First Language Acquisition: How does a child acquire the first language Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

First Language Acquisition: How does a child acquire the first language Case Study Help

Some experts suggest that several factors affect a person's ability to learn a language, such as their background, their cultural background and their social situation, which influence their linguistic acquisitions. Thus the factors related to language acquisition cannot be isolated and generalized. Finally, there is the problem of language acquisition. There are plenty of people who can become fluent in their first language much fasterthan the rest, but become unable to master a second language. This means that they are not able to communicate effectively or find it difficult to understand one another. There are many reasons for this, out of which a singificant reason is that the learning process is much harder. (Jenny R. Saffran, 2001)

Such factors mainly include the external language environment, neurological aspects and routines and patterns. The speed of an individual in language acquisition or learning, is primarily dependent on the capability of the environment in which the individual resides in. The environment of learning is one of the important factors around the learner, which requires to be both visible as well as audible. Generally, the environment of language is divided into two types:

  1. Artificial or formal environment - a part of learning process.
  2. Natural or informal environment - a part of societial life.

Thus, in the children’s acquisition of first language, environment is the first crucial factor. According to the study conducted by Endah (2017);a  child acquired her first language by informal environment. Her acquisition of her first language, was from her caretakers’ speeches and the utilization of linguistic environment as a source of media, such as: listening to English songs. One of the important aspects observed was that little girl was able of quick communication with others' intent conversation. Unlike most of the children of  her age who show fun play activity in their own world, are less likely to give quick response to their interlocutor. In case of the association of this observation with the experience of the researcher; it can be concluded that the linguistic environment greatly contributes to the language acquisition, particularly for the girl selected to conduct the study. She was observed to be more contributed to artificial environment. Additionally, the acquisition process of first language in children, is known to be fast and they represent the ability of pronouncing the native language acquired by them. (Ratnaningsih, 2017)

Neurological factor is the second most important factor that plays a significant role in the acquisition of first language, particularly regarding the observation of the first girl. Based on the researcher’s observation; the occurrence of lateralization period is from the age of 2 to 12 years. The reason of this statement is not changeable, because it was demonstrated that the lateralization process occurs during this period. Currently, the girl considered for the observation wasapproximately two years old. She represented the acquisition of three different languages as her first language i.e. English, Bahasa Indonesia and Javenese.

The third factor that influences the first language acquisition, is routines and patterns. The evidence of the impact of routines and patterns existence over the acquisition of first language was observed on the little girl, while the use of routine was observed by the researcher. For instance, delivery of two-word phrases, such as: good morning, good afternoon and good evening, were the key observation. The researcher only uttered such phrases repeatedly, with no explanation of the words replacement by morning, afternoon or evening. With the passage of time, the observation of the little girl represented her ability of replacing words, according to the current state of the day i.e. the indication of using a creative process. As a consequence, the occurrence of routine is before patterns.

In context to the learning of more than one language; many of the language acquisition theroies are primarily based on the children who represent acquisition of one language. A general theory of language acquisition is required for an ultimate accommodation of the facts regarding the children who acquire more than one language simultaneously during the period of infancy. The study conducted by Fred (2001) was based on the evaluation of three varying domains of bilingual acquisition i.e. bilingual syntactic development, grammatical constraints on code mixing of bilingual child and pragmatic bilingual code mixing features.

The findings of the study indicated that requisition of neurocognitive capacity was possessed by infants for different representations and simultaneous usage of two different languages from one word stage onwards. Additionally, a detailed analysis of syntactic organization of a children’sbilingual language, indicated the confirmation of the target system which resembles the acquisition of same language by the children.Similarly, the acquisition of distinctive capacity is represented by bilingual children, to induce the coordination of two languages in grammatically constrained manner. Thus, bilingual acquisition and bilingualism is viewed as burdensome, and is potentially disruptive to two language development. (Genesee, 2001)..............................

 

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