Motherese and L1 acquisition

Gradually during the 1970s a consider-able bulk of empirical research was built
up which investigated how mothers talked to their children (e.g. Snow and
Ferguson 1977; Waterson and Snow 1978).
1. The nature of motherese
Snow (1976) list a number of these: lower mean length of utterances, the
use of sentences with a limited range of grammatical relations, few
subordinate and co-ordinate constructions, more simple sentences, the
occurrence of tutorial questions (i.e. question to which the mother already
know the answer), and overall, a high level of redundancy. There are also
adjustments in pronunciation. Sachs (1977) show that mother tune the pitch,
intonation, and rhythm to perspective sensitively of the child. These
adjustments were considered to constitute a special use of language or
register, known as motherese.
2. The functions of motherese
Ferguson (1977) suggests that there are three main functions: (1) an aid to
communication, (2) a language teaching aid, and (3) a socialization function.
Mothers seek to communicate with their children, and this leads them to
simplify their speech in order to facilitate the exchange the meanings.
Mothers pay a little attention to the formal correctness of their childrens
speech, but instead attend to the social appropriateness of their utterances.
Brown (1977) describes the primary motivation as to communicate, to
understand, and to be understood, to keep two minds focused on the same
topic.
3. The basis of adjustment made by mothers
Gleason and Weintraub (1978) suggest that parents have a general idea of
their childrens linguistic ability, particularly their ability to understand, but
they lack an accurate knowledge of what specific linguistic features their
children have mastered. Parents may internalize a model of a typical child
of a given age and then adjust their speech upwards and downwards on the
basis feedback from an individual child.
4. The effect of motherese
The ways in which mothers speech adjustments affect first language
acquisition, a distinction needs to be drawn between the route and the rate
of acquisition. Cross (1977;1978), Ellis and Wells (1980), and Barners et al.
(1983) suggest that the way mother talk to their children influences how
rapidly they acquire the language.
5. Explaining the effects
Ferrier (1978) explains, the child finds himself in routine interactional
contexts in which his mother produces a limited set of predictable
utterances. The regularity and invariance of the caretakers utterances,
together with the accommodations of the caretaker whenever she observes
the child in communicative difficultly create activities of shared attention
which serve as the basis for the process of modality matching.

Clark and Clark (1977) suggest that in the process of making their children
understand, mothers provide three types of language lessons in miniature.
Three types of language lessons is (1) Conventional lessons, (2) mapping
lessons, and (3) segmentation lessons.
Input and interaction in natural settings
The study of natural linguistic environments comprises two related approaches:
(1) the study of foreigner talk (i.e. the register user by native speakers when
they address non-native speakers), and (2) the study of discourse involving
conversations between native speakers and L2 learners.
Foreigner talk studies
The description of foreigner talk
A foreigner talk has both formal and functional characteristics. Long (1981a)
labels these input and interactional feature respectively. The input features are
two types: (1) those that involve simplifications within grammatical rule
structure of the language, and (2) those that involve simplifications leading
ungrammatical speech. Interactional features consist of the specific discourse
functions performed by native speakers. The distinctions between input and
interaction features and grammatical and ungrammatical simplifications, three
types of foreigner talk can be identified:
1. Foreigner talk consisting only of interactional adjustments (i.e. there are no
formal simplifications);
2. Foreigner talk consisting of interactional and grammatical input adjustments
(i.e. there are no ungrammatical simplifications);
3. Foreigner talk consisting of interactional adjustments as well as both
grammatical and ungrammatical input adjustments.
Explaining foreigner talk
Explanations of foreigner talk need to consider both why and adjustments occur
and also how they take place.
Hatch (1983b) suggests that foreigner talk has the same basic functions as
motherese. That is (1) it promotes communication, (2) it establish a special kind
of affective bond between the native speaker and the non-native speaker, and
(3) it serves as an implicit teaching mode. Naro (1983) argues that foreigner
talk can occur with an explicit teaching function i.e. be used specifically to help
the learner learn.
Long (1983b) suggest that use of the ungrammatical foreigner talk depends on
four conditions:
1. The non-native speaker has very low proficiency in the L2.
2. The native speaker thinks he is of a higher status.
3. The native speaker has considerable prior experience of foreigner talk.

4. The conversation occurs spontaneously (i.e. is not part of laboratory

experiment)
Explanations of how native speakers are able to adjust their speech include
1. Regression (i.e. the native speaker unconsciously moves back through the
stages of development that characterized ho own acquisition of the
language until he reaches an appropriate level for the person he is
addressing);
2. Matching (i.e. the native speakers assesses the learners language system
and then imitates the language forms he identifies in it);
3. Negotiation (i.e. the native speaker simplifies and clarifies accordance with
the feedback that he obtains from the learner).