ALI JBERI & MOUFIDA BENALI

 1-Definition of Learning and Acquiring

 2-The difference between Learning and Acquiring
 3-L1 as an Acquired and Learned Language
 4-L2 as an Acquired and Learned language
 5-The universal grammar theory
 What does L1 mean ?
 An L1 is your first language , your native language , or your
mother tongue .
 You are a native speaker of that language. Every
developmentally healthy human being has a first language.
Often (but not always) this is the language that was learned
during childhood—before puberty—and is the language
that is most used and most comfortable for a given person.
First languages are generally maintained for life, with little
overt effort on the part of the speaker. This is because first
languages are often woven into the personal and
sociocultural identities of the native speaker, and he or she
uses the language to think and to interact with family and
other members of their cultural or ethnic group.
 How Are L1s Learned? L1s are learned through a process
known as first language acquisition, or FLA. This is a
complex biological process which is still not yet entirely
understood by the scientific community. Though the
intricacies of first language acquisition are beyond the
scope of this article, the most commonly agreed-upon
aspects of FLA are as follows: First Language Acquisition is
the process of gaining the capacity to use human language,
where previously no such capacities existed. L1s are
acquired automatically, without conscious effort. L1s are
learned before puberty, typically during infancy. An
acquired L1 is known at native proficiency.
 According to J. Joseph Lee’s Article The Native Speaker, An
Achievable Model?, published in the Asian EFL journal, native
speaker have proficiency represented by an “internalized
knowledge” of several areas of language, including: Appropriate use
of idiomatic expressions Correctness of language form Natural
pronunciation Cultural context including “response cries”, swear
words, and interjections Above average sized vocabulary,
collocations and other phraseological items Metaphors Frozen
syntax, such as binomials or bi-verbials Nonverbal cultural features
Despite the fact that one’s “native language” are referred to as his or
her “first language”, it is possible to have several “first languages”, so
long as they are learned prior to puberty. For example, children who
grow up in households where two languages are spoken (typically in
the. case of parents of different linguistic backgrounds) may
acquire each of those languages natively. These people are referred
to as bilingual.
 L2 or Second Language What Does L2 mean? An L2 is a
second language, a foreign language, a target language, or a
foreign tongue. If you have an L2, you are a non-native
speaker of that language. Unlike L1s, not everyone has an
L2. If you have learned or are learning a new language, that
language is your L2. How Are L2s Learned? L2s are learned
through a process known as second language acquisition,
or SLA. Like first language acquisition, second language
acquisition is a complex field of linguistics. Though many
of its theories and facets are constantly under debate, the
general commonalities of SLA are: Second language
acquisition is the process of acquiring language capacity
after another language (or languages) have already been
learned natively.
 Learning an L2 requires conscious effort. L2s are not
learned during infancy, and most often after puberty.
Theoretically, an acquired L2 can only be known at non-
native proficiencies. Exactly how proficient a language
learner can become in a second language can range widely,
but the general scientific consensus is that an L2 cannot be
mastered to the same level as an L1.
 Highly advanced L2 learners are often called near-native
speakers. Though capacity in both L1s and L2s can
deteriorate from lack of use (through a process called
attrition), L2 capacity is considered to decrease faster from
misuse than their L1 counterparts. As with the term L1
above, the use of the number two in “L2” or “second
language” does not necessarily refer to the exact numerical
order in which a language is acquired, but only that the
language was learned non-natively. In nearly all cases, L2
can be used to refer to any number of languages learned
after puberty. Together, L1 and L2 are the major language
categories by acquisition. In the large majority of
situations, L1 will refer to native languages, while L2 will
refer to non-native or target languages, regardless of the
numbers of each.