Theories of Language Acquisition:Imitation and Innateness

張貼日期：May 07, 2012 12:46:20 PM

Theories of Language Acquisition:

Imitation and Innateness

Yi-Chun Lin 林怡君

Yi-Wen Lai 賴怡雯

Advisors: Dr. Hsian-li Chou 周先俐教授

Introduction

How do children learn to talk? If you ask someone this question, they will probably come out several answers. After researching most of the studies of language acquisition, we can find out at least four theories trying to solve this question, including imitation theory, innateness hypothesis, reinforcement theory, and active construction of a grammar theory (Bergman et al, 2007). Among all the theories, imitation theory and innateness hypothesis are known by most people. In this case, we will focus on discussing these two theories in this paper.