Language acquisition- It is the mechanism by which people develop the ability to
interpret and understand language (in other words, to acquire the ability to be
conscious of and understand language), as well as to create and use words and
phrases to communicate.
First language acquisition refers to the way children learn their native
language
Second language acquisition refers to the learning of another language or
languages besides the native language.
Three Theories:
The three theories of language acquisition are: imitation, reinforcement and
analogy, do not explain very well how children acquire language.
Imitation does not work because children produce sentences never heard before.
Example: "cat stand up table." Even when they try to imitate adult speech,
children cannot generate the same sentences because of their limited grammar.
Reinforcement also does not work because it actually seldomly occurs and when
it does, the reinforcement is correcting pronunciation or truthfulness, and not
grammar.
Example: A sentence such as "apples are purple" would be corrected more often
because it is not true, as compared to a sentence such as "apples is red"
regardless of the grammar.
Analogy also cannot explain language acquisition. Analogy involves the formation
of sentences or phrases by using other sentences as samples
Example: &If a child hears the sentence, "I painted a red barn," he can say, by
analogy, "I painted a blue barn." Yet if he hears the sentence, "I painted a barn
red," he cannot say "I saw a barn red." The analogy did not work this time, and
this is not a sentence of English
Acquisitions
Phonology: A child’s error in pronunciation is not random, but rule-governed.
Typical phonological rules include:
-consonant cluster simplification (spoon becomes poon)
-devoicing of final consonants (dog becomes dok)
-voicing of initial consonants (truck becomes druck)
-consonant harmony (doggy becomes goggy, or big becomes gig.)
Morphology: An overgeneralization of constructed rules is shown when children
treat irregular verbs and nouns as regular.
Ex: Instead of “went” as the past tense of “go”, children use “goed”
because the regular verbs add an -ed ending to form the past tense.
