There is no longer any doubt among linguists and child psychologists that language acquisition is an elaborate and completely unmonolithic type of study. Under the rubric of civilization, and more directly under the context of societal development, language is one of the most important aspects of culture. Polylinguist Steven Pinker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology comments, "Language acquisition is an amazing feat. Kids are solving a difficult logical puzzle. From a sample of sentences, they must generate an infinite language" (Gelman, et. al, 1988, p. 84).
This paper will present a brief overview of the subject of child language acquisition, will give four of the major theoretical outlines for the same, and will conclude with commentary on the differing views of language acquisition and directions for future research.
There is a basic dispute over the subject of child language acquisition which exposes a nerve between the nature versus nurture controversy. In its most basic form, the innatists, led by linguist Noam Chomsky, believe that children are biologically preprogrammed for languages. In this view, the way a child learns to speak is more a function of the genetic makeup and ethnic heritage. In opposition, the social interactionists maintain that language is acquired from cues in the environment given by parents, peers, and other members of society. Both sides, however, acknowledge that there is indeed a biological basis for language, but the disagreement comes in light of how much interaction from the social milieu contributes to the final product--language (Gelman, et. al., 1986).
Physiologically, toward the end of a child's first year, the child begins to speak. Initially, this is usually simply one-word utterances, most often representing "mother" (the 'ma' sound) or food. At about a year-and-a-half, they begin to produce two syllable words, and by the age of four, are well on their way to le...