Acquisition
Hearing sound is not enough to acquire the ability to speak a language. A crucial component seems to be interaction with others via language. This is especially crucial during the first two or three years of development. The exposure to language through interaction with others is called input. When adults speak to children they often do so in a simplified speech sometimes known as “motherese” or “child-directed speech” and also “caregiver speech”. A significant trait of caregiver speech is the conversational structure assigns an interactive role to the child before they are able to participate verbally. It is also characterized by simple sentence structures and lots of repetition and paraphrasing while remaining mostly restricted to the “here and now”. Other features are also extra loudness, exaggerated intonation, slower tempo, longer pauses and baby talk.
The Acquisition Schedule
The language acquisition schedule seems to have the same biologically determined basis as the development of motor skills and the maturation of the infant’s brain. Even before a child can speak there is evidence that they are processing what they hear. This is seen through changes in their sucking behaviour while at three months they produce big smiles to a speaking face. At one month an infant is capable of distinguishing between [ba] and [pa]. The earliest speech-like sound has been described as “cooing” due to velar consonant sounds the child begins producing.
| Age | Sound | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| 3 months | can produce sequences of vowel-like sounds particularly [i] and [u] | |
| 4 months | can bring the back of their tongue into regular contact with back of palate to create velar consonant sounds like [k] and [g] | Cooing |
| 5 months | can hear the difference between vowel [i] and [a] and discriminate between syllables like [ba] and [ga] | |
| 6-8 months | can produce different vowel sounds and consonants including combinations like ba-ba-ba and ga-ga-ga | Babbling |
| 9-10 months | recognizable intonation patterns and variation in the combinations produced such as ba-ba-da-da | |
| 10-11 months | can stand and can use vocalization to express emotion and emphasis, also produce more complex syllable combinations such as ma-da-ga-ba | Prelanguage |
| 12 months | can produce distinct gestures that accompany vocalizations such as pointing with and outstretched hand and holding an object towards the caregiver | |
| 12-18 months | can produce single-unit utterances such as “milk”, “cookie” | One-word |
| 18-20 months | knows more than fifty words, produce combinations such as “mommy eat”, “cat bad” | Two-word |
| 20-24 months | can produce 200 or 300 distinct “words” and can understand five times as many | |
| 2-2.5 yrs | can produce multiple-word speech | Telegraphic |
At the 9-10 month period nasal sounds also begin to occur and are often interpreted as children saying da-da and ma-ma. The “prelanguage” stage is also where a child’s use of sound provides them with experience of the social role of speech because adults tend to react to the child’s babbling. The single-unit utterances from the one-word stage can also be called holophrastic speech meaning an utterance that could be a word, phrase, or sentence. At this time this speech can also demonstrate the child extending their use as an empty bed may elicit the name of a sister who normally sleeps there. During the two-word stage there is a heavy reliance on context, the adult’s reaction also informs the child that they are communicating and that the utterance worked as a contribution to the interaction.
The Acquisition Process
Children actively construct language based on what is said to them and around them. While children imitate what adults say and seem to understand it they express it in their own way, so learning from imitation is unlikely. It is also unlikely that they learn through adult corrections. Word play, such as the child testing different ways to say things, seems to be an important element in the development of the child’s linguistic repertoire.
Developing Morphology
When a child is past 2.5 yrs they go beyond telegraphic speech and incorporate inflectional and functional morphemes. Typically the first is -ing followed by the prepositions in and on. The next stage is the addition of making regular plurals with the addition of -s this is often accompanied by overgeneralization which is using an inflectional morpheme on more words than is usual in the language, in this case this means adding the plural -s form to words like foot → foots and man → mans. After this irregular plurals and irregular verbs appear followed by different forms of the verb “to be” such as is and are while possessive inflection also begin to be used as well as articles.
| Stage | Morpheme | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | -ing | cat sitting, mommy reading book |
| 2 | in | in bag, not in that |
| on | on bed, that on top | |
| 3 | plural -s | boys, cats |
| 4 | irregular past tense | he came, it went away |
| possessive -s | Karen’s bed, mommy’s book | |
| 5 | verb “to be” (is, are) | this is no, you are look |
| 6 | articles (a, the) | a cat, the dog |
| 7 | past tense -ed | it opened, he waked |
| 8 | present tense -s | it comes, she knows |
Developing Syntax
| Age | Stage | Acquisition of questions | Question examples | Acquisition of negatives | Negative examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18-26 months | Stage 1 | 1 or 2 words + rising intonation | Doggie? Sit chair? | add No or Not to beginning | No mitten, Not a teddy bear |
| add Where | Where kitty? | ||||
| 22-30 months | Stage 2 | 2 or 3 words + rising intonation | You want eat? | add no or not to verb | He no bit you |
| add What and Why | What book name? | add don’t or can’t to verb | I don’t want it | ||
| 24-40 months | Stage 3 | 3 or 4 words + inversion | Can I have a piece? | add didn’t or won’t to verb | I didn’t caught it |
| add Who and How | Who did you go? | non-adult forms | This not ice cream | ||
| non-adult forms | Why kitty can’t do it? |
Inversion is the change in position of the auxiliary verb in English questions. An example of this is I can have → Can I have. In children this does not automatically spread to all wh- questions. So they sometimes say Why kitty can’t do it? as opposed to Why can’t kitty do it?.
A study of children’s use of negative forms also revealed the futility of overt adult “correction” of children’s speech.
Developing Semantics
In L1 acquisition using a word to refer to more object that in usual in the language is called overextension. This is demonstrated when a child points to the moon and calls it a ball. The most common occurrence of this is when objects share similarities in shape, sound, and size but also movement and texture. Overextension does not seem to have an effect on speech comprehension. This was shown when a child called a tomato and a ball an apple, but when asked to pick up the apple the child correctly chose the apple. With regards to hyponymy the child almost always uses the “middle” level term. This may be connected to adults using similar levels when discussing objects, such as saying flower not plant or tulip.
Some types of antonymous relations are acquired fairly late (after the age of five). This is shown in the apple tree test where children were asked to point to tree with most apples and than least apples yet always point to the tree with the most apples. The differences between before/after and buy/sell also seem to be acquired later. It is normally assumed that by age five children have completed the greater part of the basic language acquisition process. According to some at this age they can already begin to start learning a second (foreign) language.
Study Questions
- Describe the four typical features of caregiver speech. Exaggerated intonation, extra loudness, treating actions and vocalizations as conversational turns, baby talk.
- At what age is an infant capable of distinguishing between [ba] and [pa]? At one month.
- Why are some of the infant’s first sounds described as “cooing”? Because the child begins producing velar consonant like sounds in combination with high back vowel sounds which can be heard as “cooing” or “gooing.”
- Describe two gestures that one-year-olds produce along with babbling. Pointing with an outstretched hand and holding out an object to a caregiver while vocalizing.
- During which period do children produce holophrastic speech? At the one-word stage.
- During which stage do children typically first produce syllable sequences similar to mama and dada? In the later babbling stage around 9-10 months.
- At about what age do children typically begin producing varied syllable combination such as ma-da-ga-ba? During the tenth and eleventh months.
- Which of these utterances would be described as telegraphic speech?
| a) hit ball - too basic | c) daddy go bye-bye - this one |
| b) what’s that - better but not telegraphic | d) my teacher holded the baby rabbits - too advanced as it is a sentence |
- Which of these expressions is likely to be used before the others? Mommy reading, note that mommy goed is not a misspelling of good but that past tense of go with the ending -ed.
mommy books or mommy’s book or mommy reading or mommy goed
- Which of these expressions is likely to be used before the others? Where kitty go, as it is a “Where” question from stage 1.
What book name? or How that opened? or Where kitty go?
- Which of these two utterances was produced by the older child and why? “I not hurt him” because not is placed before the verb and is inside the structure unlike b where it is added to the start.
a) I not hurt him
b) No the sun shining
- What is the term used to describe the process involved when a child uses one word like ball to refer to an apple, and egg, a grape, and a ball? This is an example of overextension.