Prepared by:

Monica San Juan

Acquisition is innately determined,that we are born with a built-in-device of some kind that predisposesus to language acquisition.

Children are biologically programmedfor language acquisition

He said that every childis born with a biologicalpredisposition to learnlanguage- any language

He came up with the ideaof a language organ,which is known as theLanguage AcquisitionDevice (LAD).

1. Ability to distinguish speech sounds fromother sounds in the environment

2. Ability to organize linguistic events intovarious classes which can later be refined

3. Knowledge that only a certain kind oflinguistic system is possible and thatother kinds are not

4. Ability to engage in constant evaluation ofthe developing linguistic system

Children need to access to samples

of a natural language to activate the

device

Once the LAD is activated, they discover the

structure of the language to be

learned

They discover it by matching the innate knowledge

of UG to the structures of the

particular language in the environment

Primary Linguistic

Data

Child’s Speech

Grammatical KnowledgeThe Rules

General Language Learning Principles

A set of innate principles and adjustable parameters that are common to all human languages

Focuses on the structural relationships rather than the linear order of the words

- e.g. Your cat is friendly?

Is your cat friendly?

Language is organized that depends on the structural relationships between elements in a sentence

Language usually contain NP and VP + (Other phrases)

Determine the ways inwhich language can vary

Head parameter specifiesthe position at the head inrelation to itscompliments for differentlanguages

Each phrases has acentral elements that iscalled the head

(NP-noun; VP-verb) English language is a head-

first language becausehead of the phrase alwaysappears before itscompliments

The child’s language at any stage is systematic inthat the child is constantly forming hypotheseson the basis of the input received and thentesting those hypotheses in speech. As thechild’s language develops, those hypotheses getcontinually revised, reshaped or sometimesabandoned

LAD hypothesize the grammar in thelanguage you are exposed to

If it is fits to the grammar, thencontinue the hypothesis, but if it isnot, there is a testing of a newhypothesis again

Pivot Grammar

- The early grammars of child language

Sentence Pivot word

Open word

Neurons in the brain aresaid to form multipleconnections

A child’s linguisticperformance may be theconsequence of manylevels of simultaneousneural interconnectionsand not a serial processof one rule being applied.

1. Freedom from the restrictions of the so-called“scientific method” to explore the unseen,unobservable, underlying, abstract linguisticstructures being developed in the child

2. Systematic description of the child’s linguisticrepertoire as either rule-governed or operating outof a parallel distributed processing capacities

3. Construction of a number of potential properties ofUniversal Grammar

Children are born with a specific innate ability todiscover for themselves the underlying rules of alanguage system on the basis of the samples of anatural language they are exposed to

Language acquisition is something that happens to achild placed in a certain environment not somethingthe child does

Children acquisition of grammatical rules is guidedby principles of an innate UG which could apply toall language