1. Language Acquisition
Betül Gök
Yasemin Aydın
Dilek Göçer

2. What is language acquisition?
*The process by which humans acquire the capacity
to perceive and comprehend language.

3. Language acquisition has some basic requirements;
Children require interaction with language-users
Particular language-using environment
Physical capability of sending&receiving sound
signals.

4. INPUT
 Human infants are helped in their language
acquisition by older children&adults in home
environment who provide input for the child.
 The speech style adopted by someone who spend
a lot of time interacting with a baby is called
caregiver speech.

5. Features of caregiver speech;
 Frequent use of questions
 Using exaggerated intonation
 Extra loudness
 Slower tempo with longer pauses

6. Some examples from Turkey;
-hanimiş annesinin kuzusu?
-senin o buynuşunu yeyim ben
-uçak geliyor aç ağzını bakıyım
-babası ne almış oğluşuna araba mı almış?
-düştü mü kızım hop etti bebeğim hop etti

7. The acquisition schedule
 All normal children develop language roughly at
the same time.
 The language acquisition schedule has the same
basis as the development of motor skills.

8. Cooing&Babbling
 Cooing is described as the earliest use of speech-like
sounds.
 0-2 months:Reflexive crying, vegetative sounds (coughs,
sneezes), Sounds reflecting their physical state.
 2-5 months : Cooing and laughter. Early consonants
develop, sounds from the back of throat, laughs and giggles
form (to the enjoyment of parents).
 4-6 months :Vocal play, babbling gets more adult-like,
range and pitch play,, bilabial trills are common
(raspberries).
 6-12 months :Reduplicated babbling ex: mamama, pitch
control develops, ability to sound out some consonants and
vowels.
 9-18 months :Non-reduplicative babbling, varying of
consonants and vowels.

9. First Language Acquisition
The one-word stage
 can begin to utter recognizable words
 phonemes that resemble words or simple
phrases
 Children’s first words typically employ the
same consonants children favor in the late
stages of babbling: stops [p, t, k, b, d, g],
nasals [m, n], and glides [y, w], and often
use consonant-vowel syllable structure. The
most preferred first vowel is a low back [a].
 Ba-ba, ma-ma sounds

10. The two-word stage
 develop more complex phrases
 a more complete thought than in the previous stage.
 ‘anne mama, baba gitti, su ver’, ‘kötü kedi’
 'Baby chair' could mean...
Possession: 'this is baby's chair'
Request/command: 'put baby in chair'
Statement: 'baby is in the chair'

11. Telegraphic speech
 the child’s analytical skills enhance
 their ability to form complete sentences emerges.
 Roughly age two
 Multiple-word
 ‘ deniz çay sevdi’, ‘ anne odada uyuyor’
 their vocabulary increases at a rate of as many as 10
words per week.

12. The acquisition process
 Roughly 4 year old child
 Repeat what they heard in a different versions
 Adopt lots of vocabulary from the speech they hear
 Do not correct the child

13. Developing
Morphology
 2,5 years old – telegraphic speech forms
 Inflectional morphemes
 First – ing form
 Next – plural s (overgeneralization)
 Possessive inflection –’s
 Different forms of the verb ‘to be’
 First regular past tense forms
 Later irregular past tense forms
 The regular –s marker on third person singular present
tense verbs

14. Turkish Children
 Plural (çoğul eki –lar, -ler ) is begin to use at 20-23
months. ( arabalar , bebekler etc. )
 Children understand the pronouns at 2.5 years old and
use them at 3 years old (beni , bana , seni , sana , senin
) (benim arabam, senin oyuncağın )

15. Developing Syntax
 In the formation of questions and the use of negatives,
 There are three stages
 1. stage ( 18-26 months)
 2. stage ( 22-30 months)
 3. stage ( 24-40 months)

16. Forming questions
 The child’s first stage
has two procedures.
 Simply add Wh form
( Where, Who)
 Rise in intonation
 In the second stage,
more complex expressions
 In the third stage ,
the required movement
of auxiliary ( Can I have.. )

17. Examples
Stage 1
 Where Momy ?
 Where horse go ? Sit chair ?
Stage 2
 Why you smiling ? See my doggie?
Stage 3
 Can I have ?
 Why kitty can’t ( It doesn’t spread to all Wh questions
automatically)

18. Examples from Turkish
 15-17 months ‘ne’ ( mu ne ? )
 18-20 months ‘nerede’ (neyde abba?)
 23-24 months ‘niye’ (niye vermiyorsun?)
 ‘hangi’ (hangi abba? )
 25-30 months ‘mi-ne zaman’
 INTONATION
 Child : Simiti kim aldı ?
 Mother : Simiti dayın aldı.
 Child : Dayı mı aldı ?
 Mother : Evet , dayın kendi aldı simiti.
 Child : Kendiiiii ???

19. Forming negatives
 Stage 1 : putting no or
not at the beginning
(No sit here , no teddy bear)
 In the second stage ,
the additional negative forms
don’t and can’t appear ,with no or not
( He no bite you I don’t want it)
 Third stage : incorporation
of other auxiliary forms
( didn’t , won’t )
 Children operate their own rules by forming negatives
Adult correction is useless.

20. Examples from Turkish
 Anne yok / baba yok
 Oyun şimdi değil
 Turkish children use – me and –ma at 24. months
( gitme , oynama etc. )

21. Developing Semantics
 Overextension
 Followed by a gradual process of narrowing down the
application of each term as more words are learned.
 Lexical relations
( animal-dog-poodle)
 Antonymous relations are acquired quite late.

22. Examples from Turkish
 A child says ‘Bak baba , araba’ (pointing out a bike ) –
overextension
 A child pointing out a horse and says ‘dog’