Language Acquisition

Introduction:

The structure of a language is based on the different registers of the language.

The Registers are the methods of expressions which differ from person to person
according to the different social status of the persons. Formalism and Colloquialism
are the different kinds of Registers. The variations according to the use of language in
specific situation is studied on terms of register such differences in speaking style can
be found even in written Language

Language Acquisition:

Language is the main ability of the human beings which makes them superior
to all other living beings. Because, the human alone can develop language to represent
actions, objects, feelings and ideas. Though, acquisition of language is a difficult task,
all of us have managed to acquire language. We try to learn a second language; we
understand how much effort we have to take in understanding the new vocabulary,
sentence structure and grammatical rules. So it will take many years to attain fluency
in the new language. Thus, language acquisition is considered to be one of the most
essential branches of linguistics.

Spoken Language and Written Language

The main purpose of acquiring a language is to express thoughts through the

oral form of written form of the language. The combination of various speech sounds
used to express our thoughts is said to be the oral language. These speech sounds of
the oral language are represented by different letters to form written language. Thus
the words of the oral language have their equivalent words in written Language. These
wants must be properly grouped to express thoughts accurately.

The skills of Language Acquisition:

Language acquisition consists, of four basic language skills. They are

Listening skill, Speaking skill, Reading skill and Writing skill. These four basic skills
are related to one another by the
 Mode of communication: oral or written
 Direction of Communication: receiving or producing the
message.

Among the four skills Listening comprehension is the Receptive still in the oral
mode Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode. Reading is the Receptive still
in the written mode and writing is the Productive skill in the written mode.

The Four skills:

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 Learning of any language involves the acquisition of four distinct skills. They
are

 Understanding the spoken language,

 Speaking the language
 Understanding the written language and
 Writing the same.

For understanding and speaking the spoken Language the learners should have
the knowledge of the standard grammatical rules of pronunciation, the skill of
speaking, ability of speaking spontaneously, is knowledge of the Received
Pronunciation (RP) and the knowledge of the mode of utterance peculiar to a
linguistic group etc. Thus the total learning of any language means the acquisition of
the four distinct skills mentioned above

The skill of understanding Spoken language:

The skill of understanding spoken language requires a good knowledge of the

words as they are pronounced. So the ears of the learners should be trained to that
effect. The spoken words and sentences have to be gathered in this quick succession.
A language is not spoken by all as per the standard pronunciation. There may be some
variations which are more or less important. Therefore, the aim of understanding a
spoken language should be to understand the language in its standard pronunciation
and also in its other ways of pronunciation.

The skill of Speaking:

The skill of speaking is very important in the field of employment. Acquisition

of the speaking skill requires a good knowledge of the sound system, intonation, stress
and rhythm of the language. If one wants to speak a new language that person's vocal
habits have to be changed as that person has to learn to produce a set of new sounds.
So, it would require a lot of training of the vocal organs.

In the skill of speaking with proper pronunciation of words is more important

than the ability of uttering the words in the appropriate order. Acquisition of good
pronunciation depends upon the speaker's exposure to good pronunciation. Listening
to a recorded version of the standard pronunciation of a passage or a conversation will
be more useful to the speaker of the language in rectifying his/her mispronunciation.
To acquire good pronunciation, the speaking skill implies (suggests) a good
knowledge of the (new) language to the extent of speaking it as desired.

The speaker should be able to produce appropriate words twined (connected) in

correct pattern, in quick succession and to speak smoothly without any hesitation or
break. The speaker should be able to generate speech spontaneously with confidence.

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And no time should be wasted in search for words and the grammatical rules. Thus
speaking skill requires the complete mastery of the spoken language.

The skill of understanding the written language:

This skill implies the ability of reading. In fact, all persons who speaks a
language are not able to read it easily. A person who speaks a language has to learn
how to speak. Training the children to read the book is the basic school activity. Even
the persons who are able to read easily will understand only to the extent of their
knowledge of the Language and of the subject. So, the skill of understanding the
written Language has to be developed methodically. Besides, understanding the
written language is the way in which a foreign language is mostly used. In fact,
reacting a written language is a communication with persons who are far off in space
and time.

The skill of understanding the written language is also useful to have

relationship with the language and also for not losing the other skills to a certain
extent. There are the ways in understanding the written language. They are:

 Gathering rapidly the general meaning and

 Grasping the accurate meaning leisurely.

The skill of writing:

The skill of writing is considered to be much easier than the skill of speaking
because, in writing, time will be available for the correction of the sentence patterns
etc. But, mistakes found in writing will not be excused or tolerated as in speech. If a
learner of a new language thinks first in his native language and then translate the so
framed sentences in his mind into the new language, he will not be considered to have
acquired the skill of writing in that new language. Thoughts should emerge directly
from the foreign (new) language. Then only writing will be natural and the flow will
be spontaneous. Even in the mother tongue, the writing skill has to be acquired
separately as written language is not the mere transcription of the oral language

Conclusion:

Thus learning a language consists of the acquisition of the above described four
different skills. Usually the same level of acquisition is not gained in all the four
skills.

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 Four skills of Language Acquisition

Listening, Speaking, Reading and writing are the four basic language skills
used by the language educators. These four basic skills are related to one another by
two parameters such as

 The mode of Communication: Oral or Written

 The direction of Communication: Receiving and producing the
message.

The relationships among these skills can be represented in the chart given below:

ORAL WRITTEN
RECEPTIVE Listening Reading

PRODUCTIVE Speaking Writing

Listening:

Listening comprehension is the Receptive skill in the oral mode. There are two
kinds of listening situation in which we find ourselves. They are

 Interactive Listening situations and

 Non – Interactive Listening situations.

Interactive Listening situations:

Interactive Listening situations are face to face conversations and telephone

conversation. In these situations we alternatively listen and speak and we have a
chance to ask for clarification, repetition of slower speech from our conversation
partner.

Non-Interactive listening situations:

Non-Interactive listening situations include listening to the Radio, TV, films,

lectures or sermons. In these situations we don't have a chance to ask for clarification,
repetition or slower speech.

Micro-skills involved in Listening:

The listener has to retain chunks of language in short – term memory and the
listener has to discriminate the distinctive sounds in the new language. The listener
has to recognize stress, rhythm, tone pattern and to recognize reduced forms of words.

The listener has to distinguish word boundaries and recognise word order
patterns and recognise vocabulary of the new language. The listener has to guess the

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meaning of words from context, recognize grammatical word classes and basic
sentence pattern.

The listener should have the ability to find sentence constituents such as
subject, verb, object, prepositions, etc.

Speaking skill:

Speaking is the productive still in the oral mode. This is also a more
complicated skill. There are three kinds of speaking situations. They are

 Interactive speaking situations

 Partially inter active speaking situations and
 Non-interactive speaking situations

Interactive speaking situation include face to face conversation and telephone

calls. In this situation we alternatively listen and speaking and we have a chance to ask
for clarification, repetition or slower speech from our conversation partner.

A partially interactive speaking situation happens when we give speech to the

live audience. In these situations the the audience cannot interrupt the speech.

Non - interactive speaking situation occurs when we record a speech for a radio
broadcast.

Micro-skills involved in speaking:

The speaker has to pronounce the different sounds of the language clearly and
has to use stress and intonation patterns of the language clearly. The speaker has to
use the correct forms of words and arrange words together in correct word order and
use appropriate vocabulary. The speaker should clarify the listener the main sentence
constituents such as subject, verb, and object of the language spoken by him.

Reading Skill:

Reading is the Receptive skill in the written mode. Reading skills will develop
independently the listening and speaking skills. Reading can help in building
vocabulary that helps listening comprehension at the later stages.

Micro skills involved in Reading

The reader has to identify the script in an alphabetic system or in a pictograph

system to establish a relationship between sounds and symbols to associate the
meaning of the words with the written symbols.

The reader has to recognise vocabulary, pick out key words and the meaning of
the words including unfamiliar vocabulary from the written context.

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 The reader has to recognize grammatical word classes such as noun, adjective
etc., and find out sentence constituents such as subject, verb, object, preposition etc.,
and the reader must recognize basic syntactic patterns.

The reader has to find out the main point or the most important information in
the given passage and the reader has to differentiate the main idea from supporting
details. The reader must adjust reading strategies to different reading purposes such as
skimming for main ideas or studying in depth.

Writing skill:

Writing is the productive skill in the written mode. Writing is not just a graphic
representation of speech but it is the development and presentation of thoughts in a
structural way. As writing is more complicated, it seems to be the hardest of the skills
even for the native speakers of the language.

Micro skills involved in writing:

The writer has to use the orthography correctly including the script, spelling
and pronunciation and has to use the correct forms of words to express the right tense,
case and gender.

The writer should know how to put words in correct word order and to make
the main sentence constituents such as subject, verb, object clearly.

The writer must make the main ideas distinct from supporting ideas or
information and make the text coherent, in order to help the readers follow the
development of the ideas.

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