Language Acquisition

Language acquisition studies how humans, especially children, acquire language — the stages, mechanisms, and conditions of learning a first (or later) language.

Scope

It covers stages of first-language development, the nativism debate, input and interaction, and usage-based and statistical learning.

Core questions

• How do children acquire language so rapidly?
• Is language ability innate or learned?
• What stages does acquisition pass through?
• What role do input and interaction play?

Key concepts

• Universal grammar
• Critical period
• Stages of development
• Poverty of the stimulus
• Usage-based learning
• Input and interaction

Key theories

The nativist argument

Chomsky's critique of behaviourist learning argued for an innate language capacity (later, universal grammar).

Stages of acquisition

Brown documented the orderly stages of children's early grammatical development.

Usage-based acquisition

Tomasello argued children build language from general cognitive and social-learning mechanisms applied to input.

History

The field's defining nativism-versus-empiricism debate runs from Chomsky's critique of behaviourism through Brown's developmental studies to usage-based, statistical-learning accounts (Tomasello).

Debates

Nativism versus usage-based learning

Whether language acquisition relies on innate grammar or on general learning from input.

Key figures

• Noam Chomsky
• Roger Brown
• Michael Tomasello

Seminal works

• chomsky-1959
• brown-1973
• tomasello-2003

Frequently asked questions

What is the poverty of the stimulus?

The argument that children's input underdetermines the grammar they acquire, used to support innate linguistic knowledge.