Chapter 13
First language acquisition
Description reflections
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.
Language acquisition is one of the quintessential
human traits, [1] because non-humans do not
communicate by using language. [2] Language
acquisition usually refers to first-language
acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of
their native language. This is distinguished
from second-language acquisition, which deals with
the acquisition (in both children and adults) of
additional languages.
The capacity to successfully use language requires
one to acquire a range of tools
including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics,
and an extensive vocabulary. Language can be
vocalized as in speech, or manual as in sign. 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. In the chapter we learned to
differentiate The evidence that
suggests that each individual
has three recursive
mechanisms that allow
sentences to go
indeterminately. These three
mechanisms are: relativization,
complementation and
coordination. On the other
hand, there are actually two
main guiding principles in the
acquisition of the first language,
that is, the perception of speech
always precedes the production
of speech and the system
evolves little to Little by which a
child learns a language is built
one step at a time, beginning
with the distinction between
individual phonemes.