Psycholinguistics
Children Language Acquisition
By:
Nurul
Ashifa F1F011002
Retno
Ari Listiana F1F011004
Kurniati F1F011006
Rica
Wahyuni F1F011024
Wibowo
Widyatmoko. A F1F011078
Jenderal
Soedirman University
Faculty
of Social and Political Science
Humanities
Department
English
Language and Literature
Purwokerto
2014
This paper will discuss
about the children development since the birth until time before schooling.
1.
Theories
of Children Language Development
Historically, there are three theories in children
language development. The first is Nativism theory, children get their language
naturally. Noam Chomsky is included in this ideology. The second is children
get their language by nurture. B.F Skinner is included in this ideology. The
last is cognitivism, children language acquisition is an ability coming from
cognitive aspects. Jean Piaget is included in this ideology. Below is the brief
explanation about those theories.
a.
Nativism
Theory
In
this theory, environment does not have any influences in language acquisition,
even considering that the language is the biological giving since the children
is born. Nativism people consider that the language is very complicated and
crucial, so it is impossible if the language is learnt by using imitation in
the short time. They believe that there are some important aspects in language
system of children.
According
to Chomsky, only human can get the language, other creatures can’t get it. Language
behavior is genetic, it means the children will have same language behavior as
their parents. Language can be mastered in short time, example: children at 4
years old can speak like adult. Chomsky said that the children born with a
device named “Language Acquisition Device (LAD)”. It is considered as a part of
brain for processing language, and it does not have relation with other
cognitive skill. Based on Chomsky, language structure and principle is got by
the children naturally.
b.
Behaviorism
Theory
Children
first language acquisition is controlled out of the children themselves, it
means that children acquisition is stimulated by environment. Children are
considered as passive receptor from the environment, they do not have active
roles in their verbal behavior process. Language acquisition process is
determined by practicing given by the environment. According to B.F Skinner,
the stimulus from environment will strengthen children language acquisition.
c.
Cognitivism
Theory
Jean
Piaget (1954) said that the language is not the separated characteristic naturally,
but it is one of ability coming from cognitive ripeness. Language development
is based on the change deeply and commonly in the cognition. The sequences of
cognitive development determine the sequences of language development.
Language
structure exists because of continued interaction between children cognitive
and their environments. Piaget declared children stage acquisition from 0 until
18 months called as “Sensory Motor stage”. In this stage, the children have not
had a language yet because they have not used symbols to know the things around
them. The children will know environment by their sensory and movements that
they do (motoric).
Children
will know the things which they see directly and if those things are moved to
another place from their sight, so they will think that those things lost, there
are no more things. In the end of one year old, children will get the thought
that those things are available and it is permanent, although those things are
often seen. Cognitive children development must be got first before they can
produce their thought in the form of language skill.
Language
acquisition from Nativism, Behaviorism, and Cognitivism related to other
developments which are faced by the children. Therefore, before talking about
language development itself, below are the brief explanations about Motor,
Social, and Children Cognitive Development.
2.
Motoric
Development
Motor means a movement. Motoric development is
children development since 0 month and it is mostly can be seen. It can be seen
from sitting, crawling on hands and knees until walking. After the birth, the
baby needs 14-18 hours for sleeping and then slowly it will change.
At 3-4 month, baby can sit for a while (about one
minute) helped by the parent. At 7-8 month, baby can sit by himself/herself
without any helping. At 9 month, baby can sit for about 10 minutes or more. At
11 month, children can stand alone and around 13th month, children
can walk by themselves. Parent helps the children motor developments. The
sequences of children ability can’t be changed. If the children are practiced
of walking in much time, perhaps their ability in walking can be got earlier.
3. Communication and Social Development
According to Poerwo (1989), since born until one
year old, baby has not a language especially spoken language, but the baby can
communicate to his/her mother or other people who is very close to her/him.
“Very close” here means often be together with him/her. Because of baby’s
visibility is only 20 cm at that time, so the communication will be eyes
contact. It happens because the baby only can look into his/her mother’s eyes
when the process of breast feeding is happening. Baby’s communication develops
step by step, and it happens naturally.
Human voice and eyes contact becomes the first
interesting thing for the baby. Of course, it can create communication. After
the baby born, human voice is the most interesting sound rather than the other
voice form another sources. Since baby
born, she/ he will look attractive and can receive his/her mother sounds and
movements. The baby will be familiar with his/her mother’s face. After a week,
the baby can move his/her hands, tongue, and lips. Moreover, after three week,
the baby will give the “social smile” for interaction. Toward a month, she/he
can imitate the short and long voice of his/her mother. In the second month,
the baby will be often “cooing” like a dove for showing his/her happy feeling.
Toward three month the baby’s cognitive ability will increase, she/he is not
interested in a poker face, she/he expects expressive face for interaction.
Toward 12 week, the baby starts to produce his/her response
voice in interaction, and after 12 week, the baby will understand about “pola
gilir”. Toward 5 month, the baby starts to imitate an adult voice and
movements, and when the baby is 5 month, he/she can make any sound which show
his/her felling such as happy, unhappy, and curious. Toward 6 month, the baby’s
interest in toys and things increases, so it becomes three connected
interaction: baby, mother, and things. Between 7-12 months years old, the baby
shows his/her pretension more by hands or mouth movements without any voice,
then the voice come out step by step.
Purwo says in his book that there are two researches
of baby’s voice meaning:
1.
Von Reffler Engel (1973) record there
was a boy baby who always produced “e-e-e” sound to ask something and “u-u-u”
for unhappy feeling.
2.
Dore (1976) record that four 11
month years old children produced “a-a-a” for showing a happy
feeling and “e-e-e” for complaining something.
4.
Cognitive Development
Cognitive refers to mental phenomenon
which relate to world introduction that always relate to baby’s mind. There are
four children’s cognitive development stages (Morgan, 1986):
- Sensomotorik Stage
- Praoperational Stage
- Operational Concrete Stage
- Operational Formal Stage
5.
Language
Developments
This phase passed
by babies since they were born until 14 months. When they were 14 months,
babies are able to produce vocal sound like “aaa”, “eee”, or “uuu,”that has a certain purpose. The
development of articulation is passed by baby trough
these steps:
·
Resonance Sound
Sound
production that happens in mouth cavity and related to babies’ activities and
motoring development in mouth cavity. The babies do this activity until they
are 6 months, while they are breastfeeding. In this activity, there is reflex
movement which is out of control of the babies.
This reflex movement there
is the activities of suck swallow. The
rapid growth in mouth activity, nose, and neck enable the babies to produce
many kinds
of sounds. The Most frequent sound that produced by babies is crying. In the
end of first month, baby’s crying can be differentiated in meaning.
·
Cooing Sound
Around
2 months, babies have developed the control of mouth muscle to start and end
the movement. In this phase, the laugh sound and cooing sound can be heard. Actually,
the cooing sound is a sound of “quasi consonant” that happen in one breath with
checked sound between velar and uvular.
·
Babble Sound
Babble
is producing sound continuously without any purpose and it is usually done by
babies in age 4 to 6 months. In this time, often try to produce any kind of
sound; and they now can control the organs involved in this sound mechanism.
This period is a time when the babies produce a long syllable sound.
·
Repetead Babble Sound
This
phase is passed by the babies while they are 6 to 10 months. In the beginning,
the consonant that can be pronounced are labial sound [p] and [b], alveolar
sound [t] and [d], nassal sound and sound [j]. However, the sound is not
perfect and the production is also quite slow. The most common sound which is
heard is a syllable sound which is
the series of consonant and vocal like “bababa” and “ma mama”.
·
Vocable Sound
Vocable is a
sound which is like word but it does not have meaning and not the immitation of
the adult. The vocable can be produced by the babies in the age of 11 to 14
months. The vocable sound consists of 4 types that are one vocal and
repeat vocal, syllabic nassal, sillabic fricative and nassal consonant.
b.
Stage of development of words and sentences
After children master vocable ability,
then they can master to say words, simple sentences and perfect sentences. To
master 3 abilities above, children have to through some stages, such as:
1. First
word
In
this stage, when the children their firs`t word, their articulation should be
clear. It is because the listeners understand what they speak. Then, the word
that is produced have to be related to the thing that they speak.
According
to Francescato, child tries to say the word that it stands for a meaningful
sentence without concerning to the fonem. Then, based on Waterson, child can
only capture particular characteristics of the words spoken by an adult, and
the pronunciation’s abilities are limited to their articulations.
For
example, when an adult can say fonetic [k], but the children can just say
fonetic [t], so they will say [ikan] (in bahasa) with [itan]
1. One-
word sentences
One
– word sentences is also called holophrases. One – word sentences is a many single
words or syllables that stand for meaningful sentences. Then, the first
utterance that can be produced by the children is the utterances of adult that
usually they heard. Then the utterance is also familiar with the children, such
as toys, people, pets, food and clothes.
The
sequences of the syllable are produced by children, like VC, CV, or CVCV.
For
example:
Juice
[dus]
Cookie
[toti]
Baby
[bibi]
mama
In
this stage, the development of child’s vocabularies is slow, but it becomes
fast based on the development of the child’s ability. Therefore, when the age of
the child is 18 month, they have 50 vocabularies. Most of the vocabularies are
nouns, verb.
2. Two-word
sentences
In
this stage, the children can just construct two words in a sentence. It happens
when the age of the children is around 18 month. To construct two -word
sentences, they follow the order of adult’s construction.
Based on Bloom, the
orders are:
Agent
+ action mommy come;
daddy sit
Action
+ object drive car; eat grape
Action
+ location go park; sit chair
Entity
+ location cup table; toy floor
Entity + attribute box shinny; crayon big
In
this stage the development of child’s language is more productive than one –
word sentences based on the development of child’s ability overall.
3. Multi
word sentences
After
the children master two-word sentences, they can construct three word
sentences. According to Brown (1973), the construction in this stage is the
result of compounding or elaboration from the previous stage, two-word
sentences.
For example the
children elaborate the contraction of agent + action and action + object become
agent + action + object.
Agent + action = Daddy throw
Action
+ object = Throw
ball
Agent + action = object = Daddy throw ball
When the age of children toward 2 years
old, they can construct multi words and sentences through elaboration
technique. However they can construct multi word sentences, two word sentences
still be dominant.
Then, to develop the children’s ability
to construct the sentences well and to say the sentences well, their mother use
yes no question technique and they use conversation technique. When mother asks
a question to the children, then mother answers her question herself. Therefore
around 3 years old, children know the pattern of conversation.
c. Toward School Phase
Toward school phase here means that the
kids come close to elementary school, when they attain the age of five until
six years old. Kindergarten’s education, especially play group is can’t as
reputed as school yet, because those just help to prepared them to join to real
school, that is elementary school.
If we re-investigate about language
expansion of the kids were after they are said their first word and only one
word. Their words are so simple, concrete and refer to things, event, or people
around them. Then, two years later after they know 50 words, there are a lot of
kids can combine two words. Nevertheless, these two words sentences is not
contain by article, preposition, or other grammatical elements. So, their two
words sentences can make an equivocal. Example, “Mommy juice” it may be
“Mommy’s juice”, or Mommy, give me a juice”, or “Mommy is drinking her juice”.
However, the moms can understand their kid’s mean with their two words
sentences.
A number of researches are show the two
words sentences in a variety of language in the world, the kids say their same
mind and meaning in this age. While their sentence becomes long, it has many
words meaning and start using grammatical type.
According to Benedict (1979)
At 13 months old, the kids have already mastered
about 50 words, but they productively show those words in 19 months old. In two
until four years old is their time to evolving their vocabulary quickly
According to Clark (1982 in Purwo 1989)
In two until six years old, the kids
always make new words, such as plant-man
for gardener or crackering for I am
crackering my sup.
About the introduction of writing in
society is not effective, the kids already know about writing before
pre-school. For example, they are know that their name can wrote on a piece of
paper. They already differentiate pictures and letters in book, and they know
that their parent is read a writings not pictures in the story book or
another.-When enter to kindergarten, the kids have mastered almost all of
grammatical rules. They can make a news, asks, and an amount of another
construction. But they are still difficult to make passive sentence.
According to Harwood (1959 in Purwo
1989)
The kids before six years old can’t make
passive sentence yet. About 12.000 spontaneously sentences made by five years
old of kids, Harwood can’t find a passive sentence then.
According to Bardie (1976 in Purwo 1989)
About 80% of the kids attain the age of
seven-half until eight years old can make a passive sentence. Pre-school kids
also get a trouble with imperative sentence construction.
Ervin-Tripp (1977 in 1989 Purwo)
The pre-school kids have learned
something beyond the vocabulary and grammar. They can also use language in
various social contacts. They can mock their friends, but they can show a respectful
speech to their parent.
