bad will appear
 The phrase baby chair may be taken as the
following depending on different circumstances
1. An expression of possession (= this is baby’s chair)
2. As a request (= put baby in chair)
3. As a statement (=baby is in the chair)
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Stage V: The Two-word Stage (con’t)

 Other examples:
big boat mama dress doggie bark
more milk hit ball shoe off
 Significant functional consequences:
 The adults or older children in the household
behave as if communication is taking place.
 By the age of two, whether the child is
producing 200 or 300 distinct “words”, he/she
will be capable of understanding 5 times more.
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The Acquisition Schedule (2-2.5 yrs)

 Stage VI: Telegraphic Speech
 Between ages 2~2.5, the child begins producing a
large number of utterances: “multiple-word” speech,
also described as telegraphic speech.
 Characterized by strings of words (lexical
morphemes) in phrases or sentences:
examples: this shoe all wet,
cat drink milk
daddy go bye-bye
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Stage VI: Telegraphic Speech (con’t)

 Developed some sentence-building capacity
 Can get the word order correct
 A number of grammatical inflections begin to
appear in some of the word forms.
 Simple prepositions (in, on) are also used.
 The child’s vocabulary is expanding rapidly:
initiating more talk while increased physical
activity includes running and jumping.
 By 3, the vocabulary has grown to hundreds of
words and pronunciation has become clearer.
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The Acquisition Process

 Children are not “taught” with the language.
 No one provides any instruction on how to speak the
language.
 The children actively construct from what is said to
them and around them, possible ways of using the
language.
 Children can be heard repeating versions of what
adults say.
 They are clearly in the process of adopting a lot of
vocabulary from the speech they hear.
 However, adults simply do not produce many of the
expressions that turn up in children’s speech.
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How did they do it?

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Features of the Acquisition Process

Created words: (Extract from Clark (1993) the child
creates a totally new verb (e.g., to woodstock)

NOAH (picking up a toy dog): This is Woodstock.

(He bobs the toy in Adam’s
face)
ADAM: Hey Woodstock, don’t do that.
(Noah persists)
ADAM: I’m going home so you won’t
Woodstock me.
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Are they learning through imitation?

 No!
 They may repeat single words or phrases, but not
the sentence structures.
 Example:
 When asked to repeat what the adult said

The dogs are hungry ̴ dog hungry

The owl who eats candy runs fast ̴ owl eat a candy
and he run fast

 The children understand what the adults are saying,

but they just have their own way of expressing what
they understand
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Are they learning through Correction?

 No!
 Adult “corrections” are NOT a determiner
of how the child speaks.
 Snippets, involving an adult’s attempt to
correct a child’s speech, is in vain.
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Learning through Correction (NO!)

Example 1:

FATHER: Can you say “the other spoon”?

CHILD: Other…one…spoon.
FATHER: Say “other”.
CHILD: Other.
FATHER: “Spoon.”
CHILD: Spoon
FATHER: “Other spoon.”
CHILD: Other…spoon. Now give me other one
spoon.
Braine (1971)
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Learning through Correction (NO!)

 The child will continue to use a personally
constructed form.
 Example 2:
CHILD: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted
them.
MOTHER: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?
CHILD: Yes.
MOTHER: What did you say she did?
CHILD: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.
MOTHER: Did you say she held them tightly?
CHILD: No, she holded them loosely.
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What is important, then?

 One factor that seems to be important is the
actual use of sound and word combinations;
 Word play of this type seems to be important
in the development of the child’s linguistic
repertoire;
 There are specific linguistic features that
begin to turn up on a regular basis in the
steady stream of speech.
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Developing Morphology
 Incorporating some of the inflectional
morphemes:
 The first is usually the -ing form such as cat
sitting and mommy reading book;
 The next is the marking of regular plurals with
the -s form, as in boys and cats, often
accompanied by a process of
overgeneralization: the child overgeneralizes
the apparent rule of adding -s to form plurals
foots and mans.
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Overgeneralization (a transition period)

 The plural morpheme: s/es
 overgeneralized application : boyses or footses.
 at the same time, also begin using irregular plurals
such as men quite appropriately for a while,
 then try out the general rule on the forms, some
mens and two feets/feetses

 The possessive morpheme:

 not long after, the use of the possessive inflection -’s
occurs such as girl’s dog and Mummy’s book
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Overgeneralization (a transition period)

 Verb forms
 The verb “BE”: different forms, such as are and was and
went and came begin to be used
 Irregular past-tense forms :
 Do typically precede the appearance of the -ed
inflection;
 Once the regular past-tense forms walked, played begin
appearing, the irregular forms may disappear for a
while,
 Then replaced by overgeneralized versions such as
goed and comed. For a period, the -ed inflection may
be added to everything, such as walkeded and wented
 Finally, the regular -s marker on 3rd person singular
present tense appears, first with full verbs (comes,
looks), then with auxiliaries (does, has)
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Variability – trial and error

 There is a great deal of variability, may produce
“good” forms one day and “odd” forms the next
 This suggests that the child is working out how to
use the linguistic system while focused on
communication and interaction rather than
correctness;
 The use of forms such as goed and foots is
simply a means of trying to say what the child
means during a particular stage of development.
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Developing Syntax
 In the formation of questions and negatives,
there are 3 identifiable stages:
1. Stage 1 occurs between 18 and 26 months
2. Stage 2 between 22 and 30 months
3. Stage 3 between 24 and 40 months
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Forming Questions
 First stage (18 – 26 months) has 2
procedures:
1. Simply add a WH-form (where, who) to the
beginning of the expressions or
Utter the expression with a rise in intonation
towards the end
Adding Wh: Rising Intonation:
Where kitty? Doggie
Where horse go? Sit chair?
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Forming Questions (con’t)

 Second stage:
 More complex expressions can be formed,
rising intonation continues to be used
 More WH-forms, such as What and Why come
into use:

What book name? You want eat?

Why you smiling? See my doggie?
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Forming Questions (con’t)

 Third stage:
 Movement of the auxiliary
 I can have … ⇒ Can I have … ?
 Some children beginning in their 5 th or 6th year
may still prefer to form Wh-questions.
 Why kitty can’t do it?
 Continuing trouble with the morphology of verbs
 Did I caught it?
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Forming Questions (con’t)

 Stage 3 questions are generally quite close to
the adult model:
Can I have a piece? Did I caught it?
Will you help me? How that opened?
What did you do? Why kitty can’t stand up?
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Forming Negatives: 3 stages

 Stage 1:
 A simple strategy of putting No or Not at the
beginning: No you doing it!
used for a denial = You aren’t doing it or
a desire = I don’t want you to do it
 Other examples:
no mitten not a teddy bear
no fall no sit there
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Forming Negative (con’t)

 Stage 2:
 Additional negative forms don’t and can’t appear;
 No and not are used in front of the verb rather
than at the beginning of the utterance;
 The form don’t or can’t as a single unit:

He no bite you I don’t want it

That not touch You can’t dance
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Forming Negative (con’t)

 Stage 3:
 Incorporate other auxiliary forms: didn’t, won’t
 Stage 1 forms disappear
 The negative form isn’t is the latest to acquire
I didn’t caught it He not taking it
She won’t let go This not ice cream
 Some children operate their own rules for
negative sentences.
 Overt adult “correction” is futile!
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Forming Negative (con’t)

CHILD: Nobody don’t like me.
MOTHER: No, say “nobody like me”.
CHILD: Nobody don’t like me.
(Eight repetitions of this dialog)
MOTHER: No, now listen carefully;
say “nobody likes me”.
CHILD: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me.
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Developing Semantics/Pragmatics
 Phone call:
 Caller: 請問媽媽在嗎 ?
 Child: 在 ! (No further action!)
 “Flies bring germs into the house” 
What are “germs”?
A child’s answer: “something the flies play
with!”
 It is not possible to determine precisely what
meanings children attach to the words they use.
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Overextension
 The most common pattern for the child to overextend
the meaning of a word on the basis of similarities of
shape, sound, size, movement and texture
 During the holophrastic stage, children use their limited
vocabulary to refer to other unrelated objects:
 Example 1
 One child used bow-wow to refer to a dog, then to a fur
piece with glass eyes, a set of cufflinks and a bath
thermometer.
 bow-wow seemed to refer to “object with shiny bits”.
 Other children often extend bow-wow to refer to cats, cows
and horses.
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Overextension (con’t)
 Example 2
 The word ball is extended to all kinds of round objects,
including a lampshade, a doorknob and the moon
 Example 3
 a tick-tock for a watch, or a bathroom scale with a round dial
 Example 4
 On the basis of size, fly for the insect and for specks of dirt
and crumbs of bread
 Example 5
 Due to similarities of texture, sizo for scissors, then
extended to all metal objects
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Overextension (con’t)
 Conclusion:
 The semantic development is a process of
overextension initially, followed by a gradual
process of narrowing down the application of
each term.
 Overextension is not necessarily used in
speech comprehension
 A 2-year-old used apple to refer to a number of
other round objects like a tomato and a ball, but
had no difficulty picking out the apple from a set of
round objects.
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Lexical Relations
 Always use the basic, “middle” level term
in a hyponymous set:

 animal - dog (the basic-level term) - terrier

 plants - flowers (the basic-level term) - tulips
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Later Developments
 After the age of 5, distinctions between pairs such as
more/less, before/after and buy/sell 
 Certain types of complex structures and extended
discourse are later developments.
 It is normally assumed that, by the age of 5, they
have completed the greater part of the basic
acquisition process.
 They have become accomplished users of a first
language.

 The question: if first language acquisition was so

straight- forward and largely automatic, why is
learning a second language so difficult?
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Second Language Learning

 Fact: very few adults seem to reach native-
like proficiency in using an L2.
 Age factor: after lateralization of the brain
at the critical period for language
acquisition, it becomes very difficult to
acquire another language fully.
 Deliberate and analytical learning is
needed.
First Language Acquisition of Cantonese in Hong
Kong

謝錫金 編 2006 ：《》

First Language Acquisition of Cantonese in Hong
Kong – Adjective
First Language Acquisition of Cantonese in Hong
Kong – Time word
First Language Acquisition of Cantonese in Hong
Kong – Classifier
 52

Bilingualism
A family

Father Mother
e.g. native English speaker e.g. native Mandarin speaker

Children
fully bilingual
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Raising a Bilingual Child

https://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=8CgmKFvBtAQ
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The Advantage of being Bilingual

“The benefits of a bilingual brain - Mia
Nacamulli”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmOLN5zBLY&t=217s
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Week 7 Discussion Questions

• What is your first language? How many languages do you
speak now? (including your 1st language)?
• What is the language spoken at your home and what is
the language spoken at your primary and secondary
schools?
• When did you start learning/acquiring a second language
(or other non-native languages)? What language(s) did
you learn? How did you learn it (what kind of leaning
mode is involved?)
• What is the most difficult part for you to learn the 2nd (non-
native) language? Why is it difficult?
• Do you consider yourself a perfect bilingual? Why or why
not?