The process of becoming fluent in writing and speaking a second language is a complex process that relies on a number of influences; individual personality characteristics such as maturity, past experiences, exposure to the new language, learning environment, motivation, and natural inclinations to adapting to new skills are some factors that promote or hinder progress. Research involving experimentation, investigation, and empirical studies has been conducted to describe individual factors that influence the quality and speed of children’s learning a second language and will be examined. Some children are born into multilingual families with different cultural backgrounds and it has become important to assess how parents may assist in acquiring languages at home and in the community. There are various steps and measures taken which, when applied inappropriately, may lead to inefficient language acquisition. Every instructor should be aware of the mechanics involved in teaching a second language to prevent negative consequences of conflicting languages in order to promote the child’s ability to easily transfer from one language into another.
The goal of this paper is to describe and analyze the development of the second language skills of the child who is reared in a family where three languages are used for daily communication. It should be noted that it is not an unusual situation for children to speak more than two languages in the home. The initial hypothesis of this research assumes that inborn aptitude, frequency of communicating, and the child’s personal motivation play a crucial role in the effectiveness of language acceptance and is directly proportional to speech speed and correct usage. Individual mindset and perception provide a background for learning and skill development. Controversial topics concerning second language acquisition will be discussed as well as the primary principles necessary in order to evaluate the versatility present in a child’s capabilities to develop adequate fluency in a new language. Focus will be directed toward providing proof of whether basic linguistic skills are innate, acquired, or a combination of the two attributes.
Genetic Influence
Diverse environments and the methods of communication with a child provide various influences on language acquisition. External factors affect the ability of a human to learn any type of information and many times, personal experiences and attitude toward learning the new language have the ability to promote failure or success in the process. Recent studies provide deeper insight into the topic, including the possibility of the importance of genetic coding. It has often been stated that a high level of language aptitude is attributed to the innate ability to incorporate it into existing language patterns.
Theories of language acquisition include that the ability to attain a high level of language aptitude is either an innate feature or an acquired one. According to a study by Dale, Harlaar, Haworth, and Plomin (2010), teaching practice, structure of the school curriculum and other educational techniques impact the functioning of the human mind, but at the same time the interpersonal traits such as nature and strength of motivation or a reluctance to make errors are still significant. The researchers conducted a comparative analysis of the language skills of 604 pairs of 14-year-old twins using the standards of the United Kingdom National Curriculum. Correlation of substantial genetic predisposition (0.67) and a low relationship with shared environmental influence (0.13) was demonstrated. The researchers concluded that there is strong genetic influence on the aptitude to acquire a second language aptitude. When the twins with the common genetic background were tested, the results showed that some specific skills such as grammatical sensitivity or phonological memory are also components of an inborn collection of abilities.
In order to obtain the first and any subsequent languages, an individual needs to possess a set of specific features and psychological traits. Many scholars, especially representatives of the neuro- and psycholinguistics fields, try to investigate how the human mind operates during language comprehension and production; it is also important to understand the process of linguistic data retrieval. Slobin (1977) suggested some operating principles that affect the analysis of children’s capacity to learn and remember. He stated that during the act of comprehension and production, the spoken work should be clear, easy to process, expressive, quick, and simple. The success of the acquisition also depends on the age of a child. In earlier stages, the speaker must be easily understood for the learner to comprehend and process the language spoken; speed, expressiveness, and ease become more crucial in later learning. While the improvement of certain personal skills in a learner promotes successful language learning, physical development is also a strong influence.
Influence of the First Language
A child’s existing language patterns have a strong impact on his ability to successfully acquire a second language. While it is try that each language has different phonetic, morphological and syntactic structure, children are likely to transfer knowledge of the grammatical pattern of one language onto another (Filipović, & Hawkins, 2013). For instance, the primary cue for recognizing the subject in English is the position of the very, Spanish and Italian has no such cue. In Gernman, the definite article is the cue while in Russian, the noun points to case marking. The lack of a clear boundary between languages for children explains usage that is frequently amusing for adults as the young ones speak more than one language at the same time. The combining of dual langauges occurs if they are required to change from one to the other when addressing parent, teachers, or peers. A child learning a new language will incorporate knowledge from the first language into the second to form a new agenda for usage. However, if the original language is neglected and continued input is neglected, the child will replace his native language with the more frequently used language.
Language complexity also influences the speed at which an individual acquires the skills needed for fluency. The process of second language acquisition is divided into several stages and the transfer and constant exchange of experience within the child’s cognition are present at each stage of this process. Tabors and Snow (1994) define the first stage of language acquisition as a period when children may try to use the home language to talk to others, who are speaking a different. The second stage appears during observation and listening. Next, children start using telegraphic and formulaic speech in their new language. Finally, they begin to use the second language fluently and more correctly. The most influential step for the discussion of whether language skills are innate, acquired, or a combination is the second phase of listening and observation. This is traditionally called a “silent stage” because it supposes that a child passively listens and stores the data in a second language. The stored material and basic linguistic data can then be consciously or unconsciously retrieved for future use.
The readiness of a child to understand, acquire, produce and share information depends on his being involved, encouraged and motivated to communicate. Environment and the child’s level of familiarization with the language also play a crucial role in the personal desire to speak and learn the language. Roberts (2014) states that when children are interacting with other children and want to communicate in their native tongue, their spontaneous use if different than when they are in a more formal environment, such as with teachers. When playing videogames or being otherwise engaged in entertaining activities, youngsters will move quickly toward fluency in a second language for daily usage because it is necessary for them to communicate. If they attempt to do so in their first language and it is not familiar to their peers, the lack of connection will promote imitation, repetition, and eventual learning certain words and phrases. The importance of nurturing, environment, and social relationships is clear from this standpoint for the acquisition of a second language. For this reason, parents and teachers should promote sociability and the development of friendships between children to supplement classroom instruction in language.
The Argument for Innate Language Competency
Children begin to acquire language at a very young age, yet learning the complexities of oral communication is almost infinite for an infant. Over the last 50 years, the Universal Grammar approach by Chomsky (2005) presents a view related to theories of behaviorism, which suggests language is acquired from conditioning. Chomsky states, however, that conditioning does not allow for the complicated processes of language acquisition. Chomsky’s primary arguments are that there is an area in the brain that deals with the processing of syntax and promotes universal language syntax and the area is based on genetic coding. Universal Grammar proposes that children possess the ability to process all possible syntaxes, but the nurturing in his environment causes him to eliminate the ones not needed to communicate with his parents.
The theory of Universal Grammar may be demonstrated when young children perform language mistakes in one language that are appropriate in another. For instance, a toddler may ask “What do you think what pigs eat?”, which is incorrect in English, but has a similar sentence structure to the same question in German. Corrections by parents through direct or indirect negative feedback concerning proper grammar is also based on the concept of innate predispositions (Kliesch, 2012). Social interactions promote efforts at communication, as can be seen in the babbling of children who have hearing-impairments, although they are different from children with normal hearing abilities.
The Argument against Innate Language Competency
It has been shown in a number of empirical researches the different ways people acquire a language and how children start producing the utterances at various ages (De Knop, & Meunier, 2015; Spring & Horie, 2013). Generative and cognitive linguists provide some explanations of how linguistic input formulates and supports language apparatus. Emergent theories of language acquisition view fluency as starting with generalizations about various exposures to a new language that allow the ability to use the new language emerging from grammar rules and other constants and therefore is not an innate ability. This proposal points to children having a clear mind at birth waiting to be imprinted with the apparatus and knowledge necessary for communication in language. Emergent theorists believe there is no competence for language at birth and the regular input of unlimited constructions and linguistic items eventually presents a system of linguistic competence. As the child receives input, he forms an understanding of how words and phrases function in communication. There are times when what the child determines is appropriate use is actually incorrect, and interaction with others form the basis for correction.
Emergent theorists believe it is extremely important to analyze the frequency of certain linguistic units in a child’s speech, but at the same time there are weaknesses present in the concept. Due to conflict between the first and second language parameters, a child will experience barriers to second language fluency. In support of the emergent theory of language acquisition, it is necessary for input data to be consistently stored, reinforced, and retrieved on a regular basis. At the same time, a network of notions, concepts, models and relationship between them should be instilled. Whenever a person is able to analyze and be aware of the content spoken, he is more likely to learn and obtain another language effectively and correctly. When children first begin to express themselves in verbal language, they use nouns such as “Mama”, “Water”, and “Dog”. It is through the use of verbs, however, that a child is able to convey a specific idea as they express themselves through concepts of action. Spring and Horie (2013) state that in their studies of the English and Japanese languages, they found patterns of grammar that were not typical of most languages, which tend to develop along the use of verbs. For this reason, children usually use nouns and verbs first in learning to speak in order to convey basic meanings.
Parallel acquisition of three languages
As national boundaries allow higher rates of immigration, it is not unusual for a child to have parents speaking two languages each with one in common and then relocating to a host country that requires a third language. For this reason the mechanism of children’s aptitude to learn more than one language has become important for integration into the host society. It is possible that the ability to learn a new language, whether one or two already exists, is influenced by genetic and personal features. Cenox and Genesee (2001) state that by studying children who learn to speak two or more languages at the same time, we are able to increase understanding of the ability of humans to acquire language and to appreciate the capacity of the brain to function in this arena. An example of this situation would be a young boy age 5 who speaks German with his father and Russian with his mother, but English with both as this is how they communicate with each other. At this age, it is possible for the boy to switch from one language to the next with proper grammar and phonetics. However, if he were to be asked to translate a word from German into Russian, he would encounter problems. This challenge promotes the idea that each language is acquired automatically and unconsciously. The boy is highly motivated for fluency in all three languages in order to communicate with his parents and his ability may be explained by the adaptability of the human brain.
Klein, Mok, Chen, and Watkins (2014) conducted a study of monolingual and bilingual subjects to demonstrate that acquisition of two languages, when compared to obtaining one language, has no additional effect on human brain development when the acquisition is simultaneous. This would mean that a child before the age of 10 has the ability to speak two or more languages on the same level at the same time whereas the acquisition of a second language later in life is believed to be a much more difficult process.
The case where a child speaks three languages simultaneously is not rare and has been widely discussed by current researchers. Many linguists explain a child’s inability to translate and compare units from two different spoken languages as being unable to immediately associate a certain language with a certain speaking partner. Bosch and Nuria (2001) propose that one parent speaking one language frequently to a child from birth while the other parents speaks another language relies on the skills in code-switching of each adult. The child associates the language with the parent’s intonatoin and manner and distinguishes between figures and subjects congitively, but is not able to separate the different languages into corresponding components. When the parents communicate in a third language, the child must switch to it in order to participate in the conversation. After he begins to attend school, he will speak English more often and it will become his dominant language. Quay (2001) states that language dominance will change as the child matures and these influences are of interest to researchers for use by educators.
Impact of Prior Language Acquisition on Learning a New Language
If it is possible for a child to have the innate ability to learn three languages at the same time, it may be possible that a bilingual or trilingual speaker has an advantage over a person with knowledge of only one language. Ghabanchi (2011) researched the proposal in a study that incorporated 30 monolingual, 16 bilingual, and 16 trilingual students between the ages of 19 and 26 who were learning English as a second or third language. The students were attending school in Iran, where the official language is Persian. However, parents and educators place significant importance on obtaining fluency in English as international communications in business rely primarily on that language. Language skills were evaluated using the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) test. The results showed there was no significant difference between the ability to learn a new language in the three groups when learning English as an additional language. While knowing more than one language prior to starting English acquisition does apparently aide in learning vocabulary more quickly, it is not an advantage when adopting English grammar or language composition. From the aspect of linguistics, the conclusions point to language acquisition as being an indirect process and may support the Universal Grammar theory that an individual has the ability to access language syntax that has not been previously used.
Conclusion
There is no definitive explanation for the process of language acquisition, either primary or additional languages. Theories and studies of innate and acquired abilities have contributed to the body of current knowledge, but as far as understanding language acquisition as a whole, more research is needed to create a consistent framework for reference. .
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