Understanding Language Acquisition, Essay Example

Possessing an ability to speak a language is a purely human trait; no animal can do that, and all normal human beings can (Pinker, 1991). For this reason the issue of speaking a language, knowing it and obtaining the basis knowledge of it have become the prime focus of cognitive sciences, linguistics in particular. The question of how children learn to speak is the central objective of all language acquisition efforts, and answering the question in detail and depth will open new doors to understanding the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms driving human communicative potential and abilities (Guasti, 2004).  For this reason the present paper is dedicated to the fundamentals of language acquisition, shaping the educator’s views on the process and main concepts thereof, as well as to the evolution of understanding dictated by practical implications in teaching.

Looking at the theory of language acquisition, one may think that the process is challenging and complicated, since the deep understanding of the rules, patterns and principles guiding the formation of sentences, the propriety of using various words, the awareness of the stylistic propriety of certain phrases etc. cannot come naturally. Nonetheless, the child practice in language acquisition shows that children acquire language without any complexity, during a sustainable period of time, they may do this only by hearing the examples, and there is no difference in languages (the language acquisition process is the same in all languages) (Guasti, 2004). The only remaining question is the exploration of the methods and techniques children use to learn a language. Since the result is guaranteed, the very process acquires more attention.

The understanding of language acquisition as a concept comes from realizing the fact what biological mechanisms drive the acquisition and how they can be affected and changed. The major two influential issues are heredity (the evolutionary capability to speak included in the child’s genotype in the process of impregnation) and environment (both the close one, including parents and friends who speak a language, and surrounding people that can be met in the street or in the shop). As a result, the child gets the initial ‘settings’ for the language formation, following the example of surrounding people and starting to talk and to use analogous terms. The maturation of language circuits in the child’s early years also contributes to the formation of striving to acquire language skills. As a result, the child moves towards expressing his or her thoughts through language using the formulations acquired through positive experience (Pinker, 1991).

One more issue to consider in the context of discussing language acquisition is the interdependence of language and thoughts. The linguistic abilities were long thought to be the precondition of successful thinking; the reason for this was the conceptual world image by which all people operate in thinking. It was found out that people representing various cultures and languages perceive objects in various ways; hence, it was proven that the language the individual speaks is seriously reflected in his/her type of thinking. Nonetheless, the recent research denies the full dependence of thoughts on language and assumes the existence of abstract images that people operate while not yet being able to speak. As a result, one can make a conclusion that individuals may think without knowing a language, but language acquisition helps them express their ideas more clearly and understandably for the similar native speakers.

Surely, the process of language acquisition in early years is natural and non-forced. It means that the language acquisition does not need any systematic instruction, as children absorb all surrounding linguistic data like sponges. Here comes the main reason for being cautious in expressions and choice of words: children resemble their parents and people whom they treat positively. In case swear words or negative expressions about some people or objects are repeatedly voiced, there is a great chance to embed them into the unconscious level of the child’s thinking, therefore creating a distorted system of judgments and values.

My personal vision of language acquisition was not always like the one I have just voiced; there used to be the time when I was sure grammar and morphology should come first, and children should learn to speak correctly. However, much of my effort was broken to pieces while making children sit and learn; only in some years I realized that children do not need systematic instruction in language acquisition as they learn it on their own (Goodluck, 1991). My attention was drawn to the wrong challenge, and the real challenge revealed itself a bit later, by means of the logical problem of language acquisition. It can be described as the challenge of bringing the children’s formerly acquired language knowledge in compliance with the grammatical, lexical and syntactical rules. Children have to understand why they speak correctly, and what patterns their expressions follow; this is the main challenge of creating a theoretical basis for the already existing practical foundation.

A proper example for the case may be drawn from a discussion we had in the class with 6- and 7-year-old pupils:

I: Mary, introduce yourself.

Mary: I am Mary.

I: Could you do this in full?

Mary: My name is Mary.

I: Why do you use the words ‘am’ and ‘is’? We would understand your words even without them.

Mary: Mmm… I don’t know. My mother told me to. And everyone says so…

One more evolutionary process has happened to my vision of speaker competence and performance in a language (Goodluck, 1991). I used to think that the more the individual’s competence is, the more performance he or she is likely to show. However, children who were able to identify wrong phrases often did not manage to construct the similar ones of their own. The result was a discrepancy in competence and performance, which was truly surprising for me. Some years had passed before I understood that the linguistic competence is the inherent quality existing with the child’s unconscious learning, while the performance is his or her conscious attempt in learning and reflecting the learned material.

The situation with absolute pronouns has currently showed me this difference: I introduced three sentences and offered to pupils to detect the wrong one:

1. This is my book.
2. This book is my.
3. This book is mine.

Children quickly understood that the second sentence is not correct because of the use of a usual possessive pronoun at the end of the sentence. However, as soon as we started to construct sentences of our own, there were a great number of mistakes:

Jake: This is our work. This work is our.

I: Jake, please mind that the second sentence, what should you use at the end?

Jake: The work is our. It is our work. What’s the difference?

I: The place of the pronoun. What should we use at the end of the sentence?

Jake: Oh, I see. The work is …ours.

References

Goodluck, H. (1991). Language acquisition: a linguistic introduction. Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell.

Guasti, M.T. (2004). Language acquisition: the growth of grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Pinker, S. (1991). Language Acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman, M. Liberman, and D. N. Osherson (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd Ed. Volume 1: Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.