Theories of first language acquisition

Everyone at some time has witnessed the remarkable ability of children to communicate. As small babies, children babble and coo and cry and vocally or nonvocally send an extraordinary number of messages and receive even more messages. As they reach the end of their first year, children make spe­cific attempts to imitate words and speech sounds they hear around them, and about this time they utter their first "words." By about 18 months of age, these words have multiplied considerably and are beginning to appear in two-word and three-word "sentences"—commonly referred to as "tele­graphic" utterances—such as "allgone milk," "bye-bye Daddy," "gimme toy," and so forth. The production tempo now begins to increase as more and more words are spoken every day and more and more combinations of two- and three-word sentences are uttered. By about age three, children can comprehend an incredible quantity of linguistic input; their speech capacity mushrooms as they become the generators of nonstop chattering and incessant conversation, language thereby becoming a mixed blessing for those around them! This fluency continues into school age as children internalize increasingly complex structures, expand their vocabulary, and sharpen communicative skills. At school age, children not only learn what to say but what not to say as they learn the social functions of their language.

How can we explain this fantastic journey from that first anguished cry at birth to adult competence in a language? From the first word to tens of thousands? From telegraphese at eighteen months to the compound complex, cognitively precise, socioculturally appropriate sentences just a few short years later? These are the sorts of questions that theories of language acquisition attempt to answer.

In principle, one could adopt one of two polarized positions in the study of first language acquisition. Using the schools of thought referred to in the previous chapter, an extreme behavioristic position would claim that children come into the world with a tabula rasa, a clean slate bearing no preconceived notions about the world or about language, and that these children are then shaped by their environment and slowly conditioned through various schedules of reinforcement. At the other constructivist extreme is the position that makes not only the rationalist/cognitivist claim that children come into this world with very specific innate knowledge, predispositions, and biological timetables, but that children learn to func­tion in a language chiefly through interaction and discourse.

These positions represent opposites on a continuum, with many pos­sible positions in between. Now we are going to analyse main positions in the study of first language acquisition.

The theory of imitation

The "oldest" one - is the theory of imitation. It has adherents even nowadays. The essence of this theory: the child hears speech samples around and imitates these designs.

This theory, in our opinion, is not convincing enough and "exhaustive". We give only a few objections. Even from a large mass of diverse mono-sentences, which adults use, child among the first sentences, almost naturally, "selects" statements like "Mom", "Daddy," " Grandmom " "Auntie", "Uncle," "Father," "Give», «Take» and some others. On this objection the adepts of the Imitation Theory give the following argument: first words, sentences reportedly consist of the most common in the articular pronunciation sounds and the articulation of these sounds, the child has the ability to perceive visually.

However, until now there is no clear definition of criteria of sounds’ articulatory complexity (simplicity) and their hierarchy according to this feature. There is no evidence to suggest that, for example, the sound [d] more difficult or easier to sound [b], although the latter usually comes before the sound [d]; just as there are no grounds to assert that the sound [l] easier or harder then the sound [r] , [f] easier or harder then [h], etc.

Of course, it does not depend on sounds’ articulatory "simplicity" or "complexity", especially in their "observability" and "unobservability" (blind children without other anomalies, learn the sounds in the same sequence as others). The point is in functional significance for the formation of language phonetic(or rather - phonemic) sounds system. Sounds [a] [a], [i]; [m], [p], [b], [t>], [t], [d], [d>], [n] comes first, not because they are articulatory "easier" then others, but because they are mostly pronounced ([a] - [o] [p] - [a] [p] - [m] [p] - [t]; [t>] - [d>];, etc.) and provide the necessary basis for the formation of other sounds (or rather - phonemes). With these basic sounds (phonemes) child is able to build the first words-sentences codified language to communicate, seeking to satisfy their needs (biological or social).

Numerous targeted surveillance of a language ontogenesis, and experimental studies have shown invalidity of Imitation Theory (275, 278, 284, etc.). In particular, it was proved that children usually do not use those sentences (syntactic structures) which are heard from mother. If the "average" child of 18-20 months, is offered to repeat the word "doll", "sit", “on”, "table", he will do it (of course, with a particular pronu

nciation of most words). However, having the ability to repeat isolated words, child can not repeat the sentence "The doll sits on the table". He will say: "Doll" or "Doll sits", or "Dolly table" and not otherwise, because in this age of syntactic and semantic components of its linguistic mechanism "work" in that way, and any kinds of imitation can not change this mechanism (to special events children’s "repeating" phrases are include). In addition, words which child repeats only at the insistence of adults, as a rule, would not be included into child’s independent speech.