12 - Conclusions: toward an integrated theory of language acquisition

Summary

Are you having trouble

in saying this stuff?

It's really quite easy for me.

I just look in my mirror

and see what I say,

and then I just say what I see.

(Seuss, 1979)

Introduction

Our review of research in the basic areas of language acquisition has led us to several conclusions regarding our fundamental question: how does a child acquire language?

They lead us to overturn several common myths about language acquisition. While they do not directly provide us with a full theory of language acquisition, they allow us to lay the foundations for a future theory, one which can link both linguistic and developmental approaches. In this chapter, we will first summarize fundamental generalizations that emerge from the research we have reviewed; next, we will identify remaining open questions and sketch a framework which we consider promising for future research.

Conclusions

1. (A) We have seen that the course of language acquisition begins at birth, if not before, and proceeds continuously through the first few years of life. There is no “prelinguistic” stage. Although language acquisition is commonly thought to begin with children's first produced words, we have seen that the first words are the culmination of previous, complex language development. Contrary to a common assumption, words are not the “building blocks” of language acquisition, but develop in parallel to acquisition of the formal system of language, and in part as a result of this. […]