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Language acquisition is language change.

Stephen Crain1, Takuya Goro, Rosalind Thornton

  • 1Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. scrain@maccs.mq.edu.au

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
|January 25, 2006
PubMed
Summary
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Universal Grammar theory suggests innate linguistic knowledge guides children. Studies show child language aligns with this, differing from adult speech only in ways adult languages differ, supporting the continuity hypothesis.

Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Theories of language acquisition propose either innate linguistic structures or experience-based learning.
  • Universal Grammar (UG) posits an innate, hypothesis-space guiding language development.
  • Experience-based theories suggest child language is a less developed version of adult input.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To provide empirical support for the theory of Universal Grammar in language acquisition.
  • To investigate whether findings align with innate linguistic principles or experience-based accounts.
  • To test the continuity hypothesis of language development.

Main Methods:

  • Conducted three studies examining child language production and interpretation.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Two studies focused on English-speaking children's productions.
  • One study analyzed Japanese-speaking children's sentence interpretation, comparing findings against linguistic input.

    • Main Results:

    • Empirical findings support the Universal Grammar framework.
    • Results resist explanation by purely experience-based language acquisition models.
    • Child language patterns are consistent with the continuity hypothesis.

    Conclusions:

    • Child language development is guided by an innate linguistic faculty, as proposed by Universal Grammar.
    • The continuity hypothesis accurately describes how child language can differ from adult language.
    • Empirical evidence challenges experience-based explanations for language acquisition.