Language acquisition is the process of learning to understand and represent the world using language. It involves syntax, phonetics, and vocabulary. Theories of language acquisition include nature vs. nurture, social interaction theory, and generativism. Some believe that children have a built-in set of syntactic and grammatical rules waiting to be expanded.
Language acquisition is about how humans learn to understand and represent the world they live in using language. It is a term applied to the first, or native, language learned and not to later languages learned in later life. Language can be spoken and written or it can be a manual language such as sign language.
There are three key elements to language acquisition: syntax, phonetics and vocabulary. Syntax is about how words are put together to form sentences. Phonetics is about the sound of written letters. These sounds can range from different interpretations of the same letter as in the Latin alphabet or using two letters for the same sound as in the Japanese hiragana and katakana alphabets. The words that a person uses and their meanings are called vocabulary.
Yaska and other Sanskrit linguists in the first millennium BCE argued about language acquisition. They believed that a child learned through an act of God or by listening to the people around him. Plato, the Greek philosopher, believed that children are born with linguistic abilities, whether they were placed there by God or by nature. The two theories, nature and nurture, have led to an ongoing debate in language development studies.
Social interaction theory strikes a balance between nature and nurture. Lev Vygotsky, in his theories of cognitive development, believed that adult input was vital to a child’s language acquisition, but not the only element. Ernest L. Moek has posited the mother as the most important element in a child’s language development, as the child would have the most contact with her. Overall, they believed that some elements of language were built-in, such as syntax and grammar, but others, such as vocabulary, were external.
Relational frame theory (RFT) believes that any language acquisition is only by education and has nothing to do with nature. Based on behavioral studies by BF Skinner, RFT postulates that children learn only through their environment. Noam Chomsky, among others, believes this is incorrect. Emergentism is a reaction to his belief that neither nurture nor nature alone can explain the development of languages in humans.
Syntax studies by artists such as Chomsky have also examined language acquisition. Most theories of syntax development reflect general theories of language development, both by nature and by culture. Empiricism postulates that evolution cannot be attributed with the creation of a natural syntactic parameter in children. Empiricists, therefore, believe that learning is the most important element.
Chomsky leads another theory called generativism, which suggests that children actually have a built-in set of syntactic and grammatical rules waiting to be expanded. They believe the human brain is preprogrammed with a limited set of syntax options. The child makes sense of other people’s words using these basic options until he learns to develop them further. Generativists use the grammatical convergence seen in 5-year-olds as evidence for these built-in syntax options.
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