Chapter-10-Language-acquisitionword版本.ppt

,单击此处编辑母版标题样式,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,第三级,第四级,第五级,*,Chapter 10 Language acquisition,Key points,Theories of child language acquisition,Cognitive development in child language development,Language environment&the Critical Period Hypothesis,Stages in child language development,Introduction,Language acquisition-,-refers to the childs acquisition of his mother tongue,i.e.how the child comes to understand and speak the language of his community.,Second language acquisition,refers to the acquisition of a second language subsequent to his native language.,Differences between acquisition and learning,Uses grammatical rules,Teacher controls pace,Presupposes teaching,Intentional process,learning,Uses grammatical feel,Child controls pace,Does not presuppose teaching,Unconscious process,acquisition,语言习得,：通常指在自然的语言环境中，通过旨在沟通意义的言语交际活动，不自觉地，自然地掌握或获得第一语言。典型的例子是儿童习得第一语言。,语言学习,：通常指在学校环境下，有专门的教师指导，严格按照教学大纲和课本，通过讲解，练习，记忆等活动，有计划，有系统，有意识地对语言规则的掌握。典型的例子是成人在学校学习第二语言。,E,xample:,Mathematics？,the subject,Mathematics,is learned,not acquired.,Most children acquire the language quickly and effortlessly.Children all over the world learn to speak at about the same time unless they suffer from extreme external deficiency.,How do children accomplish this?,Discussion,Theories of child language acquisition,A behaviorist view of language acquisition(Skinners),An innatist view of language acquisition(Chomsky),An interactionist view of language acquisition,A behaviorist view of language acquisition,Traditional behaviorists view language as behavior and believe that language learning is simply a matter of imitation and habit formation.,B.F.Skinners(,斯金纳,),A behaviorist view of language acquisition,Imitation,Recognition,Reinforcement,Imitation and practice are preliminary,discrimination and generalization are key to language development in this theory.,pick out words/patterns,generalize them to new contexts,create new forms or new uses of words,figure out how the forms are used by adults,Behaviorist,view,A,dvantages,Although the behaviorist view is under challenge and criticism because of its inadequacy,but it offers a reasonable account of how children acquire some of the regular and routine aspects of the language.,For example,childrens learning of a language needs immitation and reinforcememt;its necessary to form certain habit in order to master a language.,Disadvantages,I,t fails to explain how children a,cquire more complex grammatical structures of the language.,Examples:,a.John,s mother loves him.,b.He,loves John,s mother.,c.His mother loves John.,An innatist view of language acquisition,According to the innatist view of language acquisition,human beings are biologically programmed for language and that the language develops in the child just as other biological functions such as walking.,Chomsky,Innatist view,According to this view,children are born with potentialities for acquiring any language,but also with knowledge of the nature of the world and specifically with knowledge of the nature of language.This knowledge is universal.,1st:All children virtually learn their native language which is so complicated at almost the same time.,2nd:Children successfully master the basic structure of their language or dialect in various conditions.,3rd:The language children exposed to may not contain examples of all the information which they eventually know.,Chomsky believes that language is somewhat innate,and that children are born with a Language Acquisition Device(LAD),which is a unique kind of knowledge that fits them for language learning.,Chomsky argues that LAD probably consists of three elements:a hypothesis-maker,linguistic universal,and an evaluation procedure.,LAD-language acquisition device,LAD 语言习得机制,Chomsky,referred to the innate language ability as language acquisition device(LAD).,The,Language Acquisition Device,(LAD)is a postulated“organ”of the brain that is supposed to function as a inborn device for language acquisition.,UG普遍语法,Later Chomsky refers to this innate endowment,(,天资,),as,Universal Grammar.,Universal Grammar,includes a set of principles which can be used to explain child language acquisition.,UG is an endowment that all children are born with.,If children are pre-equipped with UG,then what they have to learn is the way in which their own language makes use of these principles.,TG(Transformational-Generative)grammar,sees language as a system of innate rules,.A native speaker possesses a linguistic competence,or a language acquisition device.,Although Chomsky does not intend to make his model a representation of performance,i.e.,the language actually used in communication,applied linguistics find TG grammar useful in certain aspects.,This view serves as an answer to the logical problem of language acquisition that the behaviorist view fails to recognize.,Logical Problem of Language Acquisition逻辑问题,The logical problem,refers to the fact that children come to know more about their language than what they could reasonably be expected to learn from their living environment.,W,hen exposed to conf,u,sing information or when guidance or correction is not avalable,children can discover for themselves the ultimate rules of the language system.,Merit&Deficiency,Merit:in a way serves as an answer to the logical problem of language acquisition that the behaviorist view fails to recognize.,Deficiency:no evidence about what the UG(universal grammar)is and how does it work.,An interactionist view of language acquisition,The interactionist view holds that language develops as a result of the complex interplay between the,human characteristics,of the child and the,environment,in which the child develops.,Integrated with the innatist view,the interactionist further claims that the,modified language,which is suitable for the childs capability is crucial in his language acquisition.(motherese),The interactionist theory emphasizes the importance of the interaction between biological and social(nature and nurture)aspects of language acquisition.,Adults speak differently when talking to little children:(i.e.,motherese,or child-directed-speech(CDS),or caretaker talk,to make themselves understood by children.),Characteristics:,1.Slow rate of speech,2.High pitch,3.Rich intonation,4.Shorter and simpler sentence structures,5.Frequent repetition,6.Paraphrasing and limited vocabulary,In addition,topics closely related to“here and now”environment.,The comprehensible language samples exposed to children are important,only when conversation provide the right level of language that children are capable of processing can they facilitate childrens language acquisition,otherwise,it is insufficient for children to learn the languages structure.,Summary of these three theories,The behaviorist view,sounds reasonable in explaining the routine aspects,The innatist,accounts most plausible in explaining childrens acquiring complex system,The interactionist,description is convincing in understanding how children learn and use the language appropriately from their environment,Cognitive factors in child language development,1)Language development is dependent on both the concepts children form about the world and what they feel stimulated to communicate at the early and later stages of their language development.(the acquisition of perfect tense and the concept of present relevance),2)The cognitive factors determine how the child makes sense of the linguistic system himself instead of what meanings the child perceives and expresses.(the acquisition of negative form),The acquisition of negative form,1.At first,the negative element is not part of the structure of the sentence,its simply attached to the beginning or end,，,as in:,No singing song.,No the sun shining.,2.The negative element is inserted into the sentence,instead of no or not,children may use dont or cant,but they do not yet inflect these for different persons or tenses:,I no want envelope.,he no bite you.,He dons want it.,3.Children begin to produce the appropriate part of do,be or the model verbs,to suit the person or tense:,you dont want some supper.,Paul didnt laugh.,I am not a doctor.,The acquisition of negative form,It demonstrates that in the course of acquiring the native language:,1st:,children seem to look initially for a system which is rule-governed in a consistent way.,2ed:,then a system in which the clues to meaning are clearly displayed.,3rd:,finally the one in which each item or distinction has a definite function in communicative meaning.,Language environment,Two important factors:,the linguistic,environment,children are exposed to and the,age,they start to learn the language.,In behaviorist approach,language environment plays a major role in providing both,language models to be imitated,and necessary,feedbacks.,(the positive reinforcement or reward encourages childrens efforts and facilitates the correct learning while the negative feedback discourages children to repeat the“mistakes”),The innatist view emphasizes more on childrens internal processing of the language items to be learnt.The environment functions as a,stimulus,that triggers and activates the pre-equipped,UG,to process the materials provided by the linguistic environment around the children.,The interactionist view calls for the,quality of the language,samples available in the linguistic environment,only when the language is,modified and adjusted,to the level of childrens comprehension,do they process and internalize the language items.,Critical Period Hypothesis(CPH),Childrens ability to develop normal behaviors and knowledge in environment doesnt continue indefinitely and that children who have never learnt language for various reasons cannot return to normal if these deprivations go on for too long.,Eric Lenneberg argues that the LAD,like other biological functions,works successfully only when it is stimulated at the right time-a specific and limited time period for language acquisition.,The strong version of CPH suggests that children must acquire their first language by puberty or they will never be able to learn from subsequent exposure.,The weak version holds that language learning will be more difficult and incomplete after puberty.,(Support in Victors and Genies cases),Stages in child language development,1.Phonological development,2.Vocabulary development,1)Under-extension,2)Over-extension,3)Prototype theory,3.Grammatical development,1)Telegraphic speech(2),2)Sentences of three main elements(2.5),4.Pragmatic development,Phonological,development,Children are born with an ability to discriminate and produce sounds and the acquisition of sounds is universal across all culture and languages,the,sequence,in which the sounds are acquired works like a system of,pre-requisites,i.e.,the child must pass each stage before he can proceed to the next one.,Vocabulary,development,Children do not learn the meaning of a word“all at once”,when a child learns a new word,he may well under-extend or over-extend it.,1),Under-extension,(birds are not animals),2),Over-extension,(the extension of categories or analogies,of family resemblances),3),Lexical Contrast,(children have conventional words for things,they use conventional words for something else when a proper word is available,then they contrast it with other words.),4),Prototype theory,(children may begin a word with a prototype and extend its features later.),Grammatical,development,1),Telegraphic speech,(content words,lacking of function element,no syntactic or morphological markers,i.e.no use of inflections for number,person or tense,etc,around the age of 2.their noun+noun can be equal to a number of different grammatical relations which will be expressed later by other syntactic devices.e.g.,Mommy sock),2),Sentences of three main elements,(the grasp of principles for sentence formation,e.g.,daddy kick ball.),As children learn vocabulary they are also learning morpho-syntax rules or grammar.,Children acquire their first morphemes in a predictable order,which is to a large extent determined by the linguistic complexity rather than the frequency of input.,Childrens learning of question construction:,1.,using a question intonation:a rising pitch at the end of the sentence.,2.,children merely“take on”a question word in front of the sentence without changing the word order or inserting do.,3.,until they have acquired the auxiliary word that they can use questions correctly.,While children are increasing their mastery of grammatical morphemes,they are also increasing their ability to carry out transformation of the basic sentence structure so as to produce more complex utterances.,This grammatical development is,partly a matter of growing,competence,(in the sense of underlying knowledge)and partly a matter of increasing,performance,capacity.,Some subtle grammatical distinctions may not be mastered much before the age of ten.,Pragmatic,development,Gender,is an important aspect of speech,to imitate certain roles,it can also be found in the topics and quantity of children talk.,Politeness,is one of the few aspects of speech that are explicitly taught by adults:the appropriate use of language.The magic words of“please and thank you”gradually children learn the intention beneath the linguistic form.,Atypical development,Atypical or abnormal language development occurs due to trauma or injury.Atypical language development includes:,Hearing impairment,Mental retardation,autism,stuttering,Aphasia,Dyslexia and dysgraphia,Hearing impairment,(slight or severe,lead to minor loss or total lack of language),Mental retardation,(cause a delay in language acquisition),Autism,(language impairment from very beginning),Stuttering,(repetition of sounds where speakers can not release the words),Aphasia,(partial of total loss of language due to brain damage),Dyslexia and dys-graphia,(disorders in reading or writing,be acquired or developmental),Thank you!,