Acquiring Sounds and Words in a First Language

Language acquisition research is a highly multidisciplinary field, drawing on theories and methods from linguistics, education, developmental psychology, cognitive science, sociology, anthropology, and more. In this chapter, we provide an overview of some of the core theoretical frameworks that have been applied to the study of language acquisition, focusing primarily on theories that have been applied across first language acquisition, bilingual acquisition, and second language acquisition research. Research on first language acquisition, bilingual acquisition, and second language acquisition all draw on different frameworks that describe the processes involved in language acquisition. For each, research inspired by linguistics has provided formal theories of language that frame our understanding of the role of language forms in language acquisition. Cognitive theories seek to describe the mental processes involved in the process of acquisition. Social theories consider how the situated contexts of learning affect language development. Taken together, these formal, cognitive, and social theoretical frameworks allow an understanding of how language, learning, and society together impact the ways that languages are learned.

Comprehension approach · Developmental linguistics · Language acquisition · Language transfer · Natural language · Second-language acquisition · Second-language attrition · Sociology of language · Universal Networking Language · Categorization, perception, and language · Hearing Impairment and Communication · Language Development and Disorders