THE NATURE, PROBLEM AND STRESS AT THE FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

A.    The Nature of Language Acquisition

This section discusses the process of language acquisition that is the nature of the point of view of some experts that is Noam Chomsky, Derek Bickerton and David McNeill. It basically is a process that is the nature of language acquisition is that the language acquisition process is determined by innate knowledge and innate properties that are universal for experienced or shared by all humans (Brown, 2000:34).

a.      Noam Chomsky

As a manifestation of the outcry over behaviorism in the late era of the 1950s, Chomsky, who is a native attack Skinner's theory which states that language acquisition is influenced by nature or nurture the environment?. Chomsky argued that language acquisition is based on nature because he said when the child was born he had to be equipped with a specific tool that makes it capable of studying a language. The tool is called the Language Acquisition Device (language acquisition device / LAD) which is universal as evidenced by the similarities in the children in their language acquisition process (Dardjowidjojo, 2003:235-236).

Skinner thought to be too simplistic when he averaged behave like human knowledge acquisition process with the process of gaining knowledge of animals, namely rats and pigeons are used as subjects in experiments, because according to the natives approach, for human language is a social phenomenon and the evidence of human presence (Pateda, 1991:102). There are also other reasons why the natives approach to the theory disagrees Skinner. These reasons relate to the language itself, according to the natives language is something that only humans have language for a system that has certain rules, creative, and depending on the structure (Dardjowidjojo, 2003:236). Still in relation to language, as well as the complexity of the language, the natives believes the language is a mental activity and should not be considered as physical activity, this is why the nativist approach is also called the mentalistic approach (Pateda, 1991:101).

b.      Derek Bickerton

Another supporter of the process of language acquisition that is nature is Derek Bickerton (Brown, 2000:35). He did some research on the provision that brought humans from birth (innateness) and get some significant evidence. The evidence reveals that humans actually have "biologically programmed" to switch from one stage of language to the next stage of language and the human hard-wired from birth to produce a specific linguistic properties at a certain developmental age as well (Brown, 2000:35). Thus language acquisition is not determined by the conditions given in children but is determined by a process running by itself since the child is born into the world along with knowledge of the language and the age of maturity of the child.

c.       David McNeill

a)      In Brown (2000:24) states that the LAD consists of four innate linguistic properties, namely: The ability to distinguish sounds of human speech (speech sounds) of the other sounds in the environment

b)      Ability to organize the data into a variety of language classes that can be refined or improved in the future.

c)      Knowledge that only certain types of linguistic systems that are likely to be used and other types of systems are not likely to be used.

d)     The ability to conduct an evaluation of the system is constantly evolving language so it can build the simplest system of the existing linguistic input.

In answer to the question of how people learn the language, Bell (1981:24) also tried to put forward some views Chomsky, namely:

a)      Activity occurring within the mind, such as how to process, store and retrieve knowledge from these deposits, which is the primary focus and not the physical embodiment of knowledge.

b)      Learning is a matter of "reasonable acceptance" of the data received by the brain through the five senses.

c)      Individual's ability to respond to new situations in which if only armed with a stimuli-response habit alone will not be able to make the individual is ready.

d)     Learning is a mental process because it is better to know and cannot express in words rather than speak without understanding.

B.     The Problem of Language Acquisition

Investigators of early language acquisition have relied mainly on naturalistic observations. The usual method has been to follow a child and write down each utterance, noting the pronunciation and apparent meaning. Many investigators have kept diaries of how their children’s language developed from the first word on. Nowadays tape recorder and video-tape systems have either supplemented or replaced paper and pencil. Children are usually recorded for set periods of time in their home while the observer keeps additional notes on the context and each child’s activities. Tape recordings have two advantages over a paper and pencil method: first, they record what others say to the child as well as what the child says, and second, the tapes can be checked and rechecked afterwards for accuracy in their transcription. Although video-tapes-record the context and the children’s activities as well as they utterances, this method of observation is harder to use in the home because video cameras are much more intrusive than tape recorders.

The next step has been to take each utterance and by drawing on its context decided what it meant. The context normally includes what is known about the children, their routines, their toys, and their activity at the time of the utterance as well as what others may have been saying. This use of context in interpreting what children most probably meant is known as rich interpretation. Essentially, it assumes that children intended to communicate something by their utterances and it allows the investigator to make an interpretation appropriate to the context.

The third step is to use these data to make inferences about the nature of the acquisition process. In addition to the utterances produced by the child, investigators may take into account the child’s cognitive and social development; the eventual goal of acquisition (attainment of an adult like use of language); and the information available to the child about language (primarily information from the speech of others).

Naturalistic observations are generally complemented by experimental studies to follow up the observations and test specific predictions. In language acquisition, experiment have been used mainly to study children’s comprehension to find out how much they really understand and to what degree they rely on contextual clues.

When children use their first words, sometimes between the ages of one and two years, they begin by talking about what they already know. In effect, the “here and now” provides the propositional content of one and two word utterances. Children also rely on what they know about communicating without language when they start to communicate with language. Their first speech-act assertions and requests are built on what they know about conveying interest and conveying desires. Children also seen treat to convey thematic information with their earliest utterances. At the one word stage, for example, children may introduce a topic to start a conversation and then treat it as given when they go on to provide further new information. By the two word stage they often combine given and new in a single utterance and focal stress to indicate what is new.

What young children say is complemented by what they appear to understand. This is usually harder to asses because they rely on all kinds of non-linguistic cues direction of gaze, gestures, and the context itself in trying interpreting what adults say to them. At the same time, adults systematically modify their speech in an effort to tailor it for children whose understanding of language is still limited. The adults’ goal is to make sure children as much as possible. The modifications  they make to this end have the incidental side effect of providing children with miniature language lessons on how to talk about the ‘her and now” and how to carry on conversations.

C.    The stress of language acquisition

1.      Acquisition in phonology

·         Process of language acquisition

Children first acquire the small set of sounds common to all languages of the world

o   Eg) [p, s, b, m, d, k] but not [T]

Order of acquisition

o   Manner: nasals>glides>stops>liquids>fricatives>affricates

o   Place: labials>velars>alveolars>palatals

o   Voicing

§  In early stages children may not distinguish voicing of consonants

§  If they distinguish bet p/b, they also distinguish others like t/d, s/z

2.      Acquisition in Syntax

In the holophrastic stage, children have knowledge of some syntactic rules.

a.       17-month-old children distinguish between “Ernie is tickling Bert” and “Bert is tickling Ernie.”

b.      relying on word order rules (syntax)

Age 2;0

ü  Begin to put words together

Age 3;0

ü  consistent use of function morphemes complex sentence structures such as coordinated sentences  and embedded sentences of various kinds

3.      Acquisition in Pragmatics

Pragmatic aspects (knowing contexts) are acquired relatively late wrong use of pronouns (3 or 4-yr-olds)

ü  “He hit me” when mommy doesn’t know who “he” is.

Difficulty in shifting reference

ü  “You want to take a walk”  meaning “I”

Wrong use of articles

a.       Use of the definite article as the indefinite article for introducing a new referent

b.      They assume that his listener knows who he is talking about