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EE200002026 Assignment

The document discusses language acquisition stages in a child's first language and challenges in learning a second language. It outlines stages in acquiring Marathi as a first language including cooing/babbling, one word, two word, and telegraphic speech stages. It notes age and exposure play a role, with second language learning occurring later and less exposure than a first language.

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Darshan Yeshwant Mohekar
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35 views3 pages

EE200002026 Assignment

The document discusses language acquisition stages in a child's first language and challenges in learning a second language. It outlines stages in acquiring Marathi as a first language including cooing/babbling, one word, two word, and telegraphic speech stages. It notes age and exposure play a role, with second language learning occurring later and less exposure than a first language.

Uploaded by

Darshan Yeshwant Mohekar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Darshan Yeshwant Mohekar-----------------------------200002026

What developmental stages can you observe a child acquiring your first
language? Please provide examples from your language. Why do
individuals often find learning a second language challenging,
especially considering the seemingly straightforward and automatic
nature of first language acquisition?

Language, Mind and Society--------HS 481------------Assignment

A child’s language acquisition depends on his hearing ability,


language-using environment, cultural transmission, and input they
receive. The general categorization of developmental stages observed
in a child acquiring a first language (L1) is as follows:

▪ Cooing and Babbling (0-12 months)

The earliest speech-like sounds made by the infant are often


described as cooing and babbling. During the first few months of
infancy, vowel-like sounds, [i] and [u] are more likely. Also, the
increasing control of infants on muscles like the tongue and lips
allows them to produce velar-consonant-like sounds [k] and [g];
with increasing observation and association of sound and lip
movements of the caregivers, they start making consonant-vowel
combinations and nasal sounds like ba-ba, ma-ma, da-da, etc.

▪ One-word or Holophrastic Stage (12-18 months)

During this stage various single-unit utterances are produced by


the child. These utterances, taking Marathi into consideration, are
inspired by repetitive caregiver speech or baby talk, actions,
needs, sounds, behavior, sensations, etc. Following are some
examples (in Marathi L1 context):

A. The ‘chew-chew and kau-kau’ words are used for sparrows and
crows based on the sounds they make.
B. The ‘pa-pa’ sound is generally repeated when giving baby water
hence the association.
C. The ‘ye-ye’ vocalization is associated with the action of
calling with appropriate hand movements, and hence child picks
up the vocalization as a word to call someone or something.
D. The child is shown the action of bowing down to God with the
vocalization ‘ji-ji Bappa.’ There is more than one word here,
but the child uses them as a single unit.

It is also peculiar to note that the child in Marathi speaking


environment uses minimal rhotic [r] sound in speech, considering
the diverse use of rhotic [r] in Marathi. Also, there is exaggerated
use of the high-front [i] and high-back [u] during this stage in
children acquiring Marathi as L1.
▪ Two-word Stage (18-20 months)

As the name suggests, in this stage, the child uses two distinct
words to communicate something, the interpretation of which is very
much tied to the context in which these words are used. Vocabulary
in the stage is significantly larger than that in the one-word
stage. The examples considering Marathi as L1 are as follows:

A. A child might convey that it got hurt somewhere as ‘Aai dukku’


which literally translates to ‘Mom hurt.’
B. A child wanting to convey that it needs to have the sweets on
the table which it cannot reach may say ‘Baba khau,’
translating to ‘Dad Sweet.’
C. Similarly, it might say ‘Dayi ye’ to call a cow he sees.

▪ Telegraphic Speech (2-2.5 years)

In this stage, the child uses a large number of utterances or


multiple-word speech. It clearly has the sentence-building capacity
to some extent, and a number of grammatical inflections begin to
appear in its speech. It also starts using simple verb forms,
demonstratives like ‘ithe (here), tithe (there), ikde (here), tikde
(there)’ and also simple prepositions like ‘var (above/on), khali
(below)’. Telegraphic speech is characterised by string of lexical
morphemes in phrases and sentences. Some examples of telegraphic
speech considering Marathi as a L1 are as follows:

A. ‘Baba baher khau chal’ -> ‘Dad outside sweet go’ This sentence
can be interpreted as the child asking its Father to go out
and buy sweets. An adult in the situation would say ‘Baba
baherun khau aanu chal.’
B. ‘Baba aai table dukku’ -> ‘Dad mom table hurt’ This can be
interpreted as a child notifying its father that its mother
got hurt by a table. An adult in the situation would say ‘Baba
aai la table mule dukh zale.’

After the telegraphic speech stage, the L1 acquiring stages are not
very well defined. Further development generally occurs through
unlearning. The universal grammar in the child’s brain considers the
input it has been exposed to and makes the generalizations and
overgeneralizations acquire the language. The child further develops
morphology, syntax, and semantics. Taking L1 into consideration,
unlike English, Marathi assigns gender to inanimate things, too;
hence, children often can incorporate these gender markers (ti, to,
te) in speech early. They can also use the ‘aahe (to be)’ forms in
Marathi as early as native English speakers can. The plural markers
in spoken Marathi are often acquired later than in English. In Marathi,
overgeneralization is relatively less compared to that in English as
L1. Irregular past forms are common in most languages. Forming
questions and negatives is more easily acquired in Marathi than in
English.

Second Language (L2) learning is more challenging due to various


reasons. Notable ones are as follows:

▪ L2 is generally encountered in teenage or adult years and is


only learned during school hours where there is limited
interaction with the L2, unlike L1, to which the child is
constantly exposed.
▪ Age plays an important role, as a child is exposed to L1 as soon
as it is born and at the time when its brain plasticity is high.
Whereas L2 learning occurs in later years when the brain
plasticity is decreasing. In fact, after a certain critical
period, the acquisition of a second language becomes difficult,
as stated by the critical period hypothesis.
▪ L2 learning can become difficult due to interference and
influence of one’s own L1, culture, and environment.
▪ According to Krashen’s hypothesis, the learner's motivation to
learn L2, the teacher's expertise in L2, and the teacher’s
ability to provide motivation, a low anxiety environment, and
hence encouragement to have a low affective filter affect the
L2 learning; this might not be a problem in L1 acquisition as
it is naturally acquired and such influences hardly matter.
▪ The complexity of a language's vocabulary and grammatical
structure also play a role in the ability to acquire the L2 to
a certain extent.
▪ Society's and learners’ attitude towards a specific language
being taught and language’s prestige L2 also affects the ability
of the learner to acquire or learn the L2.

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