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Language acquisition is the study of the processes through which humans acquire language. By itself, language acquisition refers to first language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language, whereas second language acquisition deals with acquisition of additional languages in both children and adults.

The process of language acquisition is among the leading aspects that distinguishes humans from other organisms. While many forms of animal language exist, production is often fixed and does not vary much across cultural groups, though comprehension may be more flexible (primates may learn to pick up bird signals)^[1] The complexity and referential richness and social contextual variation of human language is not exhibited by any other species.

Contents 1 Early views on language acquisition 2 Generative tradition and a return to nativism 3 Empiricist views (opposing nativism) 4 Empiricist theories 4.1 Social interactionist theory 4.2 Statistical learning theories of language acquisition 4.3 Chunking theories of language acquisition 4.4 Relational frame theory 5 Emergentist theories 6 Criticism of nativist theories 7 Other evidence supporting the nativist position 7.1 Creolization 7.2 Evolution of language 7.2.1 Evolution of language in working memory and the cerebellum 8 References 9 See also 10 References

[edit] Early views on language acquisition

One of the complexities of acquiring language is that it is learned by infants from what appears to be very little input. This has led to the long-standing debate on the issue of whether a child is born with some idea of meanings, or whether these are learned based on social convention.

Plato felt that the word-meaning mapping in some form was innate. Sanskrit grammarians debated over twelve centuries whether meaning was god-given (possibly innate) or was learned from older convention - e.g. a child learning the word for cow by listening to trusted speakers talking about cows^[2].

In modern times, empiricists like Hobbes and Locke argued that knowledge (and for Locke, language) emerge ultimately from abstracted sense impressions. This led to Carnap's Aufbau, an attempt to learn all knowledge from sense datum, using the notion of "remembered as similar" to bind these into clusters, which would eventually map to language.

Under Behaviorism, it was argued that language may be learned through a form of operant conditioning. In B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behaviour (1957), he suggested that the successful use of a sign such as a word or lexical unit, given a certain stimulus, reinforces its "momentary" or contextual probability.

[edit] Generative tradition and a return to nativism

This behaviourist idea was strongly attacked by Noam Chomsky in a review article in 1959, calling it "largely mythology" and a "serious delusion"^[3]. Instead, Chomsky argued for a more theoretical approach, based on a study of syntax. Chomsky's generative grammar ignored semantics and language use, focusing on the set of rules that would generate syntactically correct strings. This led to a model of acquisition which attempted to discover grammar from examples of well-formed sentences, ignoring semantics or context.

However, it turns out that infinitely many rule-sets or grammars can explain the data^[4], so discovering one was very difficult. Indeed, trained linguists working for decades have not been able to identify a grammar for any human language^[5]. Also, the input available to the child learner was deemed insufficient (the poverty of stimulus argument). These aspects led Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, Eric Lenneberg and others to suggest that some form of grammar must be innate (the nativist position)^[6].

What is innate was claimed to be a universal grammar, initially connected to an organ called the language acquisition device (LAD)^[7]. Subsequently, the word organ was replaced by the phrase "language faculty" and Chomsky suggested that what was universal across all languages were a set of principles, that were modified for each particular language by a set of parameters.

Nativists view that there are some "hidden assumptions" or biases^[8] that allow children to quickly figure out what is and isn't possible in the grammar of their native language, and allow them to master that grammar by the age of three.^[9]

[edit] Empiricist views (opposing nativism)

Since 1980, linguists studying children, such as Melissa Bowerman, and psychologists following Piaget, like Elizabeth Bates and Jean Mandler, came to suspect that there may be many learning processes going into the acquisition process, and that ignoring the role of learning may have been a mistake.

In recent years, opposition to the nativist position has multiplied. The debate has centered on whether the inborn capabilities are language-specific or domain-general, such as those that enable the infant to visually make sense of the world in terms of objects and actions. The anti-nativist view has many strands, but a frequent theme is that language emerges from usage in social contexts, using learning mechanisms that are a part of a general cognitive learning apparatus (which is what is innate). This position has been championed by Elizabeth Bates^[10], Catherine Snow, Brian MacWhinney, Michael Tomasello^[1], William O'Grady^[11], Michael Ramscar^[12] and others. Philosophers, such as Fiona Cowie and Barbara Scholz (with Geoffrey Pullum)^[13] have also argued against certain nativist claims in support of empiricism.

[edit] Empiricist theories

Empiricist theories of language acquisition include Social interactionist theory, statistical learning theories of language acquisition, Relational Frame Theory, functionalist linguistics, usage-based language acquisition, and others.

[edit] Social interactionist theory

Social interactionist theory consists of a number of proven hypotheses on language acquisition. These hypotheses deal with written, spoken, or visual social tools which consist of complex systems of symbols and rules on language acquisition and development. The compromise between “nature” and “nurture” is the “interactionist” approach: it demands a particular type of syntagma in recognizing that many factors influence language development.

[edit] Statistical learning theories of language acquisition

Some language acquisition researchers, such as Elissa Newport, Richard Aslin, and Jenny Saffran, believe that language acquisition is based primarily on general learning mechanisms, namely statistical learning. The development of connectionist models that are able to successfully learn words and syntactical conventions^[14] supports the predictions of statistical learning theories of language acquisition, as do empirical studies of children's learning of words and syntax.^[15]

[edit] Chunking theories of language acquisition

Chunking theories of language acquisition constitute a group of theories related to statistical learning theories in that they assume that the input from the environment plays an essential role; however, they postulate different learning mechanisms. The central idea of these theories is that language development occurs through the incremental acquisition of meaningful“chunks” (chunks) of elementary constituents, which can be words, phonemes, or syllables. Recently, this approach has been highly successful in simulating several phenomena in the acquisition of syntactic categories ^[16] and the acquisition of phonological knowledge ^[17]. The approach has several features that make it unique: the models are implemented as computer programs, which enables clear-cut and quantitative predictions to be made; they learn from naturalistic input, made of actual child-directed utterances; they produce actual utterances, which can be compared with children’s utterances; and they have simulated phenomena in several languages, including English, Spanish, and German.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have developed a computer model analyzing early toddler conversations to predict the structure of later conversations. They showed that toddlers develop their own individual rules for speaking with slots into which they could put certain kinds of words. A significant outcome of the research was that rules inferred from toddler speech were better predictors of subsequent speech than traditional grammars.^[18]

[edit] Relational frame theory

The relational frame theory (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, Roche, 2001), provides a wholly selectionist/learning account of the origin and development of language competence and complexity. Based upon the principles of Skinnerian behaviorism, RFT posits that children acquire language purely through interacting with the environment. RFT theorists introduced the concept of functional contextualism in language learning, which emphasizes the importance of predicting and influencing psychological events, such as thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, by focusing on manipulable variables in their context. RFT distinguishes itself from Skinner's work by identifying and defining a particular type of operant conditioning known as derived relational responding, a learning process that to date appears to occur only in humans possessing a capacity for language. Empirical studies supporting the predictions of RFT suggest that children learn language via a system of inherent reinforcements, challenging the view that language acquisition is based upon innate, language-specific cognitive capacities.^[19]

[edit] Emergentist theories

Emergentist theories, such as MacWhinney's Competition Model, posit that language acquisition is a cognitive process that emerges from the interaction of biological pressures and the environment. According to these theories, neither nature nor nurture alone is sufficient to trigger language learning; both of these influences must work together in order to allow children to acquire a language. The proponents of these theories argue that general cognitive processes subserve language acquisition and that the end result of these processes is language-specific phenomena, such as word learning and grammar acquisition. The findings of many empirical studies support the predictions of these theories, suggesting that language acquisition is a more complex process than many believe.^[20]

[edit] Criticism of nativist theories

Many criticisms of the basic assumptions of generative theory have been put forth, with little response from its champions. The concept of a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is unsupported by evolutionary anthropology, which tends to show a gradual adaptation of the human body to the use of language, rather than a sudden appearance of a complete set of binary parameters (which are common to digital computers but not to neurological systems such as a human brain) delineating the whole spectrum of possible grammars ever to have existed and ever to exist.

The theory has several hypothetical constructs, such as movement, empty categories, complex underlying structures, and strict binary branching, that cannot possibly be acquired from any amount of input. Since the theory is, in essence, unlearnably complex, then it must be innate. A different theory of language, however, may yield different conclusions. Examples of alternative theories that do not utilize movement and empty categories are head-driven phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar, and several varieties of construction grammar. While all theories of language acquisition posit some degree of innateness, a less convoluted theory might involve less innate structure and more learning. Under such a theory of grammar, the input, combined with both general and language-specific learning capacities, might be sufficient for acquisition.

[edit] Other evidence supporting the nativist position

[edit] Creolization

More support for the innateness of language comes from the deaf population of Nicaragua. Until approximately 1986, Nicaragua had neither education nor a formalized sign language for the deaf. As Nicaraguans attempted to rectify the situation, they discovered that children past a certain age had difficulty learning any language. Additionally, the adults observed that the younger children were using gestures unknown to them to communicate with each other. They invited Judy Kegl, an American linguist from MIT, to help unravel this mystery. Kegl discovered that these children had developed their own, distinct, Nicaraguan Sign Language with its own rules of "sign-phonology" and syntax. She also discovered some 300 adults who, despite being raised in otherwise healthy environments, had never acquired language, and turned out to be incapable of learning language in any meaningful sense. While it was possible to teach vocabulary, these individuals were unable to learn syntax.^[9]

Derek Bickerton's (1981) landmark work with Hawaiian pidgin speakers studied immigrant populations where first-generation parents spoke highly-ungrammatical "pidgin English". Their children, Bickerton found, grew up speaking a grammatically rich language -- neither English nor the syntax-less pidgin of their parents. Furthermore, the language exhibited many of the underlying grammatical features of many other natural languages. The language became "creolized", and is known as Hawaii Creole English. This was taken as powerful evidence for children's innate grammar module.

[edit] Evolution of language

Debate within the nativist position now revolves around how language evolved. Derek Bickerton suggests a single mutation, a "big bang", linked together previously evolved traits into full language.^[21] Others like Steven Pinker argue for a slower evolution over longer periods of time.^[9]

[edit] Evolution of language in working memory and the cerebellum

Vandervert (2009) proposed that language acquisition occurs in the transformation of visual-spatial working memory (which humans share with lower animals) into streamlined, short-cut system of mental events we call language. Vandervert (2003) has argued that this transformation is what occurs during the construction of the conceptual primitives of language described by Mandler (1992a, 1992b, 2004). Beginning in infancy, according to this interpretation of Mandler, the short-cut system of mental events is constructed from the interaction of models of working memory (visual-spatial at first) and parallel short-cut models manufactured in the cerebellum (streamlined through cerebellar decomposition and re-composition) (Vandervert, 2009). Noting the fourfold increase in the size of the human cerebellum in the last million years, Vandervert (2003, 2009) proposed the cerebellar decomposition and re-combination of working memory's visual-spatial imagery was selected into language during evolution and is thus selected in infancy because it provides working memory an abstract system of mental events that can more flexibly guide planned behavior (including silent, internal speech), and provides progressively more detailed communication with others. According to Vandervert, a universal grammar that applies not only to language but mathematics and musical notation reflects parameters of the structure of the visual-spatial world in relation to composite patterns of planning, movement, and perception selected during hundreds of thousands of years of the evolution of stone tool technology and the interrelated evolution of language. This broadening of the notion of grammar is based upon Vandervert's (2009) proposal that the cerebellum produces short-cut systems of mental events for all working memory processes that evolved during the evolution of stone tool technology. For an account of the co-evolution of stone tool technology and language, see Ambrose (2001).

[edit] References

• Ambrose, S. (2001, March 2). Paleolithic technology and human evolution. Science, 291, 1748-1753.
• Mandler, J. (1992a). How to build a baby II: Conceptual primitives. Psychological Review, 99, 587-604.
• Mandler, J. (1992b). The foundations of conceptual thought in infancy. Cognitive Development, 7, 273-285.
• Mandler, J. (2004). The foundations of mind: Origins of conceptual thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Vandervert, L. (2003). The neurophysiological basis of innovation. In L. V. Shavinina (Ed.), The international handbook on innovation (pp. 17-30). Oxford, England: Elsevier Science.
• Vandervert, L. (2009). The emergence of the child prodigy 10,000 years ago: An evolutionary and developmental explanation. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 30, 15-32.

[edit] See also

• Language development
• Language education
• Language school
• Language exchange
• Learn10
• Learnitlists.com
• List of language acquisition researchers
• STELLA (language courses)

[edit] References