77
CHAPTER 10
Language Acquisition
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
This chapter, which provides detailed information about the process of
language acquisition, hooks most students quickly: they have watched
siblings, or children they babysit, or their own children learn language;
they have been told stories about their own acquisition of language; and
babies are just cute and fun. In addition to presenting findings about when
children reach particular language milestones, the chapter also provides
information about how such studies are conducted. Exercise 10.3, # 3 even
asks students to design their own study. We have tried throughout the
chapter to relate the information about language acquisition to relevant
educational issues. In particular, the final section on children and
bilingualism is salient for students who are bilingual, students who are
planning to become teachers, and students who will be making decisions
about their own and other children’s education.
This chapter also covers material on language and the brain as it relates to
the acquisition and loss of language. Instructors who are expert in research
on language and the brain may want to supplement the discussion here,
which had to be kept relatively brief given the range of material to be
covered in the chapter.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
• Explain how imitation is involved in language acquisition and yet how
it cannot account for all aspects of language acquisition.
78
• Provide motivation for Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar and
describe the debate about it.
• Identify the areas of the human brain that are primarily responsible for
language processing.
• Explain what evidence from Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasias has
revealed about how the brain processes language.
• Outline the general stages in children’s acquisition of language, from
the identification of phonemic differences to babbling to the one-word
and two-word stages; and describe how the two-word stage
demonstrates the components of more complex grammatical
constructions.
• Explain what patterns of children’s language errors reveal about the
process of language acquisition.
• List multiple features of parentese and describe how these features
may facilitate child language acquisition.
• Differentiate between a pidgin and a creole language and explain why
the development of creole languages is of interest to researchers
working on language acquisition.
• Define the critical age hypothesis and explain how Genie’s language
development relates to the concept of critical periods.
• Identify some of the ways dyslexia is diagnosed and some of the
common symptoms in children.
• Defend an argument, using material from the chapter, about whether
bilingual education should be instituted or encouraged for students in
the K-12 school system, and at what point such education would be
best introduced.
NEW VOCABULARY TERMS
anticipation
aphasia
Broca’s aphasia
corpus callosum
creole
critical age hypothesis
dyslexia
lateralization
localization
malapropism
79
modularity of the mind
parentese
pidgin
preservation
prosody
reduplication
right/left hemisphere
spoonerism
Universal Grammar
Wernicke’s aphasia
WHERE STUDENTS ARE
• Most students will find the material on children’s language acquisition
engaging, and many will have personal anecdotes to share either about
children they know or about their own experiences learning a language
or languages early or later in life.
• Some students may want more specifics about the components of
Universal Grammar—the highly abstract nature of the theory can
sometimes be a stumbling block.
• Students preparing to become K-12 teachers may be interested in more
information about bilingual education programs, including the legal
actions taken against bilingual programs in states like California.
IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES
It is one thing to read about children learning language and another to see
it. We highly recommend supplementing the material in the chapter with
videos, for which we provide specifics below.
Brain Lateralization
The first segment of the video Pieces of Mind, titled “The Man with Two
Brains,” provides a fascinating look at brain lateralization with the case
study of a split-brain patient, whose corpus callosum was severed to ease
epileptic seizures. Students can also benefit from reviewing case studies of
damage to specific areas of the brain and the symptoms patients exhibited.
80
American Sign Language
To help students who have never learned American Sign Language (ASL)
get a better sense of what it means to sign a language, go over a few signs
together as a class. If you have students who know sign language, let them
teach the others. If not, use an introductory ASL textbook, which will have
diagrams of the signs.
Parentese
If you can, make a videotape of a parent or other adult talking to an infant
using parentese. Play the tape for students and ask them to take notes on
the features of parentese on the tape. Are there features on the tape that are
not captured on the list in the chapter?
Nicaraguan Sign Language
In 2000, 60 Minutes II did a feature story on Nicaraguan Sign Language
called Birth of a Language. It is about twenty minutes long and works
very well as a complement to the material in the chapter. The radio
program Radiolab broadcast a one-hour episode called “Words” (Season 8,
Episode 2), which has an extended segment on Nicaraguan Sign Language.
The episode also has a segment on a man who was born deaf and first
learned language at the age of 27.
Genie
The video Secret of the Wild Child provides extensive footage of Genie’s
experiences learning language, as well as background on earlier cases of
children deprived of language input.
Child Language Acquisition
The videos Acquiring the Human Language: Playing the Language Game
(Part Two of the Human Language Series; see Extra Resources below),
81
The Developing Child: Language Development, and Language
Development are three of the most comprehensive videos available on
child language acquisition. The last segment of the video Pieces of Mind,
“Old Brain/New Tricks,” not only documents the cases of Arthur Goh and
Nick Hong (described in the chapter) but also provides footage of the
brain activity of babies and of the host Alan Alda when presented with
language input.
Verbal Slips
Ask students to collect examples of verbal slips “real world”—in other
words, to write down verbal slips when they hear them in their day-to-day
lives. As a class, categorize the examples they provide as anticipation,
preservation, malapropisms, spoonerisms, or other verbal slips.
INTEGRATING THE HOMEWORK
Homework Progression
The exercises can be assigned in any order or combination. For classes
with many students preparing to become K-12 teachers, we recommend
asking students to do additional research on bilingual education programs,
to supplement the necessarily general treatment at the end of the chapter.
In-Class Activities Based on Homework
For Exercise 10.3, #3, ask students to evaluate each other’s experiment
designs.
82
EXTRA RESOURCES
Below we have provided details about the relevant videos:
Acquiring the Human Language: Playing the Language Game (Part Two
of the Human Language Series. Produced, directed, and written by
Gene Searchinger. 55 min. New York: Ways of Knowing, 1995.
Birth of a Language. Produced by Janet Klein. April 25, 2000. New York:
CBS Video, 2000.
The Developing Child: Language Development. Hosted by Philip
Zimbardo. 60 min. Boston, MA: WGBH, 2001 (1989).
Language Development. 25 min. Irvine, CA: Concept Media, 1991.
Pieces of Mind: Inside the Human Brain. Hosted by Alan Alda. 60 min.
Scientific American Frontiers VII. Hartford, CT: Hartford Public
Television, 1997.
Secret of the Wild Child. Produced by Linda Garmon and Paula Apsell. 60
min. Boston, MA: WGBH, 1994.