Linguistics Acquisition

LINGUISTIC ACQUITITION

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WHAT, IF ANY, LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE DOES A HUMAN BEING POSSESS AT BIRTH

INTRODUCTION

Language and linguistic ability and knowledge development is a gradual process that takes place among children as they grow up. Languages are composed of sounds that are assembled to form words, which are combined to form sentences, which are arranged to convey ideas (SEDL, 2013). It is therefore a process that a child’s young and developing brain is exposed to at birth and is with time expected to learn and master. This therefore needs to be understood whether they are born with some already structured ability that guides their learning process of understanding languages they are exposed to. Different languages are structured differently; so during the process of learning babies do not only have to learn how to speak but also to make sense out of what is said and respond (Freeman & Freeman, 2004).

During their young ages, babies make different babbling sounds in a bid to communicate before they develop a format and learn the structuring pattern of the language of their immediate sorounding. These sounds though as they develop get erased from their communication techniques because they really are not part of the normal language system (Wadhwa, 2005). Theories exist about the linguistic abilities of babies and how they develop and learn the systems of languages. These theories all have a different way of looking at a child’s linguistic development. Noam Chomsky for one believed that all human beings have language acquisition devices (LAD) at birth that contains knowledge about languages (Skinner, 2002). This paper therefore will look at the theories, their implications and conclusions.

THEORETICAL EVIDENCE

Noam Chomsky’s theory on linguistic was against the theories that had always been in place and received a lot of criticism. He for one was against the behaviorists’ theory that children learnt by trying to...