Language Acquisition

The uniqueness of human being is not only on their ability to think but also to speak. The ability to speak is in language competence. Language competence cannot be separated from the terms acquisition and learning. Then, what is acquisition? And what is learning? Acquisition is a process of the children who has learned to acquire their mother language, while learning is a process which is done in a formal education. The use of terms above made contravention between the linguists.

There are two differences theory in a mechanism of language acquisition. They are rationalism and empirism. The pioneer of the rationalism ideology is Noam Chomsky. He said that language competence is innate. It means that each human being that was born has the brain as a language acquisition device, so the language will be acquire naturally. He also stated that the children have natural ability to evolve language, this natural ability works automatically when the children exposure the language.

The second theory is given by B.F. Skinner. His theory is known as empirism or behaviorism. This theory stated that language is a function of reinforcement. It means that parents teach their children by reinforcement in each verbal behavior. By the reinforcement, the children learn to give the name of things, so naming that they see everyday are saved in their memory, and then they do observation in their environment. From this theory can be concluded that the children acquire language by learning and experiencing process that they get from the environment.

If it is true that language acquisition is by the learning process, the process of language acquisition is not instantaneously. It needs long process. The first step begins by the babbling. The children around seventh month begin to babble, try to produce a repeated syllables such as ‘papa’, ‘momo’, ‘tata’, ect. Most of the syllables are the basic consonants and vowels. Then, they acquire their first words, and in just a few months they begin to put words together into sentences.

The explanation above is a process of the language acquisition, especially for first language acquisition. First language is a language that is acquired for the first time, or it can be called mother tongue, while second language acquisition is a language that is acquired after the first language.