Nusa Cendana University Kupang,

English Department Nusa Tenggara Timur

Second Language Acquisition

Presented by:
Michael Aditya Amalo (1601020119)
Class/Semester: C/6
 I. THE ROLE OF THE FIRST LANGUAGE
ACCORDING TO BEHAVIORIST LEARNING THEORY
A. Definition of First Language Acquisition (L1)
• Acquisition is carried out in the first years of
childhood and leads to unconscious knowledge of
one's native language which is practically indelible.
• This is the acquisition of the mother tongue.
• The degree of competence acquired may vary from
individual to individual and may be checked by later
switching to another language.

Source: https://www.uni-due.de/ELE/LanguageAcquisition.htm
 B. What is Behaviorist Learning Theory?
Behaviorism is an approach to psychology and learning that
emphasizes observable measurable behavior. The behaviorist theory of
animal and human learning focuses only on objectively observable
behaviors and discounts mental activities. Behavior theorists define
learning as a more or less permanent change in behavior. In
behaviorism, the learner is viewed as passively adapting to their
environment.
C. The First Language Acquisition According to Behaviorist Learning
Theory
• The behaviorist theory suggests that language is learnt through a
process including imitation, reinforcement and reward.
Sources:
• http://www2.vobs.at/ludescher/Ludescher/LAcquisition/Behaviourist/seite6.htm)
• https://www.academia.edu/4456398/Behaviorist_theory_on_language_acquisition
 • Behaviorist’s like Skinner (1904) suggested
that the acquisition of language is a
learned behavior.

• Behaviorists believe that human beings learn by associating two events

known as classical conditioning. Through this repeated exposure
children will learn to associate an object with a sound or word.
• Another aspect of the behaviorist approach is called operant
conditioning. Operant conditioning is a way to change the behavior,
through the use of reinforcement which is given after the desired
response. This allows the child to understand that all behavior has a
consequence.
Sources:
https://www.academia.edu/4456398/Behaviorist_theory_on_language_acquisition
https://www.academia.edu/9426444/Behaviorism
 D. Approaches Of Behaviorist Learning Theory to First Language
Acquisition (L1)

Say what I say

• Language learning is the result of:

 Imitation (word-for-word repetition),
 Practice (repetitive manipulation of form),
 Feedback on success (positive reinforcement)
 Habit formation.

Source: https://www.slideshare.net/ValeriaRoldn/first-language-acquisition-behaviourism
 • Children’s imitations are not random. Their imitation is selective
and based on what they are currently learning.
• Children’s practice of new language forms.
 Substitution drills.
 It is selective and reflects what they would like to learn.
 They pick out patterns/rules and then generalize or
overgeneralize them to new contexts.

Source: https://www.slideshare.net/ValeriaRoldn/first-language-acquisition-behaviourism
 E. An example of early language development through the reinforcement of
successive approximations is as follows:

1) An infant makes sounds mimicking the sounds that he hears adults make.
2) Eventually, he says “baba” while reaching towards his bottle, and his mother
gives him his bottle. But as time goes on, “baba” becomes “baby talk” in his
mother’s eyes, and he must fully pronounce “bottle” to get what he wants.
3) Even further down the line, he must speak in full sentences to be rewarded.

In this scenario, the child learns a behavior (language) through operant

conditioning, and the behavior is gradually shaped over time through the
reinforcement of successive approximations.

Source: https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-learn-language-through-behaviorism-theory-144887
 II. HABITS OF FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

• According to behaviorist learning theory, language

learning is like any other kind of learning as it
involves habit formation.
• Those habits are formed when learners respond to
stimulus in the environment and consequently they
have their responses reinforcement so these
responses are remembered.
• Learning takes place when learners had the
opportunity to practice making the correct response
to a given stimulus.
Source: https://www.academia.edu/6887202/The_habit-formation_theory
 • The main components of the habit formation
process.
 Children imitate sounds and patterns hearing
around him.
 People recognize children attempt as being
similar to adults’ utterance.
 They reinforce or reward the sounds, by
approval or by desirable reaction.
 Children repeat the sounds to gain more
rewards, such repetitions become habits.
 In this manner, the verbal behavior is shaped
until the habits coincide with the adult models.

Source: https://www.academia.edu/6887202/The_habit-formation_theory
 III. ERRORS
• In linguistics, an error is the use of a word, speech act or grammatical items in such a
way it seems imperfect and significant of an incomplete learning. It is considered as
a systematic deviation that happens when a learner has not learnt something, and
consistently gets it wrong.
• Errors are ‘signals’ that indicate an actual learning process taking place and that the
learner has not yet mastered or shown a well-structured competence in the target
language.
• Either on the systematic deviations triggered in the language learning process, or its
indications of the actual situation of the language learner themselves which will
later help the monitor be it an applied linguist or particularly the language teacher
to solve the problem respecting one of the approaches argued in the Error Analysis
(Anefnaf 2017), the occurrence of errors doesn’t only indicate that the learner has
not learned something yet, but also it gives the linguist the idea of whether the
teaching method applied was effective or it needs to be changed.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_(linguistics)
 • Errors are significantly devided into into three things.

1) First to the teacher, in that they tell him, if he or she undertakes a

systematic analysis, how far towards that goal the learner has
progressed and, consequently, what remains for him to learn.

2) Second, they provide the researcher with evidence of how language

is learned or acquired, and what strategies or procedures the
learner is employing in his discovery of the language.

3) Third (and in a sense this is their most important aspect) they are
indispensable to the learner himself, because we can regard the
making of errors as a device the learner uses in order to learn

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_(linguistics)
 IV. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF CONTRASTIVE
ANALYSIS
• The psychological aspects of contrastive analysis concern the difficulty of
learning, how to arrange teaching materials and how to deliver learning
materials.
• The basic aspects of psychology in contrastive analysis are associationism
and stimulus-response theory.
• The psychological foundation of contrastive analysis is transfer theory, by
means of which gains made in one skill will always be relevant for
subsequent gains made in other skills
• It can be said that the psychological basis of contrastive analysis is transfer
theory, elaborated and formulated within a Stimulus-Response
Sources: (behaviourist) theory of psychology.
• http://meky-anak-ranau.blogspot.com/2011/10/analisis-kontrastif-materi-anakes.html
• https://www.scribd.com/doc/95667785/Psychological-Basis-of-CA
 • In psychological, associationism is the idea that mental processes
operate by the association of one entity with another. The term
associative learning means learning when there is a contact
relationship, connection, or association between two things.
• Example of associative learning can be seen as follows:
a) If someone hears the word “table”, then he may remember / think
of the word “chair”, because the word is often used together with
or with the word table. This is called "association by contiguity"
contact association.
b) If someone hears the word “chat”, then he may remember / think
that it is the same to the word “talk” as it has the same meaning
This is called "associations by similarity" or assimilation with
(ways) similarity ".
c) If someone hears the word “happy”, he/she may be curious /
think of a difficult word, because it has the opposite meaning.
This is called "association by contrast" or "association with (the
way) contrast".
Sources:
• https://www.scribd.com/doc/95667785/Psychological-Basis-of-CA
• http://tentangpendidikanbahasa.blogspot.com/2017/03/dasar-dasar-psikologis-dalam-analisis.html
 • The S-R theory (stimulus-response theory) is a learning theory that is
mainly associated with American psychology, B. F. Skinner (1904), which
provides lessons as formation of associations between various responses.
• A "stimulus" is one that produces a change or reaction in a person or
organism.
• "Responsiveness" is the behavior produced as a reaction to the stimulus.
• "Reinforcement" is a stimulus that follows the occurrence of a response
and results in or affects the probability / probability of whether the
response occurs or does not occur again.

Source: https://bagawanabiyasa.wordpress.com/2016/08/14/analisis-kontrastif/
 V. THE LINGUISTICS ASPECTS OF CONTRASTIVE
ANALYSIS

• The linguistic aspect is related to the

problem of comparing two languages.
In this case two important things are
implied; what will be compared, and
how to compare it.

Sources: http://meky-anak-ranau.blogspot.com/2011/10/analisis-kontrastif-materi-anakes.html
 • The linguistic level that is often employed in contrastive analysis
includes:
a. Phonology field
This field is the most comparable field. The reason is that the role
of the language accent is very large on L2. The comparison must
compare segmental and suprasegmental sounds L1 and L2, vocoid
and cotoid sounds, diphthong sounds, vocal and cosmic phonemes,
possible allophones, and phonotactics L1 and L2.
b. Syntax field
Comparators can compare the characteristics of the development of
phrases L1 and L2, the basic patterns of sentences L1 and L2,
characteristics of question and command sentences, characteristics
of combining sentences, and all those related to the analysis of
syntax in a micro language.

Source: http://fahmiaminudin.blogspot.com/2010/05/analisis-kontrastif-analisis-kesalahan.html