First Language Acquisition essay by Elizabeth

How do you think that children acquire their first language? What are your views on Chomsky's theory of FLA?

According to Douglas Brown (2000; p.5)  “Language is a set of arbitrary symbols, which are primarily vocal and it is used for communication and acquired by all people in the same way”. All of us are born with a set of principles and parameters about language in our heads which Noam Chomsky refers to as “Universal Grammar”. We can say that First-language acquisition is innately determined. The purpose of this essay is to share my own view about children´ first language acquisition and Chomsky´s theory of First Language Acquisition.

The way children learn language follows a specific pattern and it is inherently systemic in nature. We can observe different children with the same age, and we are going to see that they produce the same sounds, phrases or sentences at the same chronological stage. The speech development is very similar in every child around the world, and it would not be possible without speech input; for that reason the presence of children´s parents or caretakers and the interaction with them is really important for this process to take place.

But how does the child exactly acquire his or her first language? Noam Chomsky has made a number of strong claims about language: he suggests that “language is an innate faculty” - that is to say that we are born with a set of principles and parameters about language in our heads which he refers to as the “Universal Grammar”. The universal grammar is the basis upon which all human languages are built.

For Chomsky, children are exposed to very little correctly formed language. Yet children manage to learn their language all the same.

Secondly, children do not simply copy the language that they hear around them. In fact,  they can produce sentences that they have never heard before. They do not learn a repertoire of phrases and sayings, but a grammar that generates an infinite number of new sentences.

Thirdly, children are born with Universal Grammar wired into their brains. This grammar offers a certain limited number of possibilities.

When children begin to listen to their parents, they will unconsciously recognize which kind of language they are dealing with - and they will set their grammar to the correct one - this is known as “setting the parameters”. (Brown, 2000: 36)

Research has shown that the child´s language is a legitimate system in its own right. The child´s linguistic development is not a process of developing fewer and fewer incorrect structures, not a language in which earlier stages have more mistakes than later stages.

Taking into account what has been mentioned, I believe that in spite of the fact that there are many theories about how children acquire their L1, Chomsky is the one who manages to explain in depth why children are capable of acquiring language without any effort, apart from that, I used to think that the mother tongue was acquired through imitation and reinforcement, but I changed my mind after having my daughter Ana Clara.