Language Acquisition

First Language acquisition
Skinner
Acquisition through experience
Language shaped by re-enforcement
Chomsky
Language as innate biological capacity
"Language acquisition device"
Innate mechanism works = child speaks

Second Language acquisition
Existing first language
Learning of a second culture
New linguistic systems

Main Approaches: Nativism
N.Chomsky
Innate competence of language
Universal Grammar – principles, basic properties and differences of languages
Activate UG – speak a language (from the UG perspective)

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