First language acquisition

Teachers are always teaching languages to their students in almost all the grades based upon the requirement of their standards. This chapter presents the research on language acquisition that comes from different fields of study. There are different theories upon the first language acquisition of a child. The early views of first language acquisition are behaviorism. According to the behaviorists, language learning happened as a process of stimulus and response, thus positive reinforcements makes to full adult language proficiency. They believed that language can be learned like anything else and they also believed language can be learned through the imitation. Later on, Chomsky did review on Skinner’s verbal behavior theory which signaled the replacement of cognitive theory on behavioral theory. Regarding cognitive theory humans are born with the cognitive abilities, thus learning language is the result of the child acting on the environment much like a scientist making and testing hypotheses. This theory comes up with arising many problems and its explanation on behaviorist theory. Later on, there comes many other theories to justify language acquisition such as developmental psychology, sociology, anthropology, education and linguistic.
As per the view of developmental psychology language development is related with the way children learn, their ability to perceive, conceptualize, store and access information and their motivation. Their research is based on the early language that produces by the child since the researcher could not ask with the one or two years baby about how they produce the sound. Thus their research is based upon the children’s linguistic output. However they have come up with an ideas that cognition and language develop are related but independent with each other.
Regarding to sociology, anthropology, and education, children could produce language because language is essential for social interaction. Thus, social setting helps them to learn the grammar and vocabulary. They also develop communicative competence. The meaning of the utterances is depends upon the context. Children invented different words in different context; they modify their invention in light of the responses they receive from the community.
As per the linguistic view, they have focused upon the nature of language, on what it is that children acquire. Linguist Noam Chomsky developed a theory referred to as Generative Grammar, and he defines language in terms of a set of rules that could be applied to generate all the sentences of a particular language. He says children acquire this knowledge of language on relatively slight exposure and without specific training. According to Chomsky, humans are born with the basic structures of all human languages already presents in the brain and he named this innate knowledge of language Universal Grammar, thus children learn the language that surround them and Chomsky calls it as parameter setting.
The studies of child language show that develop the rules of language quickly without much correction on it. Chomsky’s claim of universal grammar can be proved with the fact that children never make certain kinds of mistakes. The children have implicit knowledge which allows them to understand and produce sentences, but doesn’t allow them to explain how they do it. Children quickly acquire linguistic knowledge but for metalinguistic knowledge, they should study it.
All these studies have been contributed to the new understanding of the process of first language acquisition. Study supports that children must have some built in linguistic knowledge. Thus, children come to the school with some linguistic knowledge but they need to develop proficiency in the academic language of school and the conventions of the standard written language.