L1 acquisition
Caregiver Speech(motherese, child-directed speech)
Language acquisition
requires interaction
without interaction does not guarantee language acquisition
not genetically inherited
acquired in a particular language-using environment
to hear that language being used, but hearing language sounds by itself is not enough
counterexample
Congenitally deaf infants stop making cooing and babbling noises around six months.
interaction with others via language
features
Simplified words with repeated sounds and syllables
frequent use of questions
exaggerated intonation, extra loudness
a slower tempo with longer pauses
a lot of repetition and paraphrasing
reference largely restricted to the here and now
The Acquisition Schedule
cooing
example
Infants uncover the sounds of their ambient language during their first year. After six months, they lose the ability to discriminate non-phonemic sounds.
Japanese infants lose the ability to distinguish [r] and [l] after six months, whereas English-speaking babies retain this perception.
Babbling
Occurs between 6 and 8 months of age.
many sounds that do not occur in the language of the household
Producing a number of different vowels and consonants
During the first year of life, the infant’s perceptions and productions are being fine-tuned to the surrounding language(s).
the end of the 1st year, only those sounds and sound combinations that occur in the household language
The One-Word Stage (the holophrasic stage, the whole-phrase stage)
occurs between 12 and 18 months of age
Single terms are used for different objects for different purposes
examples
sock: “That’s a sock.”
The Two-Word Stage
18~20 months of age
Adult interpretation of such combinations is tied to the context of their utterance.
e.g., baby chair: “This is baby’s chair”, “put baby in chair”
Voc beyond 50 words
A variety of word combinations appear
e.g., baby chair, mommy eat, cat bad, shoe off
The child not only produces speech but also receives feedback confirming the utterance worked as a contribution to the interaction.
By the age of two, the child can understand five times more than s/he can produce. (i.e., Comprehension exceeds production.)