First Language Acquisition: Issues, Theories and Processes

First language is generally ‘‘a person’s mother tongue or the language acquired first’’.The term ‘acquisition’, in stead of learning, is applied to first language, ‘‘because some linguists believe that the development of a first language in a child is a special process’’ not formally and consciously developed. For example, a child, regardless of great differences in a range of social and cultural factors, acquires his/her first language even before entering into elementary school. This actually makes us believe  that each newborn child is endowed with some ‘inate’ prediction and ‘language faculty’ of the humen to acquire language.

         

However, Language Acquisition Devices (LAD) such as (a) organs of speech (b) intellectual faculty (c) internal mechanism  are not enough to acquire language. There are some other basic requirments.

Basic requirements of first language acquisition:

(a)              Introduction:

‘‘A child growing up in the first two or three years requires interaction with other language users in order to bring the ‘language faculty’ into operation with a particular language such as English’’. There must be two ways of interaction-

i. speaking

ii. listening  

(b)            Cultural transmission:

A child inherits god-gifted language  faculty, but does not genetically inherit the language itself. So he or she requires a particular language using environment or culture for his language faculty to function.

  

(c)              Language exposure (input):

In order to speake a language, a child must be able to hear that language inputs. Moreover, he or she must physically be capable of sending and receiving sound signals in a language.

The acquisition schedule:

A baby’s starting time of speaking depends on the following things:

(a) Development of motor skills:

It indicates that with the biological growth of organs of speech, a child’s motor skills also develop simultaneously.

(b) Maturation of brain:

This happens in the ‘silent period’- roughly anytime from 12 to 18 months- when a child, having received and observed the inputs, gets ready to speak out.

(c) Lateralization process:

The development of control over different functions in three parts in the left hamisphere of the brain is known as lateralization which is very much important. These parts are-

ii. Brcas area-      producing apeech

ii. Wernicke’s area-     understanding speech

iii. Supplementary motor area- controlling the organs of

speech and articulating sound.

(d) Critical period:

There is a critical period in childhood lasting untill puberty when language can be acquired more easily than in any other time.

Language caretaker

The role of language caretaker in acquiring a language is very important. Caretakers may be family members, neighbours, teachers, friends even nature itself who provide the baby some language input.

“Caretaker speech usually has:

(a)              shorter utterances than speech to other adults.

(b)            grammatically simple utterances

(c)              few abstract or difficult words, with a lot of repitition

(d)            clearer pronunciation, sometimes with exaggerated INNOTATION patterns.’’(Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics)

Moreover, a child tries to imitate caretaker while the caretaker corrects it. And if this imitation and correction fails, the child applies its ‘innate’ qualities.

Stages of development in language:

All normal children, with a little variation go through a fixed development sequence in the acquisition of spoken language.

(a)            Pre-language stages:

The pre-linguistic sounds of the very early stages of child language acquisition are characterized by three stages:

By the time of three months old, a child produces ‘cooing’ sounds with velar consonants (e.g. k,g) and high vowels (e.g. i,v).

By six months, the child produces ‘babling’ sounds containing syllable type sounds (e.g. mu,da)

Around nine or ten months, in the late babling stage, the children are capable of using their vocalization to express emotions and emphasis, and of attempting imitations, and of a lot of ‘sound play’.

(b)            The one-word or holophrasic stage:

In this stage, between twelve and eighteen months, children begin to produce a variety of recognizable single unit utterances for everyday objects such as ‘milk’, ‘cookie’, ‘cat’, ‘cup’.

(c)              The two word stage:

By the age of two, the child produces a variety of combination similar to ‘baby chair’, ‘mommy cat’, ‘cat bad’. The adult interpretation of such combination can differ depending on contexts.

(d)            Telegraphic speech:

Between two or three years old, the child begins producing multiple word utterances and develops sentence-building capacity through telegram-formal speech. For example, ‘Andrew want ball’, ‘cat drink milk’ etc.

Thus, by three, the child possesses hundreds of words and pronunciation,  close to the form of adult language.

The acquisition process:

(a)              Acquisition of morphology:

In the process of acquiring first language, the child, after telegraphic speech, acquires some regular morphological rules such as adding -ing with verbs, making past tense of verbs by using -ed, making plural form of noun etc.

But the child applies ‘overgeneralization’ process in this case. for example, he or she changes the words in the following way- ‘go-goed’, ‘take-taked’, ‘hold-holded’, ‘man-mans’, ‘foot-foots’; even ‘went-wented’, ‘walked-walkeded’, ‘men-mens’, ‘feet-feets’.

In this case, it follows its own created principles, disregarding the correction made by caretaker.

 (b)            Acquisition of syntax:

In this process, in the formation of questions and use of negatives, there appear to be three identifiable stages-

          First stage                      : between 18 and 26 months

          Second stage                 : between 22 and 30 months

          Third stage                   : between 24 and 40 months

i.                    Questions:

The first stage makes questions with a wh-form (e.g. where, who) or with a rise in intonation towards the end-

                   where kitty ?

                   Sit chair ?

In the second stage, more complex wh-forms and rising intonation strategy come into use-

                   Why you smilling ?

                   You want eat ?

In the third stage, the required inversion of subject and verb in English questions with irregular correct inversion of wh-forms is noticed-

                   Can I have a piece ?

                   How that opened ?

ii.                 Negatives:

First stage: simple ‘no’ or ‘not’ comes in the beginning-

                   no fail

                    not a teddy bear

Second stage: ‘Don’t’ and ‘can’t’, ‘no’ and ‘not’ are placed before the verb-

                   You can’t dance

                   I don’t know

                   He no bite you

Third stage: Other auxiliary forms, such as ‘didn’t, ‘won’t, come in use, but ‘isn’t, comes later-

                   She won’t let go

                   I didn’t caught you

                   This not ice cream

  

(c)              Acquisition of semantics:

During the holophrastic stage, everything seems to the child ‘bow-wow’. The child is supposed to overextend the meaning of a word on the basis of similarities of shape, sound and size, and to a lesser extent, of movement and texture. For example, the word ‘ball’ is extended to all kinds of round objects, including lamp-shade, a doorknob and the moon.

However antonymous relations are acquired fairly late (after the age of five)