Issues in First Language Acquisition: (PLLT) 31-43

1. Competence and Performance:.- Competence refers to ones underlying of a system,

event, or fact; nonobservable ability to do something. Performance is the overtly observable and concrete manifestation or realization of competence. It is the actual doing of something. In schools, it is assumed that children possess certain competence in giv en areas and that this competence can be measured and assessed by means of the observation of elicited samples of tests and examinations. In reference to language, competence is the underlying knowledge of the system of a language its rules of grammar, its vocabulary, all the pieces of a language and how those pieces fit together. Performance is the actual production (speaking, writing) or the comprehension (listening, reading) of linguistic events. Chomsky appointed that a theory of language had to be a theory of competence so that linguists dont try in vain to categorize an infinite number of performance variables that dont reflect the underlying ability of the student. Linguists and psychologists in the generative/cognitive framework have operated under this idea for some time. Indirect methods of judging childrens competence had to be invented when researchers realized that if a child has no interest or cognizance of an adults grammatical interrogation, he will say whatever comes to his mind. Those methods included: 1) tape recording and transcription of countless hours of speech followed by studious analysis, and 2) certain imitation, production, or comprehension tests. All of these had numerous disadvantages. The competence-performance model hasnt been accepted universally because it states that the competence consists of the abilities of an idealized hearer-speaker who has no performance variables. Tarone (1988) criticized this model because he says that by idealizing the language user, there is no place for all of a persons goofs that are potentially connected to what he calls heterogeneous competence which are the abilities that are in the process of being formed

2. Comprehension and Production.- They both can be aspects of performance and

competence. It is thought that comprehension (listening and reading) can be associated with competence, while production (speaking, writing) is associated with performance. The truth is, both comprehension and production of a language- are both associated with performance, even if comprehension skills arent as observable as production

skills. Linguistic competence has several modes or levels: speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and all of them are separate modes of performance. While lexical and grammatical instances of production-before-comprehension seem to be few in number, it still behooves us to be careful in concluding that all aspects of linguistic comprehension facilitate linguistic production.

3. Nature or Nurture?.- Nativists contend that a child is born with an innate knowledge of
a language, and that this innate property is universal. However, it hasnt been proven that there are language genes in our genetic information. Environmental factors cannot be ignored. What is that innate knowledge of a language that nature provides us with? And what is that knowledge nurtured, internalized and learned from the environment and by teaching? Evidence has been found that there are common patterns of linguistic and cognitive development across a number of languages and that human beings are bio-programmed to proceed from stage to stage and bloom when it is time.

4. Universals.- Language is universally acquired in the same manner, and deep structure
of language at its deepest level may be common to all languages. According to Maratsos (1988), universal linguistic categories such as word order, morphological marking tone, agreement, reduced reference of nouns and noun clauses, verbs and verb classes, predication, negation and question formation are common to all languages. There are principles and parameters which specify some limited possibilities of variation. For example, the principle of structure dependency states that language is organized in such a way that it crucially depends on the structural relationships between elements in a sentence (Holzman:1988), apparently, this principle of structure dependency eventually appears in the comprehension and production of a child. According to the UG, languages cannot vary in an infinite number of ways. Parameters determine ways in which languages can vary; for example, some languages are head first or head last, where the main nouns go second in a sentence.

5. Systematicity and Variability:

Language develops from pivot grammar to full

sentences of almost interminate length. Children exhibit great ability to infer the phonological, structural, and lexical semantic system of language. But there may also be variability in the process of language acquisition, which means something children

once learned may easily be changed or forgotten due to the perception of new language systems.

6. Language and thought: The issue at stake is to determine how thought affects
language, how language affects thought, and how linguists can best describe and explain the interaction of the two. There have been some positions on this such as that of Piaget (1972), who claimed that cognitive development is at the center of human organisms and that language depends on cognitive development. Jerome Brunner (1966), pointed out that there are sources of language-influenced intellectual development where words shape concepts, dialogues between parents and children serve to orient and educate. For Vigotsky (1978), language and thought were given in the social interaction where language is a prerequisite to cognitive development. He regarded thought and language as two distinct cognitive operations. For him, every child reaches his potential development through social interaction with adults and peers. Spir-Whorf appointed that each language imposes on its speaker a particular world view.

7. Imitation: Research has shown that echoing is a particularly salient strategy in early
language learning and an important aspect of early phonological acquisition. However, the semantic data is not noticed. It has been observed in foreign language classes that rote pattern drills evoke surface imitation where the repetition of sounds doesnt lead students to have the vaguest idea of what they are saying. Children, however, perceive the importance of the semantic level of language, so if they imitate the surface structure of the language, they wont be able to understand what they are imitating.

8. Practice: Children like to play with language just as they do with other objects and
events around them. Childrens language seems to be a key to language acquisition. When talking about practice, it is thought of as referring to speaking only. But we can also think of comprehension practice.

9. Input: the speech that young children hear is primarily the speech heard in home, and
much of that speech is parental speech or the speech of older siblings. Children, after consistent repeated of telegraphic speech in meaningful contexts, eventually transfer correct forms to their own speech. For example, from saying dat John to thats John. It is clear from more recent research that adult and peer input to the child is far more important than nativists earlier believed. Adult input seems to shape the

childs acquisition, and the interaction patterns between child and parent change according to the ingreasing language skill of the child.

10. Discourse: conversation is a universal human activity performed routinely in the course
of daily living, the means by which children learn to take part in conversation appear to be complex. The child learns not only how to initiate a conversation but how to respond to anothers initiating utterance and recognize the function of the discourse. For example, when asked something, the child will identify whether he is being requested for information, for an action, or for help.