Order of acquisition is a concept in language acquisition describing the specific sequence in which language learners acquire the grammatical features of a language, based on the observation that children learning a first language tend to acquire its grammatical features in a fixed, universal order regardless of the language's particular structure. Research has largely confirmed this fixed-order pattern for first-language learners, but the order found among second-language learners is considerably less consistent, and it remains unclear why second-language learners' order of acquisition differs as much as it does; current research points to possible causes including interference from the learner's first language and more general cognitive interference from non-linguistic mental processes, with some grammatical items showing heavy influence from the learner's first language while others show little.
Facts
Core ClaimThe order of acquisition is a concept in language acquisition describing the specific order in which all language learners acquire the grammatical features of their first language, a pattern that is highly consistent for first-language learners. 1 FAQs
Which grammatical features does a learner's first language affect most in second-language acquisition?
Articles, tense and the progressive aspect are the most affected; the third-person singular -s is less affected.
A large investigation of six English grammatical morphemes among learners with seven different native languages found that some items are heavily influenced by the first language and others are not. Articles, tense and the progressive aspect are particularly hard for learners whose native languages, such as Japanese and Korean, do not explicitly express these features. The third-person singular -s tends to be less influenced by the learner's native language.
Sources
1. Order of acquisition (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationlead paragraph
The order of acquisition is a concept in language acquisition describing the specific order in which all language learners acquire the grammatical features of their first language (L1).
Research background section
Brown (1973) conducted a study on the acquisition of 14 grammatical morphemes by three English-speaking children and found that their developmental patterns were remarkably similar.
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