Language Acquisition and Bilingualism

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How learning two languages simultaneously or sequentially affects language acquisition and development.

First Language Acquisition: This is the ability of children to learn their first language naturally without formal instruction or explicit instruction.
Second Language Acquisition: This refers to the process of acquiring a second language after one has already acquired their first language.
Language Development: This concerns the progression in which a language is acquired, including the acquisition of phonology, syntax and semantics.
Bilingualism: This refers to individuals who speak two languages, either at the same level of fluency or proficiency.
Multilingualism: This refers to individuals who speak more than two languages.
Critical Period Hypothesis: This states that there is a specific period in which language learning and acquisition is most efficient.
Input Hypothesis: This suggests that language acquisition happens when learners are exposed to input that is just slightly above their current level of comprehension.
Social Interaction Theory: This asserts that language acquisition occurs through social interactions in which learners are exposed to communicative and social situations.
Cognitive Theories of Language Acquisition: This suggests that language acquisition is a result of cognitive processes, including attention, perception, memory and problem-solving.
Code-Switching: This refers to the practice of switching between languages within a conversation or utterances.
L1 Transfer: This refers to the translation of the first language to the second language and can lead to errors in acquisition.
Language Teaching Methodology: This concerns the various methods and approaches used to teach a second language, including immersion, grammar-translation, audiolingual and communicative language teaching.
Heritage Language Acquisition: This refers to the process of acquiring a language that is spoken in one's family and community, but not the language of the country they reside.
Language Policy and Planning: This refers to the development and implementation of policies that relate to language acquisition, maintenance, use and promotion.
Language Testing and Assessment: This concerns the evaluation of language proficiency and can be used for diagnostic, placement, and evaluation purposes.
Language Processing: This concerns the cognitive processes involved in comprehension and production of language, including phonology, grammar, and semantics.
Language Contact and Variation: This refers to the influence of contact between different languages and dialects on language acquisition, use and development.
Language Acquisition and Cognitive Development: This concerns the relationship between language acquisition and the cognitive development of learners.
Bilingual Education: This concerns the approaches and methods used to teach content in two languages, including dual language, transitional bilingual education and heritage language programs.
Technology and Language Acquisition: This concerns the use of technology to enhance language learning, including language software, online resources, and mobile applications.
First language acquisition: This refers to the process of acquiring a person's first language or mother tongue. It usually starts at birth and progresses through early childhood.
Second language acquisition: This refers to the process of acquiring a second language after the first language is already established. This can happen at any age, but is generally most successful during childhood and adolescence.
Sequential bilingualism: This occurs when a person learns a second language after their first language is already developed. This can happen through exposure to a new language in a home or community setting, or through formal language instruction.
Simultaneous bilingualism: This occurs when a child is exposed to and learns two languages at the same time from birth. This happens most commonly in multilingual households.
Heritage language acquisition: This refers to the process of acquiring a language that is part of someone's cultural or ethnic heritage. This can happen in immigrant communities or when a language is passed down through generations in a family.
Naturalistic language acquisition: This occurs when a person learns a language through exposure to it in everyday life, often without formal instruction.
Classroom language acquisition: This refers to the process of learning a language through structured language instruction in a classroom setting, such as in a school or language course.
Intensive language acquisition: This occurs when a person learns a language quickly, often through intensive language instruction with a focus on rapid progress.
Immersion bilingualism: This occurs when a person is fully immersed in a language and culture, often through living in a country where the language is spoken or attending an immersion program.
Additive bilingualism: This refers to the process of learning a second language without losing proficiency or use of the first language. This is often seen as a positive form of bilingualism, as it allows individuals to benefit from the advantages of being bilingual.
- "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 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."