CHAPTER 13: FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

According to the book “The Study of Language” by George Yule, first language
acquisition is the unconscious process by which a child learns his or her mother
tongue. In general terms, this process does not require any type of instruction, this
may support the theory that states all humans are born this an innate capacity for
language; however, this process does accept some requirements.

The first basic requirement is social interaction; since it has been demonstrated by
many experiments that humans cannot acquire a language they are not in contact
with. Even if children listen to a particular language, if there is no cultural
transmission or interaction, language acquisition will not take place. The second
requirement for first language acquisition to occur is that the development of motor
skills and the maturation of the infant’s brain have come about; in other words,
biological skills and language skills develop at the same time. With this in mind the
critical period hypothesis (CPH) shows up: language acquisition must occur during
a critical period, which starts at about the first two or three years of development
and ends at about puberty, in order to speak a language without an accent.

As a matter of fact, children are helped by their parents in this acquisition process.
By providing the appropriate input or caregiver speech, which is a simplified
speech style, they are preparing the child to the basis of language organization.

Furthermore, something remarkable is that there are particular features that

develop almost at the same time in all children. This is called the acquisition
schedule, and it basically states that by the age of three months crying for different
needs are produced by the children. Similarly, by the age of 4 months children start
producing the velar sound /g/ and /k/ and distinguish between the /i/ and /a/
vowels. In the same way, by six and 8 months the child starts combining vowels
and consonants. By the age of ten and eleven months, as children start staying a
straighter posture, more complex syllable combinations are produced. Equally
important, by twelve and eighteen months, they start one stage called the one-
word stage in which they tend to express in one word something that would be
expressed in several words or phrases. Around the age of eighteen months they
start using expressions, due to the relatively wide vocabulary they have acquired
so far. By the age of two years old, children produce multiple word speech. Finally,
by three years old, vocabulary has increased and a clearer pronunciation is been
emitted.

Similarly, another process takes place, it is the acquisition process. Children start
producing linguistic constructions by trial and error, if something they say does not
work, they try with other word. Under those circumstances it is important to notice
that adults instruction do not play a crucial role in this acquisition process, children
do not learn neither by imitation nor by correction.

Moreover, more complex processes also occur by the time of two and a half years
old. The Development of morphology starts when children commence to form
expression in the –ing form. Also, they start using marks for plural nouns with the –
s form. A process of overgeneralization develops in this stage: children start
applying one grammatical rule for everything they say; they still do not understand
the exceptions of the language. Much later, they start using different forms of the
verb “to be”. By the end of this stage, children start using regular and irregular verb
forms as well as third person singular present tense verb, all this to explain that at
first, children are interesting in communicating messages not accuracy.

By the same token, developing syntax takes place between eighteen months and
40 months. In this particular stage children learn to form question, and use
negatives form, of course it takes them a lot of errors to finally arrive to the correct
form. Important to realize in here again that adult instruction is not worthy.

Last but not least important is the development of semantics, in which children
experience a process called overextension; to put it differently they use one word
to name thing they know based on similarities like shape or texture. Also, the use
of hyponym terms is usually noticeable at this stage.

Given these points, it has been demonstrated that by the age of five years old a
child is a sophisticated language user of any language. At this age, the motor skills
and the language skills have successfully develop and lead to a language
acquisition process. However, some developments take place much later like the
knowledge of antonyms.

In short, first language acquisition is an unconscious process that all humans must
experience, even though the different stages are the same, they might occurs at
different ages, that is the reason why the phrase “by the age” is used. In essence,
even if all the stages seem a little bit complicated, we human acquire our first
language almost without realizing it, we just need exposure and interaction with
one given language in order to become native speakers.