- "Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate."
The process by which humans acquire language, including the role of innate cognitive mechanisms, social interaction, and language exposure.
First Language Acquisition: The study of how infants and young children acquire their first language(s), and the various stages and processes involved in this process.
Second Language Acquisition: The processes and variables involved in the learning of a second language or subsequent languages.
Bilingualism: The study of individuals who speak two languages, including how they acquire both languages and use them in their daily lives.
Language Universals: The study of the characteristics and patterns that are common across all human languages, and the implications for language acquisition.
Critical Period Hypothesis: The proposal that there is a specific period of early childhood during which language acquisition is most efficient and effective.
Innateness Hypothesis: The idea that humans have an innate capacity for language that is biologically determined.
Language Development in the Brain: The neurological processes underlying language acquisition and production, including brain regions involved in language processing.
Cultural and Social Factors: The influence of cultural and social environments on language acquisition, including the role of caregiver interaction, social context, and language exposure.
Language Evolution: The study of how languages change over time and how they have evolved, including the origins of language and the evolution of language systems.
Cross-Linguistic Studies: Comparisons and contrasts of different languages, with a focus on how knowledge of one language can influence the acquisition of another language.
Language Processing: The cognitive processes involved in understanding and producing language, including phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
Language Disorders: The study of language impairments and disorders, including developmental disorders (e.g., Autism Spectrum Disorder, Specific Language Impairment) and acquired language disorders (e.g., aphasia).
Language Acquisition Technology: The use of technology to study, assess, and facilitate language acquisition and development, including language learning software, online language resources, and AI-assisted language acquisition.
Language Policy: The social and political implications of language acquisition, including language education policies, language diversity, and language rights.
First Language Acquisition: This is the process of acquiring a native or home language, which begins from birth and continues through early childhood. It involves learning the sounds, words, and grammar of a spoken or signed language, as well as developing the ability to communicate with others.
Second Language Acquisition: This is the process of acquiring a second or foreign language at any age following the acquisition of the first language. It involves the learning of new vocabulary, grammar rules, and pronunciation, as well as the development of communicative competence in the language.
- "The capacity to use language successfully requires one to acquire a range of tools including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and an extensive vocabulary."
- "Human language capacity is represented in the brain."
- "Even though human language capacity is finite, one can say and understand an infinite number of sentences, which is based on a syntactic principle called recursion."
- "These three mechanisms are: relativization, complementation, and coordination."
- "Speech perception always precedes speech production, and the gradually evolving system by which a child learns a language is built up one step at a time."
- "The distinction between individual phonemes is the initial step in language acquisition."
- "Language acquisition usually refers to first-language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language, whether that be spoken language or signed language."
- "It refers to an infant's simultaneous acquisition of two native languages."
- "First-language acquisition deals with the acquisition of the native language, while second-language acquisition involves acquiring additional languages."
- "In addition to speech, reading, and writing a language with an entirely different script compounds the complexities of true foreign language literacy."
- "Linguists who are interested in child language acquisition have for many years questioned how language is acquired."
- "The question of how these structures are acquired, then, is more properly understood as the question of how a learner takes the surface forms in the input and converts them into abstract linguistic rules and representations."
- "Language acquisition involves structures, rules, and representation."
- "Language can be vocalized as in speech, or manual as in sign."
- "Language acquisition involves acquiring phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and an extensive vocabulary."
- "Even though human language capacity is finite, one can say and understand an infinite number of sentences."
- "These three mechanisms are: relativization, complementation, and coordination."
- "Speech perception always precedes speech production in first-language acquisition."
- "Language acquisition is one of the quintessential human traits."