2 - What is acquired?

Summary

What is language?

In this chapter, we, like children, seek “… the discovery of the place of human language in the universe.”

(Hockett 1977, 163)

It is impossible to study the acquisition of language scientifically unless we address the question, “what is language?,” i.e., “what is acquired?” (2.1 and 2.2). We sketch an overview of the linguistic computation children must acquire when they acquire a language, laying down a number of fundamental concepts and terms (2.3). We sketch the basic design of human language knowledge and the basic architecture of the human Language Faculty (2.4). We provide a framework for investigation into the nature of language acquisition. These foundations allow us to form the “essential questions of language acquisition” (2.5).

Attempting to define language

Language is first and foremost symbolic. Sounds, words and sentences represent and capture an infinity of possible meanings and intentions. We can produce, understand and think of an infinity of possible statements, questions, commands or exclamations. These may concern the future, the past, what has occurred and what has not, what is possible or impossible. Through language, we can tell the truth or lie, regret or hope. We can deploy an infinity of demands, requests, contradictions, ranging from poetry to propaganda. The next sentence we say or understand is almost certainly going to be one we have never heard or said before, suggesting that this symbolic capacity of language is in a real sense limitless.