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.

Current Issues in Multilingual First Language Acquisition

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 21-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Unsworth
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Development ◽  
First Language ◽  
Similar Rate ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Input Quantity ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
Development Proceeds ◽  
Practical Implications

Multilingual first language acquisition refers to the language development of children exposed to two or more languages from birth or shortly thereafter. Much of the research on this topic adopts a comparative approach. Bilinguals are thus compared with their monolingual peers, and trilinguals with both bilinguals and monolinguals; within children, comparisons are made between a child's two (or more) languages, and between different domains within those languages. The goal of such comparisons is to determine the extent to which language development proceeds along similar paths and/or at a similar rate across groups, languages, and domains, in order to elaborate upon the question of whether these different groups acquire language in the same way, and to evaluate how language development in multilingual settings is influenced by environmental factors. The answers to these questions have both theoretical and practical implications.The goal of this article is to discuss the results of some of this recent research on multilingual first language acquisition by reviewing (a) properties of the developing linguistic system in a variety of linguistic domains and (b) some of the characteristics of multilingual first language acquisition that have attracted attention over the past five years, including cross-linguistic influence, dominance, and input quantity/quality. Trilingual first language acquisition is covered in a dedicated section.

scholarly journals First language acquisition of French grammar (from 10 months to 4 years old) Introduction

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
MARTINE SEKALI
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
First Language ◽  
Psychological Development ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Grammatical Development ◽  
Parental Input ◽  
Linguistic Input ◽  
French Grammar ◽  
Innate Ability

How do French children acquire the grammatical system of their native language so easily? Many hypotheses have been put forward and experimentally tested to solve this mystery. Generative theories argue that grammar is a universal and innate ability ready to be instantiated after birth. Within this framework, grammatical development is seen as a process whereby universal grammar gradually settles into the language-specific structures of the linguistic input that children receive in the first years of life. In the last decades however, many researchers of child language development have suggested other explanations. Current functional-cognitive research (cf. Langacker, 1988, 2000; Bybee, 1995, 2002; Elman et al., 1996; Tomasello, 2003; Diessel, 2004), proposes a usage-based approach to first language acquisition, where grammar is shaped by usage, and linguistic constructions are taken from parental input and gradually generalised by the child. Usage-based theories thus consider grammatical development as a dynamic process which emerges and evolves, in parallel with cognitive and psychological development, through the use of symbolic patterns which consolidate into grammatical constructions.

Bilingual First Language Acquisition: French and German Grammatical Development

Language ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 645
Author(s):  
Bernhard Rohrbacher ◽  
Jürgen M. Meisel ◽  
Jurgen M. Meisel
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Grammatical Development

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.

scholarly journals Lexical and morphological development: A case study of Malay English bilingual first language acquisition

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-61
Author(s):  
Rabiah Tul Adawiyah Mohamed Salleh ◽  
Bruno Di Biase ◽  
Satomi Kawaguchi
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Morphological Development ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Grammatical Development ◽  
Longitudinal Investigation ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
The Family

Abstract Many first language acquisition (FLA) studies have found a strong correlation between lexical and grammatical development in early language acquisition. For bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA), the development of grammar is also found to be correlated with the size of the lexicon in each language. This case study investigates how a Malay-English bilingual child developed the lexicon and grammar in each of her languages and considers possible evidence of interaction between the languages during acquisition. The study also aims to show that the predominant linguistic environment to which the child was alternatively exposed might have played an important role in her lexical and grammatical development. Thus, the study presents two sets of data: (a) a 12-month longitudinal investigation when the child was 2;10 up till 3;10 in Australia and (b) a one-off elicitation session at age 4;8 when the family was in Malaysia. The findings show that not only the emergence of grammar is linked to the lexical size of the developing languages, but that other variables, mainly the linguistic environment and the bilingual language mode, also influenced the child’s language productions.

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