TOPIC 1: Theories of Language

Acquisition
Language learning theories are frameworks or models that attempt to explain how
individuals acquire and develop language skills. These theories draw on principles from
various fields, including linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, and education. Several
prominent language learning theories have been proposed, each emphasizing different
aspects of the learning process.

Behavioural Theory
- B.F. Skinner’s theory of learning says that a person’s first exposed to a stimulus,
which elicits a response, and the response is then reinforced (stimulus, response,
reinforcement). This, ultimately, is what conditions our behaviours. To make this
process easier to remember, the ABCs of behaviourism were developed.
- The ABCs are antecedent(stimulus), behaviour (response), and consequences
(reinforcement).
- This theory, associated with B.F. Skinner, suggests that language learning is a result
of habit formation through conditioning. Learners acquire language through imitation,
repetition, and reinforcement
- Behaviourism focuses on the idea that all behaviours are learned through interaction
with the environment.
- Before Chomsky's time (nativist), language development was largely accepted as
being purely a cultural phenomenon that is based solely on imitation.
- This learning theory states that behaviours are learned from the environment and
says that innate or inherited factors have very little influence on behaviour.
- Behaviourism is key for educators because it impacts how students react and behave
in the classroom, and suggests that teachers can directly influence how their
students behave.
- Teachers use behaviourism to show students how they should react and respond to
certain stimuli. This needs to be done in a repetitive way, to regularly remind students
what behaviour a teacher is looking for.

The Nativist Theory

- Chomsky: The innate ability to easily learn a native language is due to two things: the
language acquisition device (LAD) and Universal grammar (UG).
- MIND but inborn
- The language acquisition device, or LAD for short, is a hypothetical 'tool' in the brain
that contains specific knowledge about language and grammar.
- Chomsky proposed the LAD to help explain how children can comprehend the basic
structures of language from such a young age.
- Chomsky suggests that a child's LAD is triggered once they hear speech.
- Chomsky suggests that all human languages share many of the same common
grammar principles.
- For example, most languages:
  Differentiate between verbs and nouns
 Have a way of talking about the past and present
 Have a way of asking questions
 Have a counting system

- According to Universal Grammar theory, the basic grammatical structures of

language are already encoded in the human brain at birth.
- It is a child's environment that will determine which language they will learn.
- Malay, English, Inuit, Urdu – activate grammar rules

Semantic-Cognitive Theory
- Cognitive semantics is concerned primarily with the conceptual content of language.
- The mind, according to this theory, does not and cannot understand words or
sentences in a vacuum, but by necessity understands them in relation to other
experiences.
- Human beings have an innate (i.e. genetically determined) predisposition that allows
them to learn language; however, the full articulation of the linguistic system depends
on experiential factors (physiological as well as cultural) and cognitive abilities that
are not unique to language.

Social Interactionist Theory

- The social interactionist theory proposes that language exists for the purpose of
communication and can only be learned in the context of interaction with adults and
other children.
- It stresses the importance of the environment and culture in which the language is
being learned.
- Interactionists acknowledge the presence of innate biological mechanisms but
emphasize the critical role of social interactions (Jensen &
- Lev Vygotsky is the most well-known interactionist theorist and provided a theoretical
framework for other interactionists to further develop theories of language acquisition.
- This theory, associated with Lev Vygotsky, emphasizes the social and cultural
aspects of language learning.
- It posits that language is acquired through interaction with others, and that social
interactions play a crucial role in the development of linguistic abilities.
- Jerome Bruner believed that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the
development of cognition in general and language in particular.
- Bruner proposed the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS).
- LASS refers to the social and cultural experiences that support and encourage
language acquisition.
- This includes child-directed language exposure (e.g., parentese, dialogic reading,
etc.,) as well as the various activities children engage in while also receiving
exposure to language.
- The interactionist approach (sociocultural theory) combines ideas from sociology and
biology to explain how language is developed.
- According to this theory, children learn language out of a desire to communicate with
the world around them.
- Language emerges from, and is dependent upon, social interaction.
- The Interactionist approach claims that if our language ability develops out of a
desire to communicate, then language is dependent upon whom we want to
communicate with. (Purpose for learning – meaningful purpose)
- This means the environment you grow up in will heavily affect how well and how
quickly you learn to talk.
TOPIC 3: Important Factors in
First and Second Language
Acquisition
First language vs. Mother tongue
- There is no significant difference between mother tongue (MT) and first language
(L1) since both refer to a person’s native language.
- Mother tongue or First language is the language a person learns to speak first.
- It is generally the language we learn as a child, and the one we speak at home.
- The first language is the language we are most fluent and competent in, irrespective
of how many languages we speak. In other words, it is the language we think in.

Second language
- A second language (L2) is a language usually learned at a later stage after mother
tongue.
- There is no limit of second languages that one can learn.
- Second language acquisition occurs actively and consciously.
- Second language acquisition requires explicit instruction and education.

Stages of First Language Acquisition

1. Pre-Talking
- This stage takes place from birth to around six months of age.
- During this time, the child does not speak, but is beginning to understand
short words and phrases that are central to their needs and interests.
2. Babbling
- The babbling phase occurs from around six to eight months old.
- In this phase, the infant begins to “babble” and makes noises and syllables
that are not yet words.
- Physically, teeth begin to appear and the muscles in the mouth required for
speech begin to develop.
3. Holophrastic
- The holophrastic stage is significantly longer, occurring between nine and
eighteen months old.
- During this phase, the infant begins to learn and speak single words.
- In the beginning, these words are strongly centered around basic needs and
interests as well as names or identifiers like “mama” and “dada.”
4. Two-Word
- This stage takes place from eighteen to twenty-four months old.
- Once children have developed single word speech, they begin to pair groups
of words together into mini-sentences and phrases like “I want” or “give me.”
5. Telegraphic
- The telegraphic stage takes place from two to three years old.
 - Over time, children begin to expand their two-word phrases into short
sentences.
- They also begin to utilize lexical morphemes to make the words they use fit
the sentence.
- For example, they understand to use the plural “boys” instead of “boy” when
referring to a group of boys.
6. Multiword
- Past the age of three, most children fall into the multiword stage.
- In this final stage of language acquisition, children now learn to use functional
morphemes to change the meaning of the words they use. Examples include
the words but, in, the, and that.

Stages of Second Language Acquisition

1. Pre-Production
- For L2 learners, the pre-production stage or “silent period” occurs during the first six
months of exposure to the language.
- During this stage, L2 learners have minimal comprehension and listening / speaking
skills and often utilize gestures like nodding, pointing, and drawing to explain
themselves.
- This stage is somewhat comparable to the pre-talking and babbling stages of first
language acquisition.
2. Early Production
- Around six to twelve months after L2 learners are regularly exposed to the target
language, they will begin to use one and two-word English phrases.
- Depending on age, immersion, and the specific student, this stage can occur much
sooner or take longer.
- At this point, the L2 learners has absorbed thousands of words and has gained
limited comprehension of the key words they hear most and that are most important
to them.
- As their comprehension increases, L2 learners begin to speak more.
3. Speech Emergence
- After one to three years of exposure to L2, learners have developed significant
comprehension and can read, write, and understand simple sentences.
- They will continue to make new grammatical and pronunciation errors and will still
struggle with homophones, jokes, and cultural slang in conversation.
4. Fluency
- Fluency can occur as early as three years but may take upwards of ten years or a
lifetime depending on various factors.
- However, most L2 learners eventually reach fluency or near-fluency with ongoing
education.
- At this stage, they have excellent comprehension, speech, and writing skills.
- They may still struggle with pronunciation depending on the age of their initial
exposure to English.
- However, it is important to keep in mind that difficulty with pronunciation does not
equate with a lack of language comprehension.
Factors in First and Second Language Acquisition
1. Age
- First language acquisition is similar in early language of children all over the world.
- Children of the age of 6 who have already acquired full proficiency in their first
language, are most capable of learning a second language.
- Adults usually find it difficult to learn a new language when they become too
accustomed to their first/native language.
- Age is a major factor in how fast L2 learners learn and at what point they reach
fluency.
- Learning a second language early while the brain is still actively forming connections
can help students learn more quickly.
- However, older L2 learners have the advantage of understanding grammar and how
language works. They will likely learn grammar and pronunciation more efficiently but
will struggle with retention and vocabulary more than a younger L2 learner would.

2. Personality
- A child’s personality does not usually make that much of difference in the acquisition
of the first language.
- But it makes a huge difference in the learning process of the second language.
- In the second language learning process, the learners with an introvert personality
usually make slow progress than the learners with an extrovert personality.
- In the case of SLA, the personality factors such as motivation, aptitude and attitude
are believed to indirectly influence the process of learning the L2.
- Attitude is one of the important personality factors which indirectly influence the level
of proficiency and linguistic abilities gained by different learners.
- In order to make language learning a beneficial and joyful experience, a learner need
to have a positive attitude towards the TL as positive attitude is very helpful to
facilitate learning.
- In general, successful language learners appear to have higher self-esteem than
those who are unsuccessful (Richard-Amato, 2003).

3. Culture
- The first language is one of the most important factors of a person’s culture. But a
second language is not that important in anyone’s culture.
- However, the second language has some effects on the culture of a person but not
significant enough to be counted as an element of that culture.
- Language and culture are intertwined, and one will affect the other.
- Cultural knowledge is crucial in achieving linguistic proficiency.
- L2 learners cannot truly master new language until they have mastered the cultural
context in which the new language occurs.
- This means that understanding a new culture is an important element in achieving
the success in second language acquisition.
- The learning of language and the learning of culture can be compared with a child’s
first experiences with the family into which he or she is born, the community to which
he or she belongs and the environment in which he or she lives.
- When we are infants, we acquire our first language in a natural way because our
society, our environment, and our culture continually feed us.
- Similarly, when we acquire a new language, we also need to ingest the new culture’s
nutrients.
- If children are given cultural knowledge, immersed in a culturally rich environment,
and exposed to culturally basic material, they may learn the second language with
more ease because their background knowledge about the second-language culture
will make comprehension less difficult.

4. Motivation
- A learner with good motivation to learn a second language is likely to learn that
language faster.
- But the acquisition of the first language does not require any motivation because it is
a natural phenomenon.
- The first language is acquired subconsciously and there is no need for motivation to
acquire it.
- In L2 learning, a person’s motivation is one of the factors that influence his/her
success in acquiring the L2.
- Two different types of motivation, are likely to be the two most important in language
acquisition.
- Instrumental Motivation, involves perception of purely practical value in learning the
L2, such as increasing occupational or business opportunities, enhancing prestige
and power, accessing scientific and technical information, or just passing a course in
school.
- Integrative motivation is based on interest in learning L2 because of a desire to learn
about or associate with people who use it (e.g. romantic reasons), or because an
intention to participate or integrate in the L2 using speech community; wherein,
emotions or affective factors are dominant (Saville & Troike, 2005).

5. Mother Tongue
- The first language is the mother tongue of a person.
- The second language learning depends a lot on the structures of the first language. If
the structure of the first language is similar to the second language, it will be easy
and fast for the learners to internalize it.
- For instance, an English native speaker will find Dutch easier to learn than Hindi as a
second language.
- A first language and a second language both have their effects on each other.
However, as we have learned that the first language is natural and has a solid base
in a person’s intellectual and psychological development, the first language is not
affected by the second language as much as the second language is affected by the
first language.
- Mother tongue influence manifests in the form of incorrect pronunciation in L2.
Generally, errors made in pronunciation are due to difference in the sound system
and spelling symbols between the mother tongue and L2.
- Added to this is the challenge of the fossilised sound system of the mother tongue of
the learners that inhibits the acquisition of the pronunciation and sound system of the
second language.
- Second language learners have a tendency to transfer everything from his mother
tongue to the second language.
- The more the language differs from a person's mother tongue in terms of alphabet
and grammar, the more difficult it will be to learn.