Early Language Acquisition of Mandarin-Speaking Children

Yunqiu Zhang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000692648
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Compared with other subdisciplines in Chinese linguistics, children's language acquisition is a significant field with relatively limited achievements. Based on data from a dynamic and developmental corpus, this book is a comprehensive exploration of the early development of Chinese-speaking children's language acquisition.
Anchoring the discussions regarding phonetics, semantics and aspects of syntax in a cognitive and functional framework, the author conducts an in-depth analysis of many acquisition characteristics, such as the inevitable and incidental errors of their learning of initials; their ability to obtain the concept of time at a young age and the utilization of Le in the expression of the past tense; their understanding of subjectivity at a young age and the ability to express it;their learning ofthe degree of modality following the order of from probability to necessity; andchildren's acquisition of syntactic structures being impacted by genetics andalso affected by the steps involved in syntactic processing. Although genetics, cognition and experience all play a role in children's language acquisition, this book focuses on the role of cognitive functions.
By successfully explaining the acquisition rules based on some cutting-edge linguistic theories, the book will certainly be beneficial to scholars studying linguistics, psychology, cognitive science and early childhood educators.

1 Introduction

This chapter first analyzes and defines the different interpretations of several basic concepts (acquisition, innate, input) in language acquisition research and then explains the theoretical framework of this book. It is not a single theoretical orientation: in the research of lexical and semantic development, it is mainly explained by cognitive and empirical factors, and the interpretation of syntactic development is equally split between empirical and innate factors. In terms of data, this book is eclectic in approach. It includes both spontaneously produced data and experimental data, since we believe that if the rules obtained via one type of data are true, then they should stand the test of any research method.

1.1 Basic concepts of language acquisition research

Children’s language acquisition is a very meaningful field of research. On the one hand, its significance is reflected in the external argumentation of linguistic theory; on the other hand, it is an indispensable part of linguistics, psychology, and even cognitive science, having important promoting effects on both linguistic research and cognitive psychology research. As Thomas H.-T. Lee has pointed out, contemporary linguists have provided a more precise description of human language; if, on this basis, we can make precise descriptions regarding the general rules and the particular phenomena of children’s language acquisition, it would then suggest that we have obtained a clear understanding of human cognitive development within a specific scope.

Currently, there are two main theories in regard to children’s language acquisition research, namely, nativism and constructivism. Different theories also have different main methods of obtaining corpus data. Even their interpretations of some basic concepts are different, such as acquisition, innate, input, and so on. We will conduct initial discussions regarding these issues in the following.

1.1.1 What is acquisition?

Children’s language acquisition refers to why and how children acquire a language. I believe that different theoretical schools agree on this point. However, nativist theory focuses more on why children can learn language while other animals cannot – what inborn qualities do children have that lead them to be able to use language almost like an adult within a mere three or four years; constructivist theory pays more attention to how children can progress from being unable to speak to being able to use language the same way as adults. In this process, what have children experienced that causes their language to approximate that of adults? The different concerns of the two schools lead to differing views on the initial state of children’s language. Nativist theory considers the initial state of children’s language to not be blank but rather an inborn knowledge of grammar, which is called Universal Grammar, or interlanguage, and it is regarded as the essential reason children acquire language. Constructivist theory believes that there is insufficient evidence to prove that Universal Grammar is genetically inherited and that children’s language is gradually constructed based on general cognitive abilities (such as the ability to interpret intention and discover patterns) through interactions with adults (i.e., use). The language input children receive during the interactions is an important driving factor for children’s language acquisition.

The differences in these viewpoints also lead to variations in the judgment criteria for acquisition at the operational level – specifically, whether to use correct comprehension or correct production as the criterion. Nativist theory suggests that once children can understand the content of certain discourse, then they have acquired the discourse. If children can comprehend grammatical knowledge that has never been input (such as the principle of C-command), then it means that children are innately equipped with the grammatical knowledge embedded in the discourse structures. Using comprehension as the criterion for whether children have acquired certain grammatical knowledge usually involves obtaining supporting data from experimental methods, such as the truth value judgment task, action demonstration, or picture selection. Constructivist theory needs to observe the interactions between children and adults to see how children gradually construct language. It therefore often utilizes data generated by children (including spontaneous output data and elicited output data) to find the rules of construction (such as the island model).

The problem is experimental data are constrained by the age factor of the children – the younger they are, the less likely it is for them to participate in an experiment, and so it is rare to see experimental data of children around age 02;00. However, from spontaneous output corpora, many children around age 02;00–02;06 already have a lot of grammatical knowledge (such as relativization, aspect, mood, and so on); however, subject to the maturity and training of the vocal organs, children’s output corpora (especially the spontaneous output corpora) may not truly reflect their linguistic ability. Language comprehension precedes production. Children can already understand the meaning of adult discourse when they cannot yet produce them (such as the ability to complete some of the instructions of passing a toy given by adults). The words in the single-word stage are not words but rather the expression of an event and a combination of denotation and declaration (e.g., “daddy” may refer to “daddy hug”, “daddy hug me and take me out”, “find daddy”). And sometimes, children imitate adults – even though they produce output, they have not yet comprehended the meaning. This shows that the two theories have certain flaws in their ways of obtaining supporting corpora data. Thus, there are issues in the judgment criteria of acquisition as well.

Can we combine the two criteria for learning? This is likely to be futile. Different criteria are derived from different theories and their foci on distinctive issues (nativist theory focuses on the hereditary nature of Universal Grammar, and constructivist theory focuses on the construction process of children’s language). Therefore, without discussing the theories, it is difficult to reconcile the acquisition criteria. Yet the limited nature of human wisdom determines that we cannot have perfect theories, nor can we have flawless research methods. What we can do is to make up for the shortcomings of theories and research methods to the best of our ability.

1.1.2 What is innate?

Whether genetic factors play a decisive role in children’s language acquisition is one of the essential differences between the two major views regarding language acquisition. Some scholars in the nativism camp proposed a dual mechanism theory based on the influence of the linguistic environment on language acquisition: Universal Grammar is obtained by children through inheritance, while the lexicon and their pragmatic markings are stored through memory (Pinker, 1999); some scholars put forth the maturation theory based on the fact that children’s grammar is different from adult grammar (Wexler, 1999). But in general, they all acknowledge that children are born with Universal Grammar, and under this premise, they mend the nativism view based on the challenges it faces.

The obvious fact is that apart from humans, primates, including chimpanzees and bonobos, cannot learn to speak like children no matter how much input they receive. However, if children do not have a proper language environment after birth (i.e., input), it is equally impossible for them to speak. The cases of John Ssebunya and Genie are good examples that prove this point. As such, neither the innate genetic factors nor the empirical influence of language environment on language acquisition can be denied – they both are indispensable in language acquisition, and it is difficult for them to negate each other. The debate between the rationalist paradigm and the empirical paradigm of the study of language acquisition has been going on for a long time with the two views in diametric opposition. This way of thinking contrasts the innate influence with the environmental influence, even though the two are neither antagonistic nor parallel to each other. Therefore, this kind of argument may not be persuasive or lead to conclusions.

In my opinion, the empiricist paradigm emphasizes the influence of the language environment, yet the effect of experience only occurs on humans but not on chimpanzees. Therefore, regardless of the intentional interpretation in interaction or the pattern discovery through interactive experience, they are abilities that only humans possess. So how do children come to have this cognitive ability? Is it inborn or learned? If the heritability of this cognitive ability cannot be denied, then the empirical paradigm cannot negate the natural attributes of language. Conversely, if the rationalist research paradigm recognizes the innateness of language acquisition, then it should be acknowledged that all components of language (whether it is UG or lexicon and pragmatic components that require environmental interaction) have natural attributes. In addition, vocalization of all of the components needs to be induced by the linguistic environment. As for whether the genetic information (or genes) related to the emergence of language is the result of evolution or genetic mutation, we will not discuss in depth here, since neither result can deny the inheritance of genetic constraints on language acquisition.

1.1.3 What is input?

Nativist theory believes that the determinant of language acquisition is genetic inheritance. The strongest evidence of this view is that children’s language input is impoverished and incomplete in the process of learning a language. But in just a few years, children can complete language acquisition at an amazing speed and show a clear grasp of some language commonalities. Since this situation cannot be proved from the perspective of language input, “there must be innate linguistic knowledge that guides the process of language acquisition”, which means that linguistic knowledge (including certain elements, structures, and principles) is “inherently coded in human genes”, and they do not need to work through experience (Lee, 2000, 2002). Constructivism differs from nativism in regard to their views of the effect of input. It considers children to be the best learners. All of the language they have learned in the early days is from the input of the people around them. Input is extremely important for children’s acquisition of language, and it is also important that the early input children receive is not impoverished but, on the contrary, is amply rich.

It should be noted that the meaning of input is interpreted differently by the two schools: The input in constructivist theory does not simply refer to children imitating adult speech but rather children’s interaction with people around them. Interaction is use. Through usage, children gradually understand the meaning of the speech from people around them and discover the rules of discourse. The acquisition of words is also included and considered to be based on interaction and language use (Tomasello, 2003). The input in nativist theory is the input of rules of language. According to nativism, children’s language input is completely different from the rule-input of adult second language learning. The former’s rule-input is very impoverished, whereas the latter mainly consists of only the input of rules. Yet the speed of second language learning is far slower than even that of children with very impoverished rule-input.

As far as the interactions between adults and children during their early childhood is concerned, the input of language rules that children receive is indeed extremely impoverished. This is because we tend not to teach young children how to speak, nor do we teach them abstract rules. When we can understand children’s intention and meaning, we even acquiesce and allow their “errors”. However, we still cannot deny the role of input in children’s language acquisition. First, it is impossible for children to learn to speak without being triggered by input. At least the input is an example for children’s target language in terms of parameter setting. Second, children have the ability to discover patterns, and they can find rules from the many sentences provided by adults. The learning phenomenon of overgeneralization is proof of this point. But with regards to the relationship between input and acquisition, we often first look at what components children produce and the amount and time of output, and then consider the input of the component. Rarely do we first examine what input children have acquired, and whether the language components from input can all generate output. The input data regarding the ditransitive constructions in chapter 10 of this book show that the input obtained by children is an important predisposing factor in the parameterization process of acquiring the target language. However, while there is input, there may not always be output. The components learned successively have no difference in their input quantity, yet there is a significant temporal characteristic in their time of acquisition. This indicates that although the effect of input is important, it is not the sole factor that triggers language acquisition. The triggering effect of input is likely to be subordinate to the inborn biological mechanisms. The innate mechanism stipulates when the input will work.

1.2 Theoretical framework

1.2.1 Interpretation of basic concepts

Based on the discussion in the previous section, we can see that the two theories of language acquisition differ in terms of acquisition criteria and input connotation, and it is difficult to reconcile these differences. I will choose between them according to my own views of language acquisition.

When considering the supporting materials for acquisition criteria, spontaneous output data is favored, which includes spontaneous output corpus and elicited output corpus, but they are also supplemented with experimental data when necessary.

When considering the effect of input as a variable, I regard input as the specific sentences produced by adults rather than abstract rules. When the timing of acquisition of the same type of linguistic components (with their semantic interpretation and syntactic processing being roughly the same) is obviously different, the influence of the input is prioritized.

If we treat the ability to interpret intentions, discover patterns, understand words and sentences, and detect rules through interaction and language use as an ability that only humans possess, which is to say, the experience of acquiring language is a solely human experience, and such experience is only effective on humans, then I am a thorough nativist, even though my understanding of innate and what is innate may differ from that of nativist theory. At the same time, we do not need to pose rationalism and empiricism of language acquisition completely against each other. They may be in parallel rather than in opposition. In a more open nativist view, they could be two sides of the same issue. Thus, we do not need to get entangled regarding the stance of nature or nurture. This book mainly explains research of lexical and semantic development using cognitive and empirical factors and interprets research on syntactic development based on both empirical and innate factors. This is done precisely because of these considerations.

1.2.2 Constraints on language development

This book does not intend to dwell too much on the strengths and weaknesses of the different views of acquisition but to pay more attention to an important and practical issue, which is that all language components need to be triggered by the linguistic environment to be produced as speech, including Universal Grammar. However, the information provided by language input is often rich – why are children selective when they produce? Such that there are significant timing differences when various linguistic items are produced. According to Wexler (1999), this can be explained by the maturation theory. We agree that language acquisition is a process of maturation. Although currently we are still not able to clearly describe the correspondence between the order of gene expression and language growth, as a theoretical hypothesis, it can be established.

But what is innate? We can have different opinions. The innate principles of the generative view have been criticized by constructivists for their abstractness, their lack of thorough proof, and their unfalsifiability. In addition, given the current status of Generative Grammar in the field, regarding the Minimalist Program, the previously sought-after commonalities for Principles and Parameters have not been found, and therefore researchers have turned their attention to the Merge Principle. My view is that the most fundamental principle should be parsimony, and it should be the same for linguistics.

Contemporary linguistic typological studies consider that there is a limit to the variation of human languages in both meaning and form. Therefore, the types of human languages are expressed as the variations of commonality. This is to say that the surface of human languages is diverse, but the grammatical rules behind them are limited. Therefore, human languages have commonalities: some are unrestricted universals, while more are implicational universals, which indicates that the existence of one principle implies the existence of another principle, and not vice versa. The development of linguistic typological studies has provided a very rich linguistic sample. Combined with the application of big data methods, we can discover many credible language universals. If there are universals behind the diverse human languages, then can the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A phonetic investigation of the acquisition and development of primary vowels
• 3 Deviation phenomena in the acquisition of initials
• 4 Acoustic analyses of tone acquisition and related errors
• 5 Acquisition of locative words relating to “up” and “down”
• 6 The onset of time consciousness – the acquisition of Le 了
• 7 Acquisition and development of expressions of subjectivization
• 8 Early acquisition of degrees of modality
• 9 Acquisition of the Zai 在 construction
• 10 Early acquisition and development of the ditransitive construction
• 11 Acquisition of simplex relative clauses
• Bibliography
• Index