First
language is a language which human acquired during the childhood. Every
language can be the first language as long as it is acquired during the
childhood. If the learner can use more than two languages during his childhood,
then he has two first languages
(multilingualism). Otherwise, an American who learns Indonesian language for
example, Indonesian will become his second language that is because English is
his own language. Indonesian can also either our first (mother tongue) or
second language. As an instance, if a person from Bimanesehas first language
that is Bima language, then Indonesian becomes his second language if he can
use the language after Bima language. A student who learns English from Bima
has three languages; the first is his first language that is Bima because
Bimanese is the language that he acquires during childhood, after his first
language is established, he learns and acquires his second language that is
Indonesian. What about English? English is his foreign language because in the
place where he lives no one can use English in informal situation but in formal
situation for particular purpose.
The
first language is special subject to know because how the children acquire
mother tongue is very crucial. Mother tongue can be acquired by children
through the speech community,i.e. family and environment.
There
are four stages how children acquire the first language:
1. Cooing
The children
undergo this stage is about 3 to 5 months. The sound that they produce is vowel
sound.
2. Babbling
Consonant and
nasal sound is produced by the children in the age of 5 to 6 months. This stage
is called babbling stage. The children produce the consonant sounds
that can form syllable, such as ma, ba (bilabial sound) and ta da (alveolar
sound). This stage is undergone by children as a step toward one-word stage.
3. One-word stage
The children
undergo one-word stage is about 7 – 12 months of age. In this stage, the children start to
produce only one word, which is also called as holophrastic or whole phrase.
It means that a child produces one word which is intended by them as the whole
of the structure in their mind,in another word, the child cannot arrange or
produce word into sentence instead of using one word in order to refer it as
the whole phrase or sentence. For example, the word ‘Teddy’ could mean ‘I want may
Teddy, here is my Teddy, where is my Teddy, or hello my Teddy’, etc. This
is where overextention occurs. Another
example, the word ‘doggie’ is referringto all four-leg animals such as goat,
cow, chicken, etc. The word ‘doggie’ is intended by the children asa certain
kind of dog,this is an instance ofunderextention.
The process to gather the data for this subject need a long time,it is called
longitudinal study.
4.
two-word stage
This stage occurs
to the children who are 2 years old of age. Two words utterance refers to the
whole sentence, that is, this stage is also a step toward a telegraphic stage (multiword speech).In
the two-word there is no function word, the two-word such as ‘mommy eat’ is intended as mommy is
eating, mommy eats, etc. As can be seen, thistwo-word are absence of function
words which does not have lexical meaning unless it combines with the content
words.
Critical Period Hypothesis
The
critical period hypothesis states that there is a period during which language
acquisition is easy and complete (i.e. native speaker ability is achieved) and
beyond which it is difficult and typically incomplete (Ellis: 1997).This time
is also called as nativist position, it means that human cannot reach nativism
if they do not learn language in this time.
There
are two evidences that support critical period hypothesis,i.e.the story of
Genie and Chelsea.
Genie
Genie
learnt language after the critical period, this support that hypothesis. Actually,
there is no brain damaged, she cannot produce the language normally. Instead,
according to Susan Curtiss who works with Genie for a number of years, she said
that the most part of Genie’s utterances are the stringing together of content
words with clear meaning but little with the grammatical structure.
Chelsea
Chelsea
is also a woman who also supports the critical period hypothesis. She was born
deaf in California, isolated from any major urban center, she knew that she was
deaf but there is no school for the deaf at there at that time so that she did
not attend the school. Like Genie, she was not able to develop a grammar. That
is because she was never listening to human language or speaking. These two
stories support the critical period hypothesis.
Imitation
Theory
Another issue related to the first language
acquisition is imitation theory. Jean Berko(1987) drew a picture of an
imaginary animal on a piece of paper, and told a child that it was called a wug,
and then she drew a picture of two of the same animals in another piece of
paper, and asked the child what they were. The child replied ‘Wugs’.
Evidence:
Suzy: Don’t make me lost it
Daddy: No, don’t make lose it
Suzy: No, not lose… losed!
From the
conversation, it can be concluded that:
1. Child imitates and recognizes adult speech
By Skinner in Mitchell (1998), the children acquire the
language by imitating their caretakers.
2. The child creates his own system of language.
By Chomsky, the children do not learn and reproduce a large
set of sentences, but they produce the language which they never heard before.
3. The child speech errors are systematic
The child speech is systematic errors because it is the current
level of the child’s competence.By Chomsky, competence is the
speaker-hearer underlying knowledge of language.
Innateness
capacity
Some linguists and
psycholinguists believe that
the genetic predisposition which children have from birth to learn language remains
with them throughout life. Children are born with a special ability from
themselves the underlying rules of language system.
Bibliography:
Ellis, R. (1997). Second Language Acquisition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Jean Berko. (1987). Language and Psychological Development.
Mitchel,R.
(1998). Second Language Learning Theory.
London: Arnold.
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