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During 1960s and 1970s，when SLA was beginning to establish itself as a research discipline，there also existed an increased pace of research on first language acquisition.We discuss first language acquisition here because much SLA research parallels the developments in first language acquisition research，and over the years has drawn on concepts from first language acquisition area to understand L2 phenomena.There has been an influence of first language acquisition research on the study of L2 learning，and this influence can be felt both at the theoretical level and at the practical level.
At the theoretical level，researchers have been working with exciting new ideas about language and the learning process.Concepts such as imitation and habit－formation have to a large extent been replaced by notions which emphasize the child's own creativity in constructing his knowledge of the language.These concepts and ideas have been employed to view second language learning from the same perspective and to find evidence to support this view.At the practical level，first language researchers have developed new techniques for collecting and analyzing children's speech.These techniques have also been used in the field of L2 learning，to gather data and accumulate evidence about the sequences and processes that are involved.
A large amount of research on children's grammatical development has been conducted since 1960s.Here we introduce some gains in such research，which we hope will enable us to understand how children's grammatical competence grows.
The first characteristic of children's speech can be described as“babbling”，produced by infants at about six months.Babbling most commonly consists of consonant-vowel sequences，such as baba ， dada ，and later bada .These early babbling sounds are often taken to be“words” by parents，with mama ，for instance，referring to the infant's mother.In order to communicate with others， children use intonation to express meaning.They can use proper stress and intonation contours of their language to distinguish among statements，questions，and requests.For example，a child can say dada with the stress on the second syllable.We can imagine the child stretching out her arms with the intention of a request，something like“Pick me up，daddy”！Or when a child hears a door open and says dada with rising intonation，this can be interpreted as a question such as“Is that daddy”？
After using babbling to express meaning，children are beginning to use single words to express their ideas.A marked feature of children's utterances is that they are frequently missing smaller parts—particularly the past tense marker- ed ，the verb be ，the possessive marker -'s ，the plural ending -s ，the definite article the ，and the indefinite article a .Such early speech of children can also be described as“telegraphic speech”，because children's speech lacks inflections and those small function words such as articles and prepositions，and because of its resemblance to the style of writing used in telegrams and classified ads.When one sends a telegram or runs a classified ad，they have to pay by the word；so there's a good reason to use as few words as possible.Children in the early stages of language learning also have to“pay by the word”as they struggle to put together their first sentences，and they too see the advantage of communicating as economically as possible（O'Grady，2005）.The following are some examples taken from a stage when children are already joining two words to form an utterance：
Allgone sticky （after the child had washed her hands）
Allgone outside （after closing the door）
More page （asking an adult to continue reading）
Sweater chair （indicating where the sweater is）
（Littlewood，2000：7）
As can be seen，children's first sentences are mostly two words in length.Many of children's early sentences seem to be built around a small number of pivot words，such as allgone in the above examples.These pivot words serve as hooks to which other words can be attached.They show up over and over again in the company of a variety of different words.More examples are： see boy ， see sock ， see hot ； push it ， move it ， close it ， do it .
It can be seen clearly that the situation plays an important role in conveying meaning since the utterances are so reduced.The result is that the same two words might convey different meanings in different situations.For instance，when a child picks up his mother's sock and says mommy sock ，he expresses the relationship between the two words，as in the sentence This is mommy's sock .In another situation，for example，when the mother is dressing the baby，who might also say mommy sock ，this time he means Mommy is putting on my sock .Even at this stage，we can see that children use the language creatively，since they use utterances which have never been heard.The above examples such as allgone sticky and allgone outside are children's own creations.Children，just like adults，are making use of an ability to combine items from a limited set so as to communicate meanings.
Researchers attempted to write“grammars”for children's two-word utterances in terms of two main classes of word： a restricted “pivot” class and a much larger open class.However，these attempts have not managed to account for all the two-word utterances which children have been heard to produce.A more fruitful approach has been to focus on the meanings expressed by these utterances.Lois Bloom （1970） found that utterances containing two nouns were used to express five kinds of relationship，as can be shown in Table 1.1.The interpretations depended on her observation of the child in an actual situation.
Table 1.1 Five Relationships Between Children's Two-word Utterances
Dan Slobin（1979），similarly，studied the communicative functions performed by twoword utterances in the speech of children who were acquiring six different languages.He found seven main types of function，as illustrated in Table 1.2.
Table 1.2 Seven Functions of Children's Two-word Utterances
Another well-known analysis of the communicative function of children's speech is that of Michael Halliday（1975）.Halliday argued that language acquisition takes place because the child realizes he can do certain things with language，and that he learns these different functions in a predictable order.First，the child uses language to get what he wants（“instrumental”function）；next，he uses language to control other people's behaviour（“regulatory”function），and so on.Halliday's“functional”approach to language and language learning has had considerable influence on second language teaching.
It should be noted that the study on the meanings and functions of children's speech has led many people to play down the role of a specific language-acquisition capacity in explaining children's development.They prefer to account for it more in terms of the child's growing mental capacity and communicative needs.The universal features in all languages are then seen as resulting from the common ways in which people think and interact—that is，from universal features of human cognition and social development.
As children's processing capacity grows，the telegraphic speech extends beyond the twoword stage， and longer utterances appear， which are still telegraphic.Examples are： Andrew want that and Cat stand up table .At this stage，children are on the way to acquiring inflections and function words.These small items are usually called morphemes .Here，we introduce Roger Brown's study（1973） about how three children acquired morphemes in their first language.
The findings came to have a wide influence for studies in both first language acquisition and second language learning.It was found that children do not master each morpheme suddenly，from one day to the next，but gradually，over a period of time.One problem is to decide at what point a morpheme should be counted as“acquired”.Brown's criterion is that a child should produce it on 90 percent of the occasions when the adult grammar requires it.Based on this criterion，Brown found that the 14 morphemes were acquired in a sequence which was remarkably similar for the three children.Table 1.3 illustrates the“average”order of acquisition of morphemes.
Table 1.3 Average Order of Acquisition of Morphemes
Brown also calculated the relative frequency of these morphemes in the speech of the children's parents.It was found that the order offrequency does not correlate with the order of acquisition，which therefore cannot be explained in simple habit-formation terms.This evidence shows that the child is an active contributor to the acquisition process.
Brown's research was longitudinal.That is，he studied the three children's performance over the actual period of time when they were mastering the morphemes.There were also cross-sectional studies of children's acquisition of the same morphemes.For example，one such a study was conducted on twenty-one children's use of these morphemes.The researchers examined how well the children performed with the morphemes and“scored”each morpheme according to how accurately it is produced by children.As a result，they found that the accuracy order was similar to the acquisition order which Brown had obtained（Littlewood，2000：10）．
Children's acquisition of verb inflections offers evidence for their active contribution to the learning process.Before mastering the regular past inflection- ed （for example， she walked ），children produce a number of common irregular past forms，such as came and went .At this stage，these forms are simply individual words for children，not the result of a productive rule for forming the past tense.Then comes a stage in which children produced erroneous utterances such as Where it goed ？and It comed off .This actually does not mean that children's acquisition order is from irregular to regular verb past forms.Nor is it a sign of regression.Instead，it is a sign of progress in children's developing system.The truth is that they have now mastered a rule for forming the past tense.It is this rule that leads children to produce goed and comed .Only later will he learn that go and come have irregular past tense，and they are exceptions to the rule.This will be further discussed in the coming chapter.
While children are mastering morphemes，they are increasing their ability to produce more complicated utterances.The development of negatives and interrogatives has aroused researchers’interest.For both structures，children seem to follow similar sequences of development.
The sequence of children's acquisition of negatives has been observed and can be illustrated as follows：At first，the negative element is not part of the structure of the sentence，but is attached to the beginning or end，as in No singing song ，and No the sun shining .Then comes the second stage，in which the negative element is inserted into the sentence，as in I no want envelope ， He no bite you ，and He don't want it .Children also begin to produce the appropriate part of do ， be ，or the modal verbs，to suit the person or tense，such as You don't want some supper ， Paul didn't laugh ，and I am not a doctor .
As for acquisition of interrogatives，there is also a predictable development for all children.Lightbown and Spada（2006）provided the examples of the acquisition of question formation.In stage 1，children use intonation in yes/no questions，as in Cookie ？ Mommy book ？In stage 2，they use intonation with sentence complexity.For yes/no questions，they use declarative sentence order with rising intonation as in You like this ？For wh- questions，a question word with declarative order is used as in Why you catch it ？In stage 3，children begin to use inversion in yes/no question， but keep declarative order in wh questions.Examples are Can I go ？ Is that mine ？ Why you don't have one ？Stage 4 is inversion.The auxiliary word do is used in yes/no questions， but still not in wh questions.Children may say Do you like ice cream ？ Where I can draw them ？In stage 5，inversion is used with wh- questions as in Why can he go out ？But when negation needs to be included，the declarative form is maintained，as in Why he can't go out ？In stage 6，children may over-generalize the rule for forming questions by saying，for example， I don't know why can't he go out .
Listed above are some findings in studying children's language development in first language acquisition.It must be pointed out that the evidence is not sufficient to determine whether all children pass through these same stages.When discussing second language acquisition，we will also see that，in the development of interlanguage，adults learning a second language go through such predictable sequences while acquiring certain structures.However，the situation with adult second language learning is more complex due to possible interference of their mother tongue.
1.Questions for self-study.
（1）What is second language？
（2）What is second language acquisition？
（3）What are the aims of studying second language acquisition？
（4）What are the differences between second language acquisition and foreign language learning？
（5）What is the difference between“conversational input”and“non-conversational input”？
（6）How do you define“competence”and“performance”？
（7）What are the internal factors influencing the learning of a second language？
（8）What does“linguistic universals”mean？
（9）What's your understanding of cognitive mechanism in L2 learning？
（10）What are the characteristics of children's telegraphic speech？Give example to illustrate.
（11）What is the sequence of children's acquisition of morphemes found in Brown's study？
（12） How do native English children develop their interrogative structures？Give examples to illustrate.
2.Fill in the blanks with the right words.
Native language is“picked up” in____environment and in an informal manner.People generally learn to speak and use the language in real communicative contexts，and the primary focus is on___instead oflinguistic forms.Native language is also tightly bound to native___，and because of this，it is often difficult to decode for a person from another culture.A target language，unlike native language，is often learned in classrooms in a____way.People learn to speak it in an unauthentic context.While people are learning it，their primary focus is on linguistic___first，and then move on gradually toward interactive communication.
The underlying knowledge of language is called___，while the actual use of language is called_.
3.Match the following terms in column I to the definitions in column Ⅱ.
4.Open discussion for pair or group work.
（1）Try to list all of the languages that you can use.First classify them as L1s and L2s，and then further classify the L2s as“second”，“foreign”，“library”，“auxiliary”，or“for special purposes”.Then，distinguish between the ways you learned each of the languages：through informal exposure，formal instruction，or some combination of these.
（2） Think about the distinction between second language acquisition and foreign language learning as discussed in this chapter.Let's assume that they are fundamentally different.How would you explain the differences？Now take the opposite position，and defend your position.Also look at the distinction from a social point of view.Discuss in terms of specific examples from your experience，such as learning English in an English-speaking country，such as the United States or Great Britain，or learning English in a non-English country such as China.
（3）Discuss with your classmates the following statements，telling whether they are true or false.Give reasons or examples to justify your answers.
a.A second language refers to the language that is not spoken in the community where the learner is living.
b.A foreign language is the one that is learned and used in the classroom setting，but seldom used in real communicative environment outside the classroom.
c.Native language is acquired in the natural context，and it is not taught by a parent or a teacher in any formal way.
d.The purpose of studying second language acquisition is to improve teaching efficiency.
e.External factors that influence second language learning refer to those factors in the social surrounding，such as input and the learning environment.
f.A learner's first language system and the general world knowledge belong to the internal factors influencing the second language learning.
g.A second language learner often comprehends more than he or she can produce.
h.All children can learn a second language accent-free.
i.No adult can learn a second language accent-free.
j.Teaching a second language is as effective as learning a second language in the natural environment.
k.A person who speaks two languages equally well is bilingual.
l.A person who speaks three or more languages for different communicative purposes is multilingual.
m.Competence refers to the ability of using the language in a social context，while performance refers to the way a person behaves while communicating with others.
n.Language teaching in the classroom is a waste of time.
o.Everyone has a language acquisition device in the brain，so everyone can learn any language successfully.
p.General world knowledge is of great help to the learner，even if he or she is learning a foreign language.
（4）In Section 1.4，we discussed two external factors and five internal factors which may exert an influence upon an L2 learner.What other factors might there be that affect L2 learning in addition to those factors mentioned in the text？
（5）According to the L1 transfer，as is discussed in 1.4，there are two kinds of transfer：positive and negative.Study each of the following two sentences.Is it a result of negative transfer？If not，what causes the error？
a. He comed late .
b. Give me two apple .
（6）We have discussed two kinds of input in this chapter：conversational input and non-conversational input.Do you think there are any linguistic differences between conversational input and non-conversational input？Some hints are given below and think about the differences in the following aspects：
—level of formality
—length of utterances
—relative number of questions versus statements
—incomplete sentences
—range or type of vocabulary
（7）When defining“input”and“output”，we hold a view that both input and output must be language that has certain kind of communicative intent.Why should it be so？Do you think the kind of language produced by learners during drills in the classroom is the same as the kind of language they produce when they are engaged in communicating an idea？Why or why not？