Literature review: Is The Language Acquisition Process Easier for Kids

Literature review: Is The Language Acquisition Process Easier for Kids

            Communication can be expressed using words, and also through various emotional expressions that are vital parts of communication range that carry messages. As observed by Larsen-Freeman and Long (2014), the shifting of the voice’s physical qualities enables one to effectively express his or her emotions, and this is also true to children who have the capability of letting adults to known how they tend to feel through expression of their emotions. Through the systematic observation of the language behaviors of children, various researchers have identified and defined a number of cognitive strategies used by kids in figuring out the manner in which language works (Owens Jr, 2015). In this regard, Richards (2015) asserts that a kid does not just imbibe the languages in his environment but rather attends to them selectively in addition to suing it as a form of data in given ways.

According to Van Patten and Williams (2014), some of the researchers have assumed that both kids and adults tend to have some form of dictionaries within their brains, from where various words and their implications are gathered and also correlated. For instance, the varied semantic markers of the dog may probably include barks, furry, tail wagging and four legs. It is thus vital to observe that the manner in which language is learned tends to follow a given pattern; however, it remains logically untrue that kids always follow a similar language acquisition strategy at all times (Richards, 2015). Thus, during the language acquisition process, every kid tends to face the process individually (Owens Jr, 2015). As such, Slobin (2014) notes that the logical conclusion that must be considered by researchers regards the view that not all theories that have been set up essentially fits into every kid’s development and language acquisition.

In a bid to answer the question on what the strategy implies, Richards (2015) notes that a significant point regarding the manner and way through which kids learn language regards the view that they initially refer to things that are interesting and salient to them. This, therefore, implies that kids are bombarded with languages that are embedded in given circumstances even as they fail to attend to them equally. The kinds attend selectively through laying focus on the various salient aspects of the language (VanPatten & Williams, 2014). These strategies have been referred to as the sources of variations by earlier language researchers such as David Ingram (1989) (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 2014). For instance, performance variation has been observed to refer to a language acquisition strategy that is as a result of the biologically established individual abilities and capacities of a kid that results in the preference for improved skills within specific linguistic subsystems.

On the other hand, the environmental variation as a language acquisition strategy refer to the variations that are as a result of the environmental effects including the palpable one like the need or one to hear a language in order to speak it, to the increasingly subtle ones like frequency and effects on certain language forms. Still, linguistic variations refer to the language acquisition strategies used by kids and that entails variations that result from the array of various structural probabilities that are permitted by the universal grammar.

Still, Larsen-Freeman and Long 92014) maintains that kids do not just develop and grow at paces that are unique but are also able to learn information much faster too. Thus, according to Van Patten and Williams (2014), one of the reasons why a kid is able to learn a language at a young age concerns the view that a child who has been exposed to several languages at a younger age tends to have increased amount of time to process and also reminisce the information they received. Thus, for kids, language learning tends to be an integral part of the brain chemistry (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 2014), given the observation that kids have been built to effectively absorb information. This is often done in the unconscious state of mind, which imply that they learn the new language devoid of knowing that they are doing it (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 2014). This, therefore, makes it easier for kids to learn a new language. Consequently, adults are tasked with the learning the new language consciously and this result in the information getting either dissociated or lost at times (Van Patten & Williams, 2014). In concurrence to this observation, Owens Jr (2015) notes that the brain being increasingly plastic and always ready develop novel circuits prior to, compared to after puberty. However, in adults the process is completely different as one cannot learn it in a similar manner to the children and become more like a native speaker. Kids are known to learn other languages better through interaction with individuals speaking the language as opposed to passive learning through audio recording, books and DVDs (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 2014).

Lastly, the learning of languages as a kid is perceived to be easy given that children tend to have less amount of intricate information to process (Van Patten & Williams, 2014). As a kid, one is normally tasked with the correlation of words with the implications; however, as an adult, one has to correlate words with implications in addition to learning the language’s grammatical rules and this makes it difficult for adults to learn a second language ((Slobin, 2014). Moreover, the other notable reasons why children find it easy to learn language regards the reduced degrees of self-consciousness. Thus, children do not fear sounds that are related to certain words and are also able to learn faster from their mistakes (Richards, 2015). Moreover, they always practice loudly even in instances that they make wrong pronunciations, and this aids in faster brain absorption of information.