Universidad técnica particular de loja la universidad Técnica Particular de Loja

NATIVE LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 
First of all, we need to define what does the term “native language” 
means. According to Lightbown & Spada (1999) “native language” (also 
called first language, mother tongue, L1) is the language first learned. It 
is the main or first linguistic code(s) (plural since many children learn 
more than one language from birth and may be said to have more than 
one mother tongue). 
After establishing this concept, we can move towards the 
definition of “native language acquisition”. The theories of native or first 
language acquisition try to explain the way babies and children develop 
communication features in order to become skilled speakers. This 
process is considered as amazing by many authors since all of them try 
to ask the same questions at once. How do children accomplish this? 
What is it that enables a child not only to learn words, but to put them 
together in meaningful sentences? What pushes children to go on 

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developing complex grammatical language even though their early 
simple communication is successful for most purpose? (Lightbown & 
Spada -1999).
In order to answer these questions, the authors mentioned above
begin by defining a chronological progress referring to how does the 
language behaviour improves with age in almost all children around the 
world. To define this progress I’ve selected the main ideas and built the 
following chart with them.
Chronological period
Language features acquired
Less than a year
-
Crying, cooing and gurgling. 
-
Babies can distinguish very 
suitable differences between the 
sounds of human language. 
By the end of the first year
-
Babies understand quite a few 
frequently repeated words.
-
Babies can respond to different 
stimulus 
(They 
wave 
when 
someone says ‘bye-bye’)
At twelve months
-
Babies will be able to produce one 
or two words.
-
The number of words they can 
produce multiplies quickly.
Two years
-
Most children produce at least 

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fifty different words.
-
They begin combining words.
Three-and-a-half or four years
-
Most children can ask questions, 
give 
commands, 
report 
real 
events, etc.
-
By the age of four, it is said that 
children have mastered the main 
structures of the language (or 
languages) they have been spoken 
since the early years.
Once they have established one “common” process trough which 
most of the children pass during their early years. The authors expose 
some theories which try to explain how this process is developed and 
they also cover the inevitable fact that many children around the world 
are exposed two more than one language at a time during their early 
years. Back to the first idea, the theoretical approaches to explaining 
first language learning are synthesized in the following table: