Early Speech Input In Non-macro Language Acquisition

This paper discusses the quality of non-native speech input on the basis of the study of non-macro language acquisition in combination with classic theories of language acquisition. People's interest in language acquisition can date back to ancient times, and great achievements have been made in language acquisition up to now. However, most researches deal with child language development, namely, language production. There is a lack of research on speech input in language acquisition, especially the study on non-native speech input.Non-Macro Language Acquisition Model forms a congruent framework between mother tongue acquisition and foreign language learning, first language acquisition and second language acquisition, which provides the theoretical guidance of the feasibility for the conversion from language learning to acquisition. Since speech input is one of the most important factors in language acquisition, this paper, taking Chomsky's Universal Grammar, Lenneberg and Werker's research on Critical Period, Shan Xingyuan's Non-macro Language Acquisition Model as the theoretical framework, puts forward the hypothesis: non-native speech input in non-macro language acquisition can satisfy the needs of child language acquisition.Combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods are adopted to prove this hypothesis from the following five perspectives. First, the classification and analysis of the data come to the result that non-native speech input contains all the major structures of a language. Second, through the comparison of the linguistic characteristics between child directed speech and non-native speech, it is found that there are a great many similarities between the two. Third, the research on Pidgin and Creole shows that children born in language environment of Pidgin speak more complicated language than their speech input. Fourth, the research on a deaf and mute child who was born in a non-native American Sign Language family finally outperforming his parents'competence shows the feasibility of non-native speech input in language acquisition. Fifth, analysis is made of the records kept in Humanity Department of Brigham Young University of the successful examples for people who have raised their children into bilingual with their non-native speech. Theoretical effort is made to promote the study of speech input in language acquisition, especially the quality of non-native speech input in order to accelerate the pace for the conversion from language learning to acquisition in practice. Further research should be focused on non-native speech input of differences of proficiency.