THE LINGUISTICS OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE
Language is the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way. Languages share the following characteristics.

• Languages are systematic. They consist of recurrent elements which occur in regular patterns of relationships. All languages have an infinite number of possible sentences, and the vast majority of all sentences which are used have not been memorized. They are created according to rules or principles which speakers are usually unconscious of using – or even of knowing – if they acquired the language(s) as a young child.
• Languages are symbolic. Sequences of sounds or letters do not inherently possess meaning. The meanings of symbols in a language come through the tacit agreement of a group of speakers.
• Languages are social. Each language reflects the social requirements of the society that uses it, and there is no standard for judging whether one language is more effective for communication than another, other than to estimate the success its users may have in achieving the social tasks that are demanded of them.

Areas of linguistics that L1 or L2 must aquire in learning languge:

1.  lexicon (vocabulary)

• word meaning
• pronunciation (and spelling for written languages)
• grammatical category (part of speech)
• possible occurrence in combination with other words and in idiom

2.  phonology (sound system)

• speech sounds that make a difference in meaning (phonemes)
• possible sequences of consonants and vowels (syllable structure)
• intonation patterns (stress, pitch, and duration), and perhaps tone in words
• rhythmic patterns (pauses and stops)

3.  morphology (word structure)

• parts of words that have meaning (morphemes)
• inflections that carry grammatical information (like number or tense)
• prefixes and suffixes that may be added to change the meaning of words or their grammatical category

4.  syntax (grammar)

• word order
• agreement between sentence elements (as number agreement between subject and verb)
• ways to form questions, to negate assertions, and to focus or structure information within sentences

5.  discourse

• ways to connect sentences, and to organize information across sentence boundaries
• structures for telling stories, engaging in conversations, etc.
• scripts for interacting and for events

 For more, click HERE