Unit 7
Language Acquisition

Overview

Unit 7 looks at how humans learn a language. Think about how children or, for that matter, how you yourself learned your language. Learning a language is an important human skill that everyone has mastered at least once in childhood. Working ethnographers must relearn something they did very unconsciously and naturally as children. As you work through this unit, pay particular attention to the stages, principles, and processes that may be applicable to the language learning process.

Objectives

After completing this unit, you should be able to

1. define the following terms
   • idioglossia
   • stimuli
   • holophrastic
   • telegraphic
2. state the essential features of the argument “language is an innate capacity.”
3. describe the role of Chomsky’s notions of deep and surface structure in the argument on innateness.
4. identify the stages of language learning in children.
5. describe the effects of social isolation on language learning in children.
6. state the dimensions of language acquisition that vary cross-culturally.
7. discuss the theories of imitation, reinforcement, and constructing rules in child language acquisition.
8. describe the features of sign languages and their status as languages.
9. outline the process of language acquisition in the context of ethnographic fieldwork.
10. compare the stages of languages acquisition in children and adults