- "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 students learn a language.
Nature vs. Nurture: This topic explores the debate of whether language acquisition is primarily innate (nature) or learned through environmental factors (nurture).
Critical Period: This topic discusses the hypothesis that there is a specific window of time in childhood during which language acquisition is most effective.
Language Milestones: This topic covers the typical developmental progression of language acquisition from infancy through early childhood.
Types of Language: This topic explores the different categories of language, including spoken language, sign language, and written language.
Language Universals: This topic examines the concept of universal grammar and proposes that there are underlying principles that govern all languages.
Bilingualism: This topic discusses the benefits and challenges of learning and speaking two languages.
Language Input: This topic explores the role of language stimulation and input in language acquisition, including the importance of speaking and reading to children.
Language Acquisition Devices: This topic covers the neurological mechanisms involved in language acquisition and processing.
Social Interaction: This topic examines the importance of social interaction in language acquisition, including the impact of socialization and cultural differences.
Error Analysis: This topic explores the types and patterns of errors made by language learners, and how these errors can affect language acquisition.
Second Language Acquisition: This topic covers the process of learning a second language, including strategies for effective learning.
Language Development Disorders: This topic discusses disorders that may affect language development, such as autism spectrum disorders and specific language impairment.
Language Teaching Methods: This topic explores different teaching strategies for language acquisition, including immersion, explicit instruction, and collaborative learning.
Assessment and Evaluation: This topic covers methods for assessing and evaluating language acquisition, including standardized tests and language proficiency assessments.
Language Policy: This topic examines the role of language policy in education, including bilingual education and language immersion programs.
First Language Acquisition: The process of learning one's mother tongue language from birth through immersion in the language environment.
Second Language Acquisition: The process of learning another language in addition to one’s mother tongue language, often through formal instruction, classroom learning, or immersion in a language environment.
Third Language Acquisition: The process of learning a third language in addition to two previously acquired languages.
Natural Language Acquisition: The process of learning a language through natural exposure to the language, without formal instruction or structured lessons.
Communicative Language Acquisition: The process of acquiring language skills that helps learners to communicate effectively with others in a specific social context.
Social Language Acquisition: The process of acquiring language to express oneself in social situations, including greetings, farewells, small talk, etc.
Cognitive Language Acquisition: The process of acquiring language with the focus on how our brains process and understand language.
Immersion Language Acquisition: The process of learning a language through immersion in a language environment where the language being learned is the primary language of communication.
Critical Period Language Acquisition: The period in an individual’s life during which it is critical to acquire language for successful language development.
Explicit Language Acquisition: The process of learning a language through explicit instruction, including grammar rules, vocabulary, and language structures.
Implicit Language Acquisition: The process of learning a language without conscious awareness through exposure to the language in context.
Functional Language Acquisition: The process of acquiring language to complete specific tasks, such as giving directions or ordering food in a restaurant.
Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) Language Acquisition: The process of developing basic language skills needed for communicating in social situations.
Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) Language Acquisition: The process of developing language ability to understand and use academic language in academic contexts, including reading, writing, and higher-level thinking.
- "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."