1. What is Language Acquisition?
The process of attaining a specific variant of human language.
The process of learning a native or a second language.
Although how children learn to speak is not perfectly understood, most explanations involve both the observation that children copy what they hear and the inference that human beings have a natural aptitude for understanding grammar. Children usually learn the sounds and vocabulary of their native language through imitation, and grammar is seldom taught to them; that they rapidly acquire the ability to speak grammatically supports the theory of Noam CHOMSKY and others that children are able to learn the grammar of a particular language because all intelligible languages are founded on a deep structure of universal grammatical rules that corresponds to an innate capacity of the human brain. People learning a second language pass through some of the same stages as do children learning their native language.

2. Language Acquisition, Representation, & Processing
How is language acquired or learned?
Language representation
How are the symbols of language represented in memory?
Language processing
What factors influence the processing of language?

3. How are Language Acquisition, Representation, & Processing Related?
Language is acquired

4. How are Language Acquisition, Representation, & Processing Related?
Language is acquired
Acquisition
leads to a set of
representations

5. How are Language Acquisition, Representation, & Processing Related?
Language is acquired
Acquisition
Language use is the
leads to a set of
processing of these
representations
representations

6. Language Acquisition Major Issues
First language acquisition
How does our general intelligence interact with our biological predispositions?
How do we learn our native language? What are the stages this process follows?
How do failures in this process occur?
Language disorders and loss--linguistic deprivation
The critical period hypothesis--biological basis of language learning
When you’re tired--not just people with pathologies

7. Language Acquisition Language Development Phonological development
Semantic development
Syntactic development and syntactic categories
—from babbling to full sentences
We learn what things mean (semantics) and acquire concepts
We learn the syntax of our language (what are synt cat)

8. Language Acquisition Second language acquisition
Factors that affect our chances of learning L2:
Individual differences
Age of acquisition effects
Environment of learning
Style of instruction--arnab is “rabbit” or
Stages of second language acquisition
Ind diffs--working memory span
AOA--time at which begin to learn L2
Environment--classroom versus immersion
Style of instruction--associations between translations or directly to concepts
WILL RETURN TO ISSUES OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION LATER

9. First Language Acquisition
Behaviorism
Nativism
Definition
We learn language through a process of stimulus (hearing, input) and response (our trials). Correct responses are rewarded, as is our correct language use, which increases over time. Key phrase: Habit Formation
We are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and access to Universal Grammar (UG). We are not born knowing English, or French, or Thai. Rather, we are born with innate knowledge of certain universal structures.

10. Second language acquisition is the study of learning a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. language having learned/started to learn an L1.
This learning may take place in naturalistic or classroom settings.
Researchers look at both the language used at various stages of learning (product) as well as the mental processes and environmental factors that influence that learning (process)
Understanding SLA is important for knowing how to approach the teaching of 2nd/foreign languages

11. Some facts about SLA
Errors are important for SLA (both for learning the L2 and for studying the process of L2 acquisition)
SLA is systematic and, to a large extent, universal
Order in which grammatical features such as morphemes are acquired are largely fixed regardless in which order they are taught.
Individual differences do determine how well SLL acquire a language.

12. Language errors
Initially errors were seen as something bad – to be avoided at all cost: in line with behaviourist psychology.
Now recognise that errors in SLL are a stage through which learners must go through
Errors that L2 learners make are universal:
omission (compare with L1 acquisition)
overgeneralization (compare with L1 acquisition)
transfer errors (from L1)
Positive transfer
Negative transfer

13. Fossilization
Most learners do not reach full competence in every aspect of the target language, i.e. they do not go through all the stages of learning for every aspect of the language.
In such cases their ‘interlanguage’ is said to have fossilized, i.e. their errors are consistent and systematically used
At what point learners’ language development fossilizes depends on a number of factors including:
Ls’ language aptitude
Ls’ motivation to acquire language proficiency
Ls’ needs

14. Individual Differences
Do individual differences determine the activation of multiple meanings of ambiguous words (especially the irrelevant ones)?
What is the influence of verbal ability and working memory on syntactic processing?

15. Bilingualism Defined
Bilingualism is the ability to master the use of two languages, and multilingualism is the ability to master the use of more than two languages. Although bilingualism is relatively rare among native speakers of English, in many parts of the world it is the standard rather than the exception. For example, more than half the population of Papua New Guinea is functionally competent in both an indigenous language and Tok Pisin. People in many parts of the country have mastered two or more indigenous languages. Bilingualism and multilingualism often involve different degrees of competence in the languages involved. A person may control one language better than another, or a person might have mastered the different languages better for different purposes, using one language for speaking, for example, and another for writing.

16. Relative activation of the two languages and selectivity of activation
Can one language ever be fully turned off?
Is L1 grammar always active?
Can L2 become the more dominant language?
What factors influence the relative activation of the two languages (individual and contextual)?