1.Introduction

In this project we talk about trilingual childs, we focus in the aquisition of this three languages,at the same time we see what is the mother language of this childs and what is the develop of the languages and the enviroments who child is faced with the passage of time and how it is possible to have that development. Finally observe the advantages and disadvantages that a child when a person faces trilingue the child is faced with the passage of time and how it is possible to have that development.
  

2. Language acquisition

Language acquisition

The language is a system which enables to express intentions using articulated sounds. (García Fajardo, J., 2007)

For its learning and keeping, it is necessary some conditions:

·         A steady social group.

·         Living in a proper environment.

·         Ideas and thoughts exchange. (Crystal, D. 1976)

All the humans since their childhoods, acquire the language as a system for communication and expression, we acquire it with a process of imitation: hearing to other persons speak and we “copy” the information, and through interaction with people, we develop it trying over and over pronouncing some words, so in that way, humans acquire and learn their mother tongue. (Crystal, D. 1976)

We have an innate neurologic ability for speaking any language, and also a tongue, throat, vocal cords and other organs for making sounds, but we were not born talking, the children acquire the rules of a language (grammar, phonology, semantics, etc.) and improve it over the years. (Garcia Fajardo, J. 2007)

I am going to illustrate this process: first, a baby cries for communicate his feelings and wishes, after that, makes babblings; around twelve months, the baby can produce more articulated sounds and intonations, the ability for speaking his mother tongue is awakening.

Around fifteen to eighteen months, the baby pronounces his first words –in Spanish, it can be mamá, papá or agua- and the grammar structures begins to appear, the most common example that we can mention about it is when the child is trying to “fit” words producing short sentences, generally that sentences are disordered. Around two or three years, the child is able to make more specific sounds –or phonemes-, but he is still learning the grammar. (Crystal, D., 1976)

Conclusions

A child, in a biological, psychological and social normal conditions, can communicate his ideas to each other, and learning a second language.

As we have seen before, children acquire their mother tongue through listening and rendering the models made in their environment.

The alternation occurs when a person cannot find the correspondent word in a specific language due to a lack of knowledge about the structures or it is hard to express an idea in one language. (Appel R., Muysken P., 1996, p.177)

A bilingual person can alternate language codes for including or avoiding people in a conversation, this is a social issue. (Op. cit., p.178)

2.1Mother tongue: which one it is?

Mother tongue: Which one is it?

It is cleared the previous topic (language acquisition) of this investigation, now, I am going to explain what is mother tongue.

The first language –also called as mother tongue or native language- is that a person has learned from birth inside a social group, when a person acquires and speaks more than one language becomes bilingual. (First language at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_language)

Example: If you were born in Brazil, so Portuguese is your mother tongue because it is the national language and the most used by people.

So, what happens in a multilingual country? It is possible for people communicating between them?

Example: In Switzerland, there are spoken four languages: German, French, Italian, and Romanche, according to the 2000 census, the first mentioned is the majority language (72.5%), it is followed by French (21%), Italian (4.3%), Romanche (0.6%), distributed over the country. (See la lengua y la legislación on Los cantones son los que más sufren el multilingüismo, 2007, p.13, forumfed.org)

The government assures to the population the free usage of any language, this could be enforced at the justice court or at the city hall, and it is done for an efficient public service. (Op. cit., p.13)

Generally, the Swiss people is bilingual or trilingual, they can communicate between them with the language what they decide to use; anyway the constitution protects the liberty of language. (Op. cit., p.13)

In the other hand, this multilingualism had created more territorial divisions, example: the canton (federal political division) of Jura was created from the canton of Bern, it was made because the usage of language (German is the majority, and French, minority). (Los territorios multilingüísticos frente al multilingüismo, p.14)

As we can see before, the people can be bilingual, trilingual, or multilingual as much as they can do, but how can separate the structure of each language to avoid confusions? We are going to study two theories about this topic.

Switching theory

Proposed by Wilder Penfield and Lamar Roberts in 1959. The hypothesis tells us about a kind of switch, it is a metaphorical representation of a brain process which it still inexplicable by neurologists. It works as follows: When a person is speaking a language, the other language is off. (Appel R., Muysken P, 1996, p.118)

This theory is considered very simple to establish that mechanism; the results of some experiments applied to a group of persons shown a mixing of languages: they had to say colors in one language but got distracted by the other language. (Op. cit., p.118)

The switching theory tests the capability of the human for speaking and listening in different languages.

Two switches theory

It tries to explain the brain has two hypothetic “switches”: one for input and the other for off. The speaker choices a specific language and controls the switching, but the Stroop bilingual test shows that theory is uncertain because has the same vagueness as the previous hypothesis. (Op. cit., p.118, p.119)

Really, we have not that so called “switch” in our brain, the language is a complex process, even the most experiment bilingual person could mixing up languages either grammar, pronunciation, spelling, etcetera.

Alternating languages

Some bilingual people combine the structure of each language for constructing the speech to communicate ideas. The study about this phenomenon has different points of view.

The alternation occurs when a person cannot find the correspondent word in a specific language due to a lack of knowledge about the structures or it is hard to express an idea in one language. (Appel R., Muysken P., 1996, p.177)

A bilingual person can alternate language codes for including or avoiding people in a conversation, this is a social issue. (Op. cit., p.178)

3.Develop language

Develop language 

For children is easy develop and learn the language than an adult or teenager because the kids develop the language using the two brain hemispheres (right and left), while adults and teenagers use only theleft hemisphere because  at that age this one controls anything related to language development. This phenomenon is called laterization,also called cerebral dominance. (Da Silva Gomez & Signoret Dorcasberro, 2005)

As morphology and syntax, the child takes more time to develop than the adult or teen because they have cognitive maturity but the child passes after a while the adult and develops the language like a native. (Da Silva Gomez & Signoret Dorcasberro, 2005)

The child develops the language because of to 3 factors which are elemental to languages development, these are: school, home, and the society. These environments help the child to acquire the language.

In school the child constantly socialite and is constantly developing the language. In his or her home has to communicate and being in interaction with their parents according to the language they use. In the society the child has to get along with the culture…

3.1 Use of each language depending of the childs environment

Environment trilingualism

Trilingualism is not common because the three languages (or cultures) cannot be equal as in bilinguals. It is exist the risk for one of the languages to become “passive”. (Barron-Hauwaert, Trilingualism: A Study of Children Growing Up with Three Languages, 2003)

There are some ways the child becomes trilingual:

·         Lives in a trilingual or multilingual community.

·         Each one of the child’s parents speak a different language and they live on a third language country.

·         Parents speak two different languages but use another language as a “communication language” in the family.

·         The children already are bilinguals and develop the third language in the school or for other causes. (Barron-Hauwaert, 2003, pág. 131)

Most of this kids did not choose to be bilingual; they just had to go forward their respective circumstances. But, the fact of being exposed to different languages does not guarantee trilingualism or multilingualism. They may comprehend some things, but they are not completely fluent in all languages unless it is required for social communication, school, or tourism. (Barron-Hauwaert, 2003, pág. 131) Trilingual kids had specific domains or people to link to using each language correspondently. The vocabulary they receive and develop can depend on the environment it is used and the knowledge of some words can depend on the lack of input and opportunity for use due to the situations. (Barron-Hauwaert, 2003, pág. 132)

About the culture, most parent want to teach their children their native traditions, because they feel it is necessary to introduce some cultural knowledge to sound authentic. Most families are involving two cultures (parental) and the country culture. (Barron-Hauwaert, 2003, pág. 144)

4. Advantages and disadvantages of trilingualism

Trilingualism: Advantages and disadvantages

There are a lot of advantages of knowing more than one language; it changes the brain in a significant way. Hereby, some of them will be mentioned.

The main one is having access to three cultures. So, people sometimes view others as part of their speech community according to typical social or political characteristics if they are reacted to share some experience with them. (Susan M. Gass, 1989, p. 21)

In addition, basic motor elements behind this broader perspective trilingual language include increased sensitivity to socio-cultural diversity, and therefore behavior outside of traditional imposed by society and classrooms. Also they cover the wide variety of issues and problems based on the linguistic level of society that have arisen from increased migration. (Susan M. Gass, 1989, p. 29)

Another advantage is that the acquisition of several languages being considered by a more positive way it used to be the case because of the importance of these multilingual competences of individuals. So, multilingual people tend to be more careful readers; and with this ability, they gain a broad understanding of the correspondence between letters and sounds. Bilinguals are less distracted by the automated tasks like that. (Susan M. Gass, 1989, p. 33)

The last one is that multilingual people find it easier to pick up other languages, because of their spontaneous understanding of language. (Sorace, p. 2)

But, there are some disadvantages too, for example, the change in the perspective towards the value contained in multilingualism at the individual and societal level has been slow. (Larissa Aronin, 2009, p. 30) Also, there is now a considerable collection of research findings according to the influence of the mother tongue has on the knowledge of other languages that somebody is trying to learn. (Susan M. Gass, 1989, p. 165)

Trilingual people may not have the same proficiency in or control over all those familiar languages they know, the vocabulary is usually shorter or the way to organize vocabulary in a discourse may change. (Swan, 2008) And they sometimes confuse the languages structures, and they change the word order. Word order is so important; it “constitutes one area of language organization in which a number of separate spheres of linguistic inquiry quite naturally converge.” (Susan M. Gass, et al., 1989, p. 163)

Besides - in early multilingualism - different aspects in use of tongue input can affect the development of languages in children. (Barnes, 2006, pág. 10)

In conclusion, multilingualism is a process in which learners have to be patient and responsible to acquire each of the languages because trilingualism no only involves linguistic skills in three languages, but the ability to understand and function in trilingual contexts too. (Henn-Reinike, 2012, p. 1)

5.Conclusion

Language is an essential tool for communication. So, it can be considered mainly as a socially or culturally specific tool or it can be mostly seen system used for structuring utterances and thoughts.

Children learn language remarkably fast; this is why we should start introducing them to the acquisition of several languages since they are very young.

In addition, there are several interesting patterns in the process of children language acquisition, and it was so interesting to know about them.