Individual Differences in First Language Acquisition and Some Educational Implications

1986 ◽  
Vol 73 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Robert M. De Keyser
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Educational Implications

scholarly journals Individual Differences in First Language Acquisition

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 319-340
Author(s):  
Evan Kidd ◽  
Seamus Donnelly
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
First Language ◽  
Past Research ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Grammatical Development ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
Tightly Coupled ◽  
Developmental Dynamics

Humans vary in almost every dimension imaginable, and language is no exception. In this article, we review the past research that has focused on individual differences (IDs) in first language acquisition. We first consider how different theoretical traditions in language acquisition treat IDs, and we argue that a focus on IDs is important given its potential to reveal the developmental dynamics and architectural constraints of the linguistic system. We then review IDs research that has examined variation in children's linguistic input, early speech perception, and vocabulary and grammatical development. In each case, we observe systematic and meaningful variation, such that variation in one domain (e.g., early auditory and speech processing) has meaningful developmental consequences for development in higher-order domains (e.g., vocabulary). The research suggests a high degree of integration across the linguistic system, in which development across multiple linguistic domains is tightly coupled.

scholarly journals Early Lexical Development of 50 Words and Individual Differences in the First Language Acquisition: A Case of two Minangkabaunese children

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen Polisda
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Lexical Development

Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi oleh perbedaan hasil penelitian tentang jenis kata yang diucapkan anak dan perbedaan individu yang mempengaruhuinya pada fase perkembangan 50 kata. Bertolak dari latarbelakang tersebut, penelitian ini bertujuan memaparkan pemerolehan bahasa pertama anak pada fase perkembangan 50 kata dan faktor yang mempengaruhi pemerolehan bahasa tersebut. Penelitian ini dilakukan terhadap anak Minangkabau yang dalam kesehariannya menggunakan bahasa Minangkabau. Subjek penelitian ini ada dua orang, yaitu satu orang anak perempuan berumur 16 bulan dan satu orang anak laki-laki yang berumur 18 bulan. Data dikumpulkan dengan cara interaksi verbal langsung, perekaman, dan pencatatan. Berdasarkan analisis data ditemukan bahwa pada fase perkembangan awal 50 kata, kata benda paling banyak diucapkan oleh kedua anak tersebut. Anak kelahiran pertama menghasilkan sedikit kata dibandingkan anak kelahiran berikutnya. Selain itu, jika orang tuanya lebih banyak menggunakan kata dan kalimat majemuk, pemerolehan bahasa anak juga akan lebih banyak. Namun, penelitian ini tidak menemukan apakah anak yang sering diajak bersosialisasi oleh ibunya lebih produktif dalam menghasilkan kata jika dibandingkan dengan anak yang jarang diajak bersosialisasi. Kata kunci: Perkembangan/pemerolehan awal 50 kata; perbedaan individu; pemerolehan bahasa

scholarly journals The production-comprehension link in prosodic development and individual differences

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aoju Chen ◽  
Huub van den Bergh
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Sentence Position ◽  
Age Range

Central to the debate on the production-comprehension link in prosodic development is the acquisition of focus-to-prosody mapping. To elucidate the nature of the production-comprehension link and shed first light on individual differences in the prosodic domain, the present study investigated developmental changes in production and comprehension of the focus-to-prosody mapping in Dutch-speaking children (age range: 4;8 ~ 7;5, N = 71) longitudinally. It was found that children’s comprehension is predictive of their production only if their comprehension is already adult-like but their production isn’t. Notably, individual differences in the production-comprehension link change with both sentence-position and age, challenging the assertion in the literature that individual differences are stable across development and domains in first language acquisition.

Infant-Directed Speech Effects in Adult Artificial Grammar Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krisztina Sára Lukics ◽  
Ágnes Lukács
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Artificial Grammar ◽  
Combined Effect ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Grammar Learning ◽  
Learning Rates

First language acquisition is facilitated by several characteristics of infant-directed speech, but we know little about their relative contribution to learning different aspects of language. We investigated infant-directed speech effects on the acquisition of a linear artificial grammar in two experiments. We examined the effect of incremental presentation of strings (starting small) and prosody (comparing monotonous, arbitrary and phrase prosody). Presenting shorter strings before longer ones led to higher learning rates compared to random presentation. Prosody marking phrases had a similar effect, yet, prosody without marking syntactic units did not facilitate learning. These studies were the first to test the starting small effect with a linear artificial grammar, and also the first to investigate the combined effect of starting small and prosody. Our results suggest that starting small and prosody facilitate the extraction of regularities from artificial linguistic stimuli, indicating they may play an important role in natural language acquisition.

Acquiring “Knowledge”—An Alternative Model

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
First Language ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Method Of Cases ◽  
Striking Fact

The chapter argues that empirical studies of first-language acquisition lend support to the Wittgensteinian-Merleau-Pontian conception of language as against the prevailing conception that underwrites the method of cases in either its armchair or experimental version. It offers a non-representationalist model, inspired by the work of Michael Tomasello, for the acquisition of “knowledge,” with the aim of showing that we could fully account for the acquisition of this and other philosophically troublesome words without positing independently existing “items” to which these words refer. The chapter also aims at bringing out and underscoring the striking fact that, whereas many in contemporary analytic philosophy regard and present themselves as open and attentive to empirical science, they have often relied on a conception of language that has been supported by no empirical evidence.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document