FIRST LANGUAGE

ACQUISITION
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
A process through which humans gain the ability to be
aware of language and to understand it as well as to
produce and use words and sentences to
communicate.
FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
A child learning his NATIVE LANGUAGE

A subconscious process
Does not require explicit instructions or education
Learners reach native fluency
 FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION THEORIES
What are the theories
under FLA?
FLA Theories
Behaviorist
Cognitive
Constructivism
Mentalism
Innatist
BEHAVIORIST
B.F. Skinner

Imitation theory

Proposes that we are a product of our environment

Children learn the language first by imitating their caregivers and

then modifying their use of language due to operant conditioning.

Operant condition

learning that focuses on the reward or

punishment of desired or undesired

behavior.
COGNITIVE
Jean Piaget

The primary drives behind our actions are our thoughts and internal
processes

Minds develop and build new schemas

Can apply language to their schemas through assimilation and

accommodation.
CONSTRUCTIVISM
Jerome Bruner

A process by which the learners construct new knowledge based on their

current knowledge by integrating the incoming information.

Child’s ability to generalize over the input

TO LEARN THE LINGUISTICS SYSTEM, TO LEARN TO REFER &

EXPRESS MEANING, AND TO GET SOMETHING DONE WITH WORDS
& COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY.
MENTALISM
Noam Chomsky

The burden of language learning on the child and sees the environment
as being less important as a reinforcing agent.

Speech is a part of human evolution and not purely a learned behavior.

Humans are born with the capacity for speech and hard-wired
into their biology.
INNATIST
Noam Chomsky

Asserts that human have access to the knowledge that is processed

innately.
FACTORS AFFECTING
FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
FACTORS AFFECTING FLA

Nature Nurture
OTHER FACTORS AFFECTING FLA
Physical &
Physical
Economic
Environment
Environment

Social
Motivation
Environment
 1
PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

The materials surrounding a child have a lot to do

with what and how he picks up a language.
 2
SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT

A child growing up with parents and an orphan

one will make a world of difference in language
learning.
 3
PHYSICAL & ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT
Economic resources influence a child’s contact
with things and events and possibly limit the
range of the child’s overall experience.
 4
MOTIVATION

The internal and external needs which compel

children to learn the first language.
PARENTESE AND
BABY TALK
 PARENTESE
• Refers to the sort of speech • Metherese, caregiver
that children receive when speech, adult-to-child
they are very young language, & child-directed
(Steinberg et al, 2001:37) speech.
 BABY TALK
• Experts say is the same as parentese is used for
referring to a form of parentese that involves
the use of vocabulary and syntax that is overly
simplified and reduced (Steinberg et al, 2001:
39).
CHARACTERISTICS OF
PARENTESE AND
BABY TALK
SYNTACTIC DISCOURSE
FEATURES FEATURES
SYNTACTIC FEATURES
Shorter MLU (Mean Length of Utterance)

Fewer Verb Forms and Modifiers

Fewer Subordinate Clauses per utterance

More Verbless Sentences

More Content Words, Fewer Function Words

 SHORTER MLU
• A measure of linguistic productivity in children

• It is traditionally calculated by collecting 100 utterances

spoken by a child dividing the number of morphemes by the

number of utterances.
FEWER VERB FORMS & MODIFIERS
• Minimized using verb forms and modifiers when talking to

young children.
FEWER SUBORDINATE CLAUSES PER UTTERANCE

• Adults use simpler utterances when talking to children.

• Usually use only one clause in each utterance and avoid

using complex utterances to children.

 MORE VERBLESS SENTENCES
• A sentence that grammatically incorrect, since it has no

predicate.

• It can be analyzed as consisting of grammatical units

functioning as subject.
MORE CONTENT WORDS, FEWER FUNCTION WORDS

• Content words or open class words are easier to be

understood by children since they have clear referents.

DISCOURSE FEATURES
More Interrogatives and Imperatives

More Fluent and Intelligible Speech

More Repetitions
 MORE INTERROGATIVES AND IMPERATIVES

• Used more often than other kinds of sentence when adults

talk to children.
 MORE FLUENT AND INTELLLIGIBLE SPEECH

• Adults speech to children are usually fluent and intelligible.

 MORE REPETITIONS

• Using many repetitions is one of the characteristics of

adults’ utterance to children.

REASONS OF
USING PARENTESE
 GIVING GENERAL PPROBLEM-SOLVING ADVICE

• Adults give children a hint or a method rather than a

solution.
 GIVING MANAGEABLE TASK

• Some task are too complex for children. Thus, adults may

break the task into smaller ones that are still challenging.
 GIVING ADVICE IN THE FORM OF QUESTIONS

• Giving questions more than commands, adults challenge

children to think and elaborate the answer as well.

PARENTESE: ITS
BENEFITS IN
LANGUAGE LEARNING
 DEVELOP MORE VOCABULARY

• The speech that parents and others used in talking to

children is usually around the concept of here and now

about what is happening in the immediate environment and

not about remote objects and events.

 UNDERSTAND ABSTRACT CONCEPTS EASIER

• More concrete words learned in comparison to the abstract

ones, children are sometimes presented with abstract

concepts.
 LEARN GRAMMAR NATURALLY

• Grammatical consistency is useful to children who are

searching to discover the structures which underlie

utterances.
 UNDERSTAND CONVERSATION ROUTINES

• Adults encourage children to take their turns as speaker

and listener in conversation.

THANK YOU!