Linguistics Theory, Foundations, and Modern Development

An Overview of Linguistics and Linguistic Applications

Language Acquisition

Computers, Formal Language, Natural Language, and Language Acquisition

Language Change and the History of the English Language

Language Acquisition

Language acquisition is perhaps one of the most frustrating and confusing aspects of linguistics. For the first several months of a baby's life, all of the sounds and signs made are stimulus-responses. Before babies produce words, however, they go through a sound formation period, called "babbling." It has been shown that deaf children introduced to sign languages will babble in sign.

There is a definite gradation to the learning of language by children, but how it is acquired is still unclear. The stages are single-word ("holophrastic", usually from about one year to about two years), two-words (usually from two years until about three years), and telegraphic (three words or more without grammatical morphemes, from about three years to four or five years). Beyond that, the language has been acquired and the child uses it as an adult would, albeit with a much smaller vocabulary [Fromkin and Rodman, 394-402].

Although a number of theories have been introduced to explain language acquisition, none of them are supported by observational or experimental data. The two most prominent are the imitation theory (where the child imitates his or her parents) and the reinforcement theory (where the child is corrected or praised for using proper forms). An hypothesis for a critical age has been proposed that there is a critical age during which a child may acquire a language without overt teaching. This critical stage is also exhibited in songbirds and in deaf children that are exposed to sign languages.

Computers, Formal Language, Natural Language, and Language Acquisition

Language Change and the History of the English Language

Linguistics Index

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