FIRST LANGUAGE, SECOND
AND ADDITIONAL
LANGUAGE
Albertus ronny
Frida widiyaningrum

01
First language

Language acquisition
 The process by which humans acquire the capacity to
perceive, produce and use words to understand and
communicate.
 This capacity involves the picking up of diverse
capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an
extensive vocabulary.
 It is a key aspect that distinguishes humans from
other organisms.
 A range of theories has been created to explain
this: innatism, as opposed to the other theories in
which language is simply learned.

First Language
 The language that an individual receives the most is
considered to be their "first language." In most
situations, a student's native language is the
language that they hear and learn after birth.
 Developmental stages or 'milestones' are used to
describe the progress that children have made in
their process of learning to speak. Lust (2006)
provides a detailed summary of various developmental
milestones both in perception and production and in
different domains of language such as phonology,
syntax, and semantics.

Theoretical Approaches
 Behavioristic approach
B.F. Skinner is a behaviorist who speculated that children are
conditioned by their environment to respond to certain stimuli
with language.
 Nativist approach
Noam Chomsky claims that children are born with a hard-wired
Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in their brains. Universal
grammar says that all languages have the same basic structure,
and that specific languages have rules that transform these
structures into the specific patterns found in given languages

 Cognitive approach
Piaget described whole development as a result
of children’s interaction with their
environment.

Noam Chomsky and his followers argues
that
• The generative paradigm explains the language
faculty through the so-called Universal Grammar
(UG), which contains a set of universal
principles that underlie the structure of all
human languages and a finite set of parameters
to account for cross-linguistic variations. In
essence, UG restricts the set of grammar that
are compatible with
• Input is necessary, but not sufficient, for
language development.

The Acquisition Stages
1. Pre-speech and babbling: ‘goo-goo-gaa-gaa
2. First words: ‘ma-ma’ for ‘mum’, ‘lu_’ for
‘look
3. First sentences/combining words: ‘daddy
car’, ‘dog gone’
4. Complex sentences and increased
vocabulary size: ‘please may I have some
more?
5. Conversational skills

the Facts and Problems of First Language
Acquisition
Speed and ultimate success: children do not produce
adult-like utterances from the very beginning, but
they master the skills of understanding and production
by the age of four or five.
• Individual differences: there are individual
differences in the speed and manner of acquisition,
but the outcome of first language acquisition is
the same.
• Resourcefulness: they can communicate a wide range
of meanings and make their intentions known with a
‘limited’ size of vocabulary by extending word
meanings or using a mixture of words, gestures,
facial expressions, vocalizations, and so on

Child-directed speech (CDS)
CDS is a complex process of negotiation between
caregivers and children, where adults adjust or fine-
tune their speech based on a child's responses. Fine-
tuning changes with the child's age and language
ability, with prosodic fine-tuning being most evident
at the pre-linguistic stage and phonetic and
phonological ne-tuning most frequent at the first word
stage

A Trigger/Catapult or a Source of
Opportunities for Incremental Learning
Language acquisition requires input, but its role is
uncertain. Input might be seen as a trigger or catapult or as
a source of progressive learning.
Firstly, individual differences in CDS can account for
variations in the child’s development to some extent, but no
firm cause-and-effect relationship has been established so
far.
Secondly, other types of input, which differ from CDS in
features, help with children’s development too.
Thirdly, input is not equivalent to intake

the Special Features of Bilingual and Multilingual
First Language Acquisition (BAMFLA)
BAMFLA is similar to monolingual first language acquisition,
with an initial babbling stage followed by first words, a
multi-word stage, and complex utterances. Bilingual and
multilingual children use code-switching, which is highly
structured and grammatically constrained, suggesting added
capacity to coordinate their two languages online. Bilingual
or multilingual children have more input in one language than
the other, leading to variations in comprehension and/or
production due to an imbalance in language input. Bilingual
and multilingual first language acquisition is a complex and
dynamic process, constrained by a set of universals that
interact with a variety of factors.

Language Socialization Impact on Language
Acquisition and Learning
Language socialization is the process of learning to speak a
language in a way appropriate to the community and adapting to
the beliefs and norms associated with it. Broadly speaking,
language socialization takes place in four different ways:
• Explicit instruction and learning on what to say and how to
say it.
• Inexplicit instruction and learning on what to say and how
to say it
• Explicit instruction and learning of norms, beliefs and
values.
• Inexplicit influence.

second and
additional
language

second and additional language
 Hoque (2017) explain that second language acquisition is the process of acquiring
other language in addition to mother language or native language.
 According to Krashen (1981) language acquisition is quite similar with the process
of children use in acquiring first and second language and this is require
meaningful interaction in the natural communication of the target language - where
speakers do not concern about the form of their speech but with the message
being conveyed and understood.
 The statement above also stated by Saville – Troike (2006), Second Language
Acquisition (SLA) refers to the study of individual and groups of people who learn
a language subsequent to learn first one as young children and to the process of
learning the language.

 Stefansson (2013) stated Second Language Acquisitions (SLA) is the study of
how the language learners acquire a second language (L2) as additional
language to their first language (L1). Then, SLA is also referring to the any
language after first language, it can be referred to whether it is second, third, or
fourth language.

Makes Somebody a ‘Good Language
Learner
1. Multicompetence
2. Motivation
3. Motivation as a Dynamic System
4. Epistemological Choices

Age Effects and the Critical Period
Hypothesis
The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) suggests that between the
ages of 6 and 17, learners lose the mental equipment required
for the implicit induction of abstract patterns underlying a
human language, but counter-evidence suggests otherwise.

Possible Neurobiological Causes for Age
Effects
Paradis (2004) suggests that age effects are caused by
the decline of procedural memory for late L2 learners,
which forces them to rely on explicit learning.

CPH and Learning Context
Muñoz (2008) argues that the amount and quality of the
input have a significant bearing on the effects that
AoA has on foreign language learning. A large-scale
project of AoA in formal foreign language teaching in
Catalonia revealed that earlier exposure (ages eight
to nine) to English L3 in a classroom did not result
in better performance, but that longer exposure to
English had a positive effect on performance. Older
learners who started English at age 11 and a third
group who started at age 14 were found to progress
more quickly than early learners.

Previously Learned Languages
 Stepping Stones
 Non-Linguistic Effects
 Washback Effects
 Cross-linguistic Influences

Instructional Environments and Authentic
Use
1. Types of Instructional Environment
2. The Nature of Learners’ Linguistic Knowledge
3. The Transition From L2 Learner to L2 User

First language acquisition study
investigates the situation where
children learn to speak their mother
tongue, as opposed to second and
additional language learning in which
children learn to speak another
language in addition to their mother
tongue(.
Summary