Bruce Tayon

Linguistics 201
26 April 2013
The Complexity of Acquisition in Western Culture
The diversity and variance of challenge present in the first stage of language
acquisition varies across the broad spectrum of the globe. The Francophone language and
English language in particular have not only commonalities but also differences in the
derivation of morphemes. To understand these differences, such as the abundance of
voiceless alveolar affricates in French or the harsh learning of the American English [r],
data can be used from cross-linguistic studies. Specifically, the childs development of
their lexicon during their formative years relies on cultural difference in utterances of
morphemes. To analyze the morphological differences data collected by (Hynems et. all
1986) during Stage 1 of development can help to divulge clues about morpheme
construction. These varying theories help to uncover the actual acquisition of language.
From the onset of behavior in children to their first years, there are varying stages
for the children to advance through. During the one-word holophrastic stage, children
will pick up singular words from their surrounding adults and intend to divulge the
meaning through this measure (Brown 1973). This stage of acquisition lasts until the
child is around 18 months. As these children are at the beginning of their lexical
development journey, they can only construe a certain amount of morphemes during
stage 1. In English, these children can only piece together 2 morphemes (Brown 1973).
The child then builds their lexicon slowly with syntactic properties. The syntactic
observation by Miller and Ervin (1964) of the varying morphemes gathered by English

children included sounds such as [ma] or [pa]. Also a main contribution to language
acquisition in English children includes formation of subject-object-verb syntax. This
allows the contextual basis for children to form numerous sentences.
In the French language, it is theorized that the childs lexicon is only capable of
40 word discrimination in determining meaning at stage 1(Fenson et, all, 1994). This is
however, comparable to an English childs grammatical and morphological development
in their first stage as well. To determine the proposed differences in the phonological
advancement, the IPA symbols for the French language can be used. The French
language has an abundance of differed pronunciations that could make a child have a
potentially harder time for acquisition. There are differences in the articulation of the
morpheme [j], as in French it can be used in jouer, jaime or varying other words. This
contrasts with the English equivalent of [j] which is used for words such as joy, or joust.
Another key difference is inclusive of the fact that the French language requires more
morphological development with their alphabetical symbols. This is again apparent with
the combination of the letters EAU, which transcripts to the phoneme [o]. In English the
[o] sound does vary as well but does not include the alphabetical equivalent. These
numerous differences however do not concrete any specific language to be quicker in
developing.
The overall language development of English stage 1 children and French stage 1
children finds some causation that there is a difference in acquired phonemes and
morphemes at varying months, but in the long term acquisition is close to the same
developmental rate for each language (Hyams 1986). The varying alphabetical
differences are commonalities that link both languages to the archaic Latin language. In

summation, it is most important for a child during stage 1 and stage 2 development to
acquire a solid basis from parents or surrounding loved ones. Without these anchors, the
children would not be able to systematize their morphemes or syntax correctly.

Questions:
1. will you mention why it is advantageous to study the First-language (L1) of
developing children in the Francophone nations in contrast to English
speaking children? Is there any particular reasons?
Thanks,
Zhangli Bu
2. What is the latin construct of subject-object-verb agreement? Own

Works Cited
Mazuka, R., Cao, Y., Dupoux, E., & Christophe, A. (2011). The development of
a phonological illusion: a cross-linguistic study with Japanese and French infants.
Developmental Science, 14(4), 693-699. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01015.x
Linguistics, D. O. (2011). Language files, materials for an introduction to language and
linguistics. (11 ed.). Columbus: Ohio State Univ Pr.
Hyams, Nina M. Language acquisition and the theory of parameters. Dordrecht: D.
Reidel Publishing Company, 1986.