Today our topic of discussion is- Language acquisition
Language acquisition
Language acquisition is one of the essential human traits. The way children learn their native language is referred as ‘First Language -Acquisition’. This process enables children to perceive and comprehend language, produce and use words as well as sentences to communicate.
According to Rice (1989), language -acquisition needs three skills- (a) the language to be acquired, (b) the child and their abilities, (c) environmental settings or the language they hear and the speaking contexts.
The basic question that usually comes to any child language researcher’s mind is, ‘how do children learn to talk?’ Several answers are put forward in many books for centuries to get information on child language development. Researchers thought about the process that helps children to communicate and express themselves in the world.
This area of interest has been taken into account from as early as the fourth century. Saint Augustine (397AD) entitled the chapter of his ‘Confessions’ (autobiography) “That When a Boy He Learned to Speak, Not by Any Set Method, But from the Acts and Words of His Parents’ (Schaff, 1890). This reveals the fact that ‘child language development’ has always been an area of interest for centuries.
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