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
educationreach native fluency
Learners
FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
THEORIES
What are the theories
under FLA?
FLA Theories
Behaviorist
Cognitive
Constructivis
Mentalism
m
Innatist
BEHAVIOR
IST
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.
COGNITIV
E
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.
CONSTRUCTIV
ISM
Jerome
A process
Brunerby 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
FACTORS AFFECTING
Nature FLA Nurture
 OTHER FACTORS
Physical &
AFFECTING FLA
Physical
Environment
Economic
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 • Metherese, caregiver
speech that children speech, adult-to-child
receive when they are language, & child-
very young (Steinberg et directed speech.
al, 2001:37)
 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
SYNTACTI DISCOURS
C E
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!
Resource
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