Monday, March 14, 2011

"How Children Acquire Language"






Parents eagerly await their child's first words, and even maintain that they can recognize speech in the gurgles and sounds of their tiny offspring. But to explain why we acquire the ability to communicate with others in such an effective manner as speech is no easy task.

Why, for example, do children of English-speaking parents so readily speak the language of those people around them rather than speaking in French or even in the language of birds or the clickings of machines? And how does this language acquisition continue to develop from childhood into adulthood?

Jean Aitchison , Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Oxford, has researched and written extensively on the topic of child language acquisition. In 1996 she was invited to present the prestigious Reith lectures at the BBC when she addressed the issue of language, subsequently published as The Language Web by Cambridge University Press. This seminar is based on an extended extract from chapter three of that book.

No comments:

Post a Comment