Notes (Gibbon)

Stages in Language Acquisition

See also the report by Munira Jamal.

• The First Sounds
• Babbling
• First Words
• The Two-Word Stage
• From Telegraph to Infinity

Theories of Child Language Acquisition

• Do Children Learn by Imitation?
• Do Children Learn by Reinforcement?
• Children Form Rules and Construct a Grammar
• Errors or Rules?
• The Acquisition of Syntax
• Learning the Meaning of Words

The Biological Foundations of Language Acquisition

• The ``Innateness Hypothesis´´
• The ``Critical Age Hypothesis´´
• Sign Languages: Evidence for the Biology of Language

Learning a Second (or Third or ...) Language

• Theories of Second Language Acquisition

Can Chimps Learn Human Language?

Terminology

babbling:

holphrastic stage:

overgeneralization:

primes:

telegraphic stage:

undergeneralization:

Language Acquisition Online Links

There are several research institutes devoted to language acquisition. Here is a selection:

• The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA), University of Minnesota
• Language Acquisition Group, MPI - Nijmegen
• Cornell Language Acquisition Lab, Cornell University
• Language Acquisition Center, The University of Texas at Arlington
• Language Acquisition Resource Center, San Diego State University

The Loyola College Maryland offers a further selection of links.

The Inter American University of Puerto Rico provides online material on second language acquisition.