1. Language AcquisitionLanguage Acquisition
Instructor Marwan Alalimi

2. Revision
• Linguistics
• Applied linguistics
• Linguistics in language
teaching
• language teaching operation.
• Competence vs. performance.

3. First language acquisition
• Acquisition vs. learning.
• First language acquisition vs.
Second language a acquisition.
• Foreign language.
• Dialect vs. accent

4. First language acquisition
theories
• Behaviorist theory: (say what I
say).
• Behaviorism (1940s- 1950s)
• Language is not a mental
phenomenon; it’s a behavior.
• It’s learned by a process of habit
formation.
• Language development= immitation
practice

5. The key principles of
behaviorist school
• Stimulus response principle.Stimulus response principle.
• Repetition and reinforcementRepetition and reinforcement
principle.principle.
• Reward – punishment principle.Reward – punishment principle.
• Stimulus response principle.Stimulus response principle.
• Repetition and reinforcementRepetition and reinforcement
principle.principle.
• Reward – punishment principle.Reward – punishment principle.

6. The main components of the
habit formation process
• The child imitates the sounds and patterns
hearing around him.
• People recognize the child attempts as being
similar to adults’ utterance
• They reinforce or reward the sounds, by
approval or by desirable reaction.
• The child repeats the sounds to gain more
rewards, such repetitions become habits.
• In this manner, the verbal behavior is shaped
until the habits coincide with the adult models.

7. Stimulus response principleStimulus response principle..
S = child asking for food R= mother gives food to herS = child asking for food R= mother gives food to her
child.child.

8. Repetition and reinforcementRepetition and reinforcement
principleprinciple..
Teacher explains Student doesn’t understand→Teacher explains Student doesn’t understand→
→→ teacher repeats again for reinforcement.→teacher repeats again for reinforcement.→

9. Reward – punishmentReward – punishment
principleprinciple..
StudentStudent →→ studies hard rewarded bystudies hard rewarded by success→ success→
Student doesn’t study hard punished by failure.→Student doesn’t study hard punished by failure.→

10. We will examine a transcripts
from a child and his mother
- Child: No body doesn’t like me.
- Mother: No, say “nobody likes me”.
- Child: No body don’t like me.
(the dialogue continues for several times)
- Mother: Now listen carefully-say “No body
likes me”.
- Child: Oh, No body don’t like me.

11. We conclude….
• Children don’t learn by imitation.
• They don’t learn through
reinforcement.
• They don’t learn through structural
input.
• They construct their own grammar.

12. Inadequacies of
behaviorism
• Language is not just verbal behavior.
• Creativity’s not possible if we rely on learnt
behavior.
• Habit-formation can’t explain student’s
competence.
• Observing and imitating verbal behavior
can’t explain the difference between
surface and deep structure.
E.g. john is easy to please/ john is eager to
please.

13. Cognitive or innatist
approach (it’s all in your mind(
• Chomsky: All human languages are fundamentally
innate and that the same universal principles
underlie all of them.
• A human child is born with the ability to learn any
language. This ability enables them to use a
language creatively.
• (Language Acquisition Device) “LAD” refers to
that children have inborn ability to learn a
language which other beings don’t have. However,
they learn from the environment in which they
are brought up.

14. UG (Universal Grammar(
• A name for Linguistic theory of the genetic
component of the language faculty. There’s a
reason why a child identifies some part of
her/his environment as language related, how
that happened?
- It’s a Miracle.
- Specifically Genetic capacity.
We all have the same capacity for learning any
language in the world.

15. Language UniversalsLanguage Universals
LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALS >LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALS >
UNIVERSAL GRAMMARUNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
All languages have:
1. A grammar
2. Basic word order (in terms of SOV,
etc.)
3. Nouns and verbs
4. Subjects and objects
5. Consonants and vowels

16. Language development
Involves:
• Phonological development - learning to
produce speech sounds.
• Semantic development - learning to
understand the meanings of words.
• Acquisition of grammar - the rules
through which words can be arranged into
sentences in a certain language

17. 1. Crying: Since birth, different cries for
different needs.
2. Cooing: 2-3 months; vowel like
sounds
3. Babbling: 3-9 months, adding
consonant sounds to the vowels to
make babbling sound, which at times
can almost sound like real speech
Stages of first
language development

18. Stages of first
language development
3. One-word sentence: just before or
around 1 yr, most children begin to say
actual words. Typically nouns and may
seem to represent an entire phrase of
meaning (holophrases). E.g. “Milk!”
4. Two-word sentence: around a two years
children being to produce two words such
as “ no juice” I don’t want juice or .

19. Stages of
language development
5. Clipped sentences: 2-4 years children
construct longer sentences – rapid speech.
6.Whole sentences: Moving through
preschool years, they learn to use
grammatical terms and increase words in
their sentences. By age of 6 or so, nearly
as fluent as an adult although the number
of words they know is still limited when
compared to adult vocabulary.

20. • Chomsky’s ideas are linked to the (CPH)- Animals
including humans are generally programmed to
acquire certain kinds of knowledge and skills at
specific time in life, beyond those critical periods
it’s either difficult of impossible to acquire the
those abilities.
• Regarding language, CPH suggest that children
who are not given access to language in infancy
and early childhood will never acquire language if
these deprivation go on for too long.
• The case of Victor and Genie.
Critical Period Hypothesis

21. Thank you