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Language Acquisition

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Language acquisition Summary

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Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics

language acquisition

Umbrella term for (a) the natural acquisition of one’s first language, (b) the natural acquisition of a second or multiple languages, (c) second language acquisition in a formal learning environment, and (d) the relearning of one’s first language in therapy ( language disorder). It is the basic concept of language which, in the approaches to (a)–(d), determines the individual hypotheses as to which linguistic skills are acquired, under what conditions, in which way, when the process begins, and how long it lasts. Research in this area has been strongly influenced by current linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociological theories.

From 1950 to 1980 research brought forth four main hypotheses regarding first language acquisition: (i) the behavioristic hypothesis ( behaviorism, empiricism) propounded by Skinner (1957), which traces language-learning processes back to experience, imitation, and selective conditioning; (ii) the nativistic hypothesis ( nativism), arising from Chomsky’s criticism of Skinner (see Chomsky 1959, 1975) and according to which language acquisition is considered to be a more or less autonomous process of maturation based on an inborn mechanism of language acquisition. This hypothesis places emphasis on the development of linguistic competence ( competence vs performance) ( also transformational grammar); (iii) the cognition hypothesis, which takes into account the relationship between the developing cognitive and intellectual abilities (see Rice and Kemper 1984, also Bowerman 1989); and (iv) the social constitution hypothesis, which gives priority to the importance of the child’s socialization and interaction (Miller 1980). In this hypothesis, the child’s desire for experience and communication with others provides the principal impetus for the development of linguistic abilities.

In the 1980s, research in language acquisition turned more strongly towards the acquisition of grammar. This is evidenced by the following two positions. The first, which was clearly influenced by more recent linguistic theories (e.g. Government and Binding theory and Lexical-Functional Grammar), can be seen as a further development of the nativistic hypothesis. It holds that there are specific inherent abilities and specific acquisition mechanisms, and discusses to what extent child grammars at any given time are true grammars in terms of a universal grammar (see Pinker 1984; Hyams 1986; Felix 1987; for an over-view see Weissenborn and Schriefers 1987). The second position, which was strongly influenced by functional language models (functional grammar, discourse analysis), generally ascribes an important role to input and views language acquisition, among other things, as embedded in general cognitive processes. This position encompasses learning processes (see (i), and its further development, connectionism), cognitive abilities (see (iii)), as well as socialization and interactive experiences (see (iv)) (e.g. Maratsos and Chalkley 1980; Slobin 1985; McWhinney 1987). Issues currently under debate also between both positions are, for example, the acquisition of regular and irregular verb morphology (e.g. Rumelhart and McClelland 1986; Marcus et al 1992; Plunkett and Marchman 1993). An essential test for all approaches are cross-linguistic studies (see Slobin 1985–93; Hyams 1986; McWhinney and Bates 1989), and possible explanations offered by individual learning styles or learning strategies (see Nelson 1981; Peters 1983). Here it is a matter of styles, such as the pronominal or holistic, in which children begin with memorized sentences that, for example, also contain pronouns, and the (hitherto more thoroughly researched) nominal or analytical style, in which children begin with individual words, especially nouns or noun combinations.

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