"LANGUAJE ACQUISITION" HOW CHLINDREN ACQUIRE LANGUAGE.

Language acquisition is one of the central topics in cognitive science. Every theory of cognition has tried to explain it; probably no other topic has aroused such controversy. Possessing a language is the quintessentially human trait: all normal humans speak, no nonhuman animal does. Language is the main vehicle by which we know about other people's thoughts, and the two must be intimately related. Every time we speak we are revealing something about language, so the facts of language structure are easy to come by; these data hint at a system of extraordinary complexity. Nonetheless, learning a first language is something every child does successfully, in a matter of a few years and without the need for formal lessons. With language so close to the core of what it means to be human, it is not surprising that children's acquisition of language has received so much attention. Anyone with strong views about the human mind would like to show that children's first few steps are steps in the right direction. Language acquisition is not only inherently interesting; studying it is one way to look for concrete answers to questions that permeate cognitive science

 "HOW CHILDREN ACQUIRE LANGUAGE"

Most new moms and dads know a lot about language acquisition because they witness it first-hand. They can tell you that babies start to babble around six to ten months of age, and that not long afterward they say a few words like "no" or "uh-oh." At around two years, already more like children and less like babies, they begin speaking grammatically correct sentences and their vocabulary undergoes a growth spurt. And by three years, most children can speak in a manner that is essentially adult-like.

But how do children learn so much about language in so little time? Adult-like knowledge of language requires many complex skills, and it's not at all obvious how we acquire them. We possess phonological skills: the ability to perceive and analyze sounds in real time, and to produce sounds by coordinating our larynx, pharynx, tongue, palate, jaw, and lips. We possess a lexicon: thousands of vocabulary words. And we possess syntactic skills: the grammar rules of our native language, which govern how words and morphemes can be combined to produce correct sentences. Furthermore, we must practice these skills in situations that are sometimes noisy and distracting, while interacting with other people whose pronunciation, intonation, and speaking rate may be quite different from our own.

Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with speech or manual as in

sign. Language acquisition usually refers to first language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language, rather than second language acquisition, which deals with acquisition (in both children and adults) of additional languages.

A major concern in understanding language acquisition is how these capacities are picked up by infants from what appears to be very little input. A range of theories of language acquisition has been created in order to explain this apparent problem including innatism in which a child is born prepared in some manner with these capacities, as opposed to the other theories in which language is simply learned.

Although how children learn to speak is not perfectly understood, most explanations involve both the observation that children copy what they hear and the inference that human beings have a natural aptitude for understanding grammar. While children usually learn the sounds and vocabulary of their native language through imitation, grammar is seldom taught to them explicitly; ...

1.Imitation (modeling)

   Children memorize words and sentences they hear from a language.
Language symbols are arbitrary and not logically connected to the things they represent

Children only learn the language people around them speak

2.Reinforcement (Rewards and Punishment)

Children learn to speak by being praised or corrected by adults.