② the one-word stage à holophrastic sentences
2 year-old: use one word to serve a naming function, to refer to familiar people, toys, pets, drinks and objects in the child’s environment, indicate certain actions and demands, or convey emotions.
Simple nouns and verbs
Very few functional words such as prep., art., and aux. verbs
Choose the most informative word that applies to the situation being commented upon
Overextension (underextension of reference): use the same word for things that have a similar appearance
③ the multiword stage
2-3 year-old: the salient feature of the utterances at this stage ceases to be the number of words, but the variation in strings of lexical morphemes (telegraphic speech)
Lacking grammatical morphemes, but following the principles of sentence formation [make no word order errors at this stage]
5 year-old: has an operating vocabulary of more than 2000 words
[E] The development of grammatical system
① the development of phonology
The emergence of articulatory skills begins around the age when children start to produce babbling sounds.
Children first acquire the sounds found in all languages of the world, and in later stages acquire the “more difficult” sounds.
Certain sounds that occur in babbling are lost when children began to speak the language, and then reappear at a later stage: /l/ and /r/
② the development of syntax
Children’s early language is not only semantically based, but also makes reference to syntactic categories, and grammatical relations.
Two-word stage: noun-like element + predicate-like element
Then, add functional words as well as inflectional and derivational morphemes of the language
-ing, in, on, the regular plural ending “-s”
Negative sentences: no/all gone /// negative words occur at the beginning of expressions /// insert the negative “no”, “can’t” or “don’t” inside the sentence, usually between subject and the predicate
English questions have developed in the similar way, in an interrelated way with the development of the auxiliary verb system
③ the development of morphology
Beyond the telegraphic stage: incorporate some of the inflectional morphemes
1st one: -ing; 2nd one: marking of regular plurals with the “-s” form (overgeneralization); 3rd one: -ed rule to all verbs; begin to learn both regular and irregular forms as individual words
④ the development of vocabulary of semantics
The first two years: 50-100 words
Semantic referent to a word expands: overgeneralization
The age of two and a half years: vocabulary is expanding rapidly
The age of three: hundreds of words
Connection between a word and its denotative meaning is more like that of adult language
By five: 4.6 words per sentence
Increase of about 25 words per day
The age of six: 7800 wordsà English-speaking school children
By the age of eight: 17600 words or 28300 including derived forms
In general, children have virtually acquired the basic fabric of their native language at the age of five or six.
Per-school years are crucial period for first language acquisition.

Chapter 14  Second language Acquisition/Learning
[A] Acquisition v. learning
Acquisition: refers to the gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations; or the gradual and subconscious development of ability in the first language by using it naturally in daily communicative situations (by American SLA scholar Stephen Krashen)
Learning: refers to a conscious process of accumulating knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar of a language, usually obtained in school setting.
[B] Transfer and interference
Transfer: while learning the target language consciously or unconsciously, learners will subconsciously use their L1 knowledge in learning a second language.
Positive or negative
Interference (negative transfer) was once believed to be the major source of difficulties experienced and errors made by L2 learners.
Contrastive analysis: establish the linguistic differences between the native and target language systems, to predict problems and errors
[Old view]: L2 errors were predominantly the result of negative transfer, or mother tongue interference. Thus, learning a L2 is always to overcome the differences.
Empirical investigation:
3%àinterference errors, 85%àdevelopmental errors
[New view]: L2 learning is a process of contracting and modifying rules of communication
[C] Error analysis and the natural route of SLA development
There was supposed to be a universal route in L2 learning because negative transfer is not the major factor in SLA as it was once assumed to be.
L2=L1 hypothesis: the process of SLA and FLA are very similar.
This was investigated through the analysis of learner errors. There are striking similarities in the ways in which different L2 learners acquire a new language.
L2 learners follow broadly similar routes, although minor differences exist due to variable learner factors and learning situations.
[D] Interlanguage and fossilization
Interlanguage: the language that a learner constructs at a given stage of SLA. It consists of a series of interlocking and approximate linguistic systems in between and yet distinct from the learner’s native and target languages.
Fossilization: it was once assumed that learners’ Interlanguage would develop gradually in the direction of the target language competence if provided with sufficient and the right kind of language exposure and interaction. But most L2 learners failed to reach the end-point of the interlanguage continuum and acquire the native-like competence in the target language.
Explanation: learns’ interlanguage fossilized some way short of target language competence while the internalized rule system contained rules that are different from those of the target language system.
Chinese sound /d/àEnglish /W/, /T/; he for he or she
The use of the present tense form for a past tense verb
3rd person singular form without “s”

[E] The role of input and formal instruction
① SLA takes place only when the learner has access to L2 input and the opportunity to interact with the input.
Input may take the form of exposure in natural settings or formal instruction, either spoken or written; optimum input is needed.
Comprehensible input: the use of learned structures and vocabulary, the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts of the input data, and the learner’s general knowledge to interpret new language items.
Two very important kinds of input methods:
Interaction: taking parting in communication activities
Intake: the input that is assimilated and fed into the interlanguage system
② in general, studies of the effects of formal instruction support the hypothesis that instruction aids SLA
L2 learners are much more likely to obtain comprehensible input in the intake-type environment of a classroom setting, other than in the exposure-type environment of a natural setting.
Casual and spontaneous conversation helps a little, while planned speech, writing or career-oriented examination help a lot.
[F] Individual leaner factors like age, motivation, acculturation and personality
The rate and ultimate success in SLA are affected not only by learner’s experience with optimal input and instruction, but also by individual learner factors.
① the optimum age for second language acquisition
Adolescents: quicker and more effective L2 learners than young children
Why: the learner’s flexibility of the language acquisition faculty has not been completely lost while one’s cognitive skills have developed considerably to facilitate the processing of linguistic features of a new language.