LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen

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Youtube Babies:
Charlie Bit My Finger Again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM Evil-Eye Baby: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=evil+eye+baby&search_ty pe=&aq=0&oq=evil+ Funny Baby Blood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9WmKre5O2I The Marshmallow Test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWW1vpz1ybo

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LANGUAGE STAGES
Stage: Crying Cooing Babbling Intonation Holophrastic Pivot-Open Word Inflections Questions & Negatives Rare & Complex Lg Mature Speech
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Age: Birth 6 Weeks 6 Months 8 Months 1 Year 18 Months 2 Years 2 Years 5 Years 10 Years (Aitchison 570)
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CARETAKER SPEECH
Simplified Vocabulary Simplified Phonology Exaggerated Pitch & Intonation

Many Questions by Mothers

Many Imperatives by Fathers Baby-Talk Words
e.g. wawa, choo-choo, tummy, scambled eggs, pasghetti
(Moskowitz 534)

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ACQUISITION OF SOUNDS
Properties of easy sounds: Front of the Mouth Total Articulation Muscles already Developed (in Nursing) Easy Sounds: /m, p, b, t, d/ Hard Sounds: /, , , , r, l/ clusters Easy sounds occur in more languages and are learned earlier by children. (Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams [2011] 333-335)

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ACQUISITION OF WORDS
vov-vov mooi dany quack dog moon bell sound duck sound
for dogs, kittens, hens, zoo animals

for moon, cake <O> anything round

for bell, clock, telephone, doorbell

ducks, birds, insects, coins (because a coin had an eagle on it)

koko

rooster crowing
rooster, merry-go-round, musical sounds, all sounds

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 335-336)

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[?aw] not, no, dont

[b^?]/[m^?] up [da] dog [i?o]/[si?o] Cheerios [sa] sock [aj]/[^j] light [baw]/[daw] down

[s:] aerosol spray

[sju:] shoe [haj] hi [sr] shirt sweater [s:]/[es:] whats that? [ma] mommy [d] daddy (J.P. at 16 months)
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 336)

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[pun] spoon [peyn] plane [tIs] kiss [taw] cow [tin] clean [pol-r] stroller

[majtl] Michael [dajt-r] diaper [pati] Papi [mani] Momy [b-rt] Bert [b-rt] Big Bird (- is schwa) (Michael from 18-21 months)
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 341)

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Michael systematically substituted the alveolar stop [t] for the velar stop [k] as in his words for cow, clean, kiss, and his own name. He also replaced labial [p] with [t] when it occurred in the middle of a word, as in his words for Papi and diaper.
He reduced consonant clusters in spoon, plane, and stroller, and he devoiced final stops as in Big Bird. In devoicing the final [d] in bird, he created an ambiguous form [b-rt] referring both to Bert and Big Bird. (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 341)
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Michaels substitutions are typical of the phonological rules that operate in the very early stages of acquisition. Other common rules are reduplication bottle becomes [baba], water becomes [wawa]; and the dropping of a final consonantbed becomes [be], cake becomes ke]. These two rules show that the child prefers a simple CV syllable. (Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams [2011] 341)

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[dot] dont
[kh Ip] skip [su] shoe [dt] that [ph e] play [d^p] thump [bt] bath

[th ap] stop

[kIdi] kitty [wajt] light [dawi] dolly [go] grow ([ph ] [th ] [kh ] are aspirated [p] [t] and [k] respectively)
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 371)

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ACQUISITION OF GRAMMAR
Holophrastic (one part of speech) Pivot-Open (two parts of speech) Telegraphic (four parts of speech) Adult (eight parts of speech)

Linguist (each part of speech has many subcategories)

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THREE STAGES OF ACQUISITION OF MORPHOLOGY

1. Holophrastic: men, went, broke, brought Right Answer, but Wrong Reason 2. Rule-Governed: mans, goed, breaked, bringed Wrong Answer, but Right Reason 3. Knowledge of both Rules and Exceptions to the Rules: men, went, broke, brought Right Answer, and Right Reason

NOTE: These stages also operate for adults learning a new profession (Moskowitz 533) (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 336, 370-371)
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WHAT WOULD A CHILD SAY?

children went better best brought sang geese worst knives worse
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 371)

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GRAMMAR: TWO-WORD STAGE

The two-word stage is also called the Pivot-Open stage because one of the words is usually a Lexical Word (an open set that refers to something), and the other word is a Functional Word (a closed set with grammatical rather than reference meaning). In the following sentences, indicate which is the Pivot word and which is the Open word:

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Allgone sock. Byebye boat. More wet. Katherine Sock.

Hi Mommy. Allgone sticky. It ball. Dirty sock.

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 333)

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See boy See soci. Pretty boat. Pretty fan. More taxi. More melon.

Push it. Move it. Mommy sleep. Bye-bye melon. Bye-bye hot. (Adam, Eve, and Sarah)
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 369-370)

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M. L. U.
As children progress from the holophrastic to the pivot-open to the telegraphic to the mature stages of language development, a simple but effective gauge of their level of development is MLU.

MLU means Mean Length of Utterance. MLU is the average length of the utterances the child is producing at a particular point. (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 347)

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TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH
During this stage of development, the functional categories like Determiners, Auxiliaries, Prepositions, Conjunctions and Expletives are missing. And the Lexical categories like Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs (usually without any suffixes) are present.

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Cat stand up table. What that? He play little tune. Andrew want that. Cathy build house. No sit there. (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 347)

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ACQUISITION OF MORPHOLOGY
AGE 2: Progressive ing: Plural s: Copula am, is, are: Articles a, the: I singing. blue shoes. He is asleep. He is a doctor.

(Aitchison 574)

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ACQUISITION OF MORPHOLOGY 2
AGE 3: Third Person Singular s: Past tense d: Full Progressive be + -ing: Shortened Copula: He wants an apple I helped Mummy I am singing Hes a doctor

Shortened Progressive:

Im singing
(Aitchison 574)

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CHILD: Nobody dont like me. MOTHER: No, say Nobody likes me. CHILD: Nobody dont like me. (dialogue repeated eight times) MOTHER: Now, listen carefully, say Nobody likes me. CHILD: Oh, nobody dont likes me. (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 326)

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ADULT: What does [maws] mean? CHILD: Like a cat. ADULT: Yes, What else? CHILD: Nothing else. ADULT: Its part of your head. CHILD: [fascinated] ADULT: [touching childs mouth] Whats this? CHILD: [maws] (Neil Smith talking to 2-year-old Amahl) (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 327)

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CHILDRENS METAPHORS
Dont giggle me. I danced the clown. Yawny Babyyou can push her mouth open to drink her. Who deaded my kitty cat? Are you gonna nice yourself?

CF: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 361)

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WUG AS A NOUN
Make it plural. Make it possessive.

Make it plural and possessive. (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 343-344)

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WUG AS A VERB
Put it after he in a sentence. Make it past tense. Make it a past participle. Make it a present participle.
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 343-344)

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WUG AS AN ADJECTIVE OR ADVERB

Make it comparative. Make it superlative.
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 343-344)

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ACQUISITION OF NEGATIVES
Stage One: No you catch me. Stage Two: You didnt caught me. Stage Three: You didnt catch me. (Moskowitz 547)

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ACQUISITION OF WH-QUESTIONS
STAGE ONE: What Mummy doing? STAGE TWO: Where you will go? STAGE THREE: Where will you go? Why you singing? Why kitty cant see? Where daddy go? Why you dont know?

Why cant kitty see?

Why dont you know? (Aitchison, 575)

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CHILD: Want other one spoon, Daddy. FATHER: You mean, you want the other spoon. CHILD: Yes, I want the other one spoon, please Daddy. FATHER: Can you say, the other spoon?

CHILD: Other one spoon. FATHER: Say other.

CHILD: Other. FATHER: Spoon CHILD: Spoon FATHER: Other spoon. CHILD: Other spoon. Now give me other one spoon? (Aitchison, 565)(Braine, 161) (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 327)
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CHILD: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. ADULT: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? CHILD: Yes ADULT: What did you say she did?

CHILD: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. ADULT: Did you say she held them tightly?
CHILD: No, she holded them loosely (Aitchison 566)(Cazden 92) (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 325)

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EXPLAIN THE FOLLOWING

Self-Directed Louding: Babys getting a rash Rhetorical Questions: Dont you know I just wiped that off? Self-Answered Questions: What does the lamb say? Baaa. Limiting Questions: Do you want chocolate or vanilla? What is the function of egocentric speech? Do adults use this device? (Heath 617)

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RESTRICTED AND ELABORATED CODES

In 1971, Basil Bernstein distinguished between local language (restricted codes) and public language (elaborated codes). Restricted codes use he and she instead of Mom and Dad. They use back channels like You know. They use tags like isnt it. They use fewer verbs and adjectives.

They use more slang, fixed expressions, and cliches.

(Bernstein 5)

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ACQUISITION OF HUMOR
Even babies have a sense of humor. Adults laugh with children who are playing peek-aboo or watching Sesame Street with its Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. Young children are also fond of knock-knock jokes and riddles. (Nilsen & Nilsen 9-10)

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TOILET HUMOR
Alvin Schwartz says that children who are six or seven enjoy toilet humor because they no longer have accidents, but they still remember when they did. They like the following poem:

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I see London; I see France. I see Betsys underpants. They arent green; they arent blue. Theyre just filled with number two. They also like to talk about the secret parts of the body:

Mary had a little bear, The best that she could find. And everywhere that Mary went, There was her bare behind. (Nilsen & Nilsen 11)
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CONSERVATION HUMOR
Paul McGhee told a joke to children of different ages: A man goes into a pizza parlor and tells the server to cut his pizza into four pieces because he isnt hungry enough to eat six pieces. 1st Graders didnt laugh because they didnt get the joke. They hadnt yet mastered conservation. (Nilsen & Nilsen 10)
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8th Graders didnt laugh because they had mastered conservation so long ago that there was no tension. The students in the middle grades laughed the hardest. They experienced pleasure because they could take pride in the fact that they were able to figure out that the amount of pizza was the same regardless of how many pieces it was cut into. (Nilsen & Nilsen 10)

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!6 LEVELS OF HUMOR DEVELOPMENT

In Antony Chapmans Its a Funny Thing, Humor, Alice Sheppard has outlined six levels of humor development for children: LEVEL 1 (IDIOSYNCRATIC): Involves amusement related to a young childs individual experience as with a surprise, a physical sensation, or a response to someone elses smile or laughter. (Nilsen & Nilsen 10)

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!LEVEL 2 (NORMATIVE): Involves a generalization that implies a rule, or a convention. Later, the child will violate the rule or convention. LEVEL 3 (EXPECTATION): Involves a reference to the unusualness or the improbability of an event. LEVEL 4 (RELATIONAL): Involves concern for inner motives related to a situation, relations among events, and multiple aspects of the situation. (Nilsen & Nilsen 10)

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!!LEVEL 5 (EXTRA-CONTEXTUAL): Involves context beyond the situation implied in the notion of parody, take-off, irony, or satire. It also involves the distinction between appearance and reality; the humor is revealed as contingent upon subtle aspects of events. LEVEL 6 (PHILOSOPHICAL): Involves the ability to see what is ridiculous in the nature of things and to generalize an outlook from humor examples. (Nilsen & Nilsen 10)

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!!!Summary of Life

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References: Aitchison, Jean. Predestinate Grooves: Is There a Preordained Language `Program? (Clark, 560-579). Bernstein, Basil. Class, Codes and Control: Three Volumes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971-1975. Braine, M. D. S. The Acquisition of Language in Infant and Child. in The Learning of Language Ed. C. E. Reed. New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971.

Cazden, Courtney. Child Language and Education New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.
Chapman, Antony J., and Hugh C. Foot, eds. Humor and Laughter: Theory, Research, and Applications. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1996.

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Clark, Virginia, Paul Eschholz, and Alfred Rosa. Language: Readings in Language and Culture, 6th Edition. New York, NY: St. Martins Press, 1998. Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. Language Acquisition. An Introduction to Language, 9th Edition. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2011, 324-374. Fromkin, Victoria, Stephen Krashen, Susan Curtiss, David Rigler and Marilyn Rigler. The Development of Language in Genie: A Case of Language Acquisition beyond the `Critical Period (Clark, 588-604).

Groch, A. Joking and Appreciation of Humor in Nursery School Children. Child Development 45.4 (1974): 1098-1102.
Heath, Shirley Brice. Teaching How to Talk in Roadville: The First Words (609-625).

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Hyams, Nina. Language Acquisition and the Theory of Parameters. New York, NY: D. Reidel Publishers, 1986. Lenneberg, Eric. Developmental Milestones in Motor and Language Development (Clark, 556-559). McGhee, Paul E. How to Develop Your Sense of Humor: An 8-Step Humor Development Training Program. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1994. McGhee, Paul E. Humor and Childrens Development: A Guide to Practical Applications. New York, NY: Haworth, 1989. McGhee, Paul E. Humor Log for the 8-Step Humor Development Training Program. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1994.

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Miller, George and Patricia Gildea. How Children Learn Words (Clark, 580-587). Moskowitz, Breyne. The Acquisition of Language (Clark, 529-555). Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Acquisition of a Sense of Humor. Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000, 9-11. Pines, Maya. Genie: A Postscript (Clark, 605-608).

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