Gamboa, Kevin John S.

January 24, 2017

Educ 16 7:30-10:00 TTH

Language Acquisition

Chomsky's linguistic theory states that we are born with an innate ability to
learn language, and with little guidance, children will naturally learn language.
Chomsky argues we must be born with a language acquisition device, an area in
our brains that makes learning language a natural event. As evidence, he points to
the idea that children all over the world learn language in similar ways, regardless
of their culture or the language they learn to speak.

Recent research on language seeks to understand whether or not humans have a

critical period for acquiring language. As we age, language acquisition becomes
more difficult, especially for adults learning a new language. Children learning new
languages outperform adults learning new languages in terms of learning
vocabulary, applying rules of grammar, and speaking with the correct accent.
The critical period hypothesis states that we have a time frame for learning new
language, and once that time is over, language acquisition becomes much more
difficult.

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i http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-language-acquisition-theories-stages-quiz.html