Language acquisition

11 important questions on Language acquisition

Explain the difference between language learning and acquisition!

Students will learn English as a second language additionally to the first language. The students will be learning the language. First language acquisition, occurs quite naturally. You acquire the language through communication with your parents school and the surroundings around you. Your mind is like a sponge and you acquire a lot of language, therefore we speak of acquisition rather than learning.

Name several statements on L1 acquisition!

- Language is learned to describe things and to communicate
- children use a different part of the brain when acquiring their L1 than adults learning a foreign language
- the larynx of children drops when they grow older
- toddles learn about 10 new words a day
- the brain of a child learning words can be compared to sponge
- a child saying I swimmed would be a common mistake, because it uses the logical grammar it has already learned

Why is baby language sometimes called telegraphic?

Because these sentences do not contain articles, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs, but do bring their meaning across.
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Why want a young child say: "I'm going to the playground tomorrow?

Because a young child hasn't developed temporal senses yet.

What does the study on grammatical morphemes by Brown suggest?

That there is a certain developmental sequence in the learning of grammatical morphemes, even though children do not acquire it at the exact same age.

How does chunk learning play a role in L1 acquisition?

Children learn questions with wh-words (what, where, who, why) in chunks

What is the easiest way of asking a question?

Raise of intonation at the end of the sentence.

Describe the five stages of sound production!

Stage I (0 to 8 weeks) basic biological noises
stage II (8 to 20 weeks) cooing and laughing
stage III (20 to 30 weeks) vocal play
stage IV (25 to 50 weeks) babbling
stage V (9 to 18 months) melodic utterance

What kind of words you think young children acquire? Get plenty of examples and categorise.

Family: mommy, daddy, sister, brother, grandma, grandpa
food: Brett, butter, carrot, milk
toys: pencil, drawing, puzzle, book
animals: Cowell,, dog, horse

Which three believes are the most important ones in language acquisition?

There are three believes that can be categorised as a behaviourists perspective, an innatist perspective and an interactionist or developmental perspective.

Explain the interactionist/developmentalist perspective!

They believe that we learn (not only languages) from experience. We built experience upon experience and draw learning processes from these experiences. It suggests that interaction with people in direct surroundings is essential to gain these experiences. Strongly contrasting with the behaviourist theory, it states that making mistakes plays a large role in this process, as you will build upon these mistakes.

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