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9: Language Acquisition

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  • Page ID
    199991
    • Catherine Anderson, Bronwyn Bjorkman, Derek Denis, Julianne Doner, Margaret Grant, Nathan Sanders, and Ai Taniguchi
    • eCampusOntario

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    Learning Objectives

    When you’ve completed this chapter, you’ll be able to:

    • Identify children’s typical language development milestones.
    • Interpret data from various experimental methods to draw conclusions about children’s mental grammar.
    • Explain how development in signed language parallels that of spoken language in an accessible language environment.
    • Discuss some of the benefits of acquiring more than one language.

    This chapter looks at how children develop the various components of mental grammar: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. As we’ll see, children’s minds are equipped to acquire grammar very quickly as long as they have other language users to observe.

    • 9.1: Tiny, powerful language learners
      The page explores early language acquisition in children, emphasizing the impressive transition from newborns, who communicate mainly by crying, to four or five-year-olds capable of complex conversations. It highlights the vital role of language environment in forming mental grammar, evidenced by typical development in hearing children and unique challenges faced by deaf children.
    • 9.2: Phonemic contrast
      The text discusses linguistic development in babies, focusing on how they start learning phonology before speaking and the eventual specialization in phoneme contrasts. Observations using techniques like conditioned head turns reveal babies can distinguish phonetic differences from various languages, a skill that diminishes after one year as they adapt to their native language's sound system.
    • 9.3: Language milestones in the first two years
      The page discusses typical language development milestones for children in their first two years of life. It emphasizes that language learning is not a race and children vary greatly in reaching these milestones. The speech notes outline stages from birth to two years, such as babbling, recognizing language sounds, the holophrastic stage (one-word phrasing), and two-word stages.
    • 9.4: Understanding word combinations
      The page discusses the early stages of language acquisition in children, focusing on how infants and toddlers begin to understand and use syntax. Babies start learning the phonology of their language from birth and lexical semantics before age one. The text details various linguistic experiments, such as preferential looking, to study infants' understanding of syntax.
    • 9.5: Growing up bilingual (or multilingual!)
      The text discusses the common misconception that being bilingual may harm children's development, particularly in monolingual-centric cultures like the US and Canada. It highlights that bilingual children may show slight delays relative to monolingual peers but often catch up by age ten and may even have enhanced cognitive functions. Code-switching, a common phenomenon among bilinguals, is seen as a skill rather than a hindrance.
    • 9.6: Adults are not children
      The chapter discusses the subfield of linguistics known as Second Language Acquisition (SLA), which studies adult language learning, challenging assumptions tied to terms like "second language" and "ESL" that imply English-centric views. It explores cognitive and socioemotional differences in language learning between adults and children, the impact of motivations such as migration and cultural enrichment, and the importance of community connections in learning Indigenous languages.
    • 9.7: Gaining proficiency
      The page discusses the complexity of gaining proficiency in a new language, especially for adults, highlighting the debate over the notion of fluency. It explores the cultural and political dimensions of language standards, especially for Indigenous languages, and the biases in terms like "superior" language users.
    • 9.8: Learning Phonetics and Phonotactics in a Later Language
      The text discusses learning phonetics and phonotactics in a second language, highlighting challenges and adaptations. Different languages have varied phonetic inventories. For example, English has numerous vowels, while Adyghe has many consonants. Learners may substitute unfamiliar sounds with familiar ones from their native language (L1). Phonotactics, or constraints on sound placement, also pose challenges. Adults adapt loanwords to fit native constraints.
    • 9.9: Second Language Acquisition Teaching Methods
      The video script discusses the evolution of language acquisition teaching methods experienced by Sarah Harmon over her 20-year teaching career. It contrasts outdated methods like grammar translation with modern approaches, focusing on content-based instruction and communicative approaches. The communicative approach emphasizes active learning and includes technology integration. It highlights the flipped classroom model's role in fostering student responsibility and motivation.
    • 9.10: Exercise your linguistics skills
      This document presents three exercises related to language acquisition and children's linguistic errors. Exercise 1 involves analyzing children's unconventional use of words compared to adult grammar. Exercise 2 explores errors in preschool children's production of wh-questions, emphasizing differences in child and adult grammar.

    This page titled 9: Language Acquisition is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Catherine Anderson, Bronwyn Bjorkman, Derek Denis, Julianne Doner, Margaret Grant, Nathan Sanders, and Ai Taniguchi (eCampusOntario) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.