Language

Language is a set of arbitrary symbols that enables every individual in the community to communicate and interact. These symbols contain acceptable meanings by the society and culture. Possessing a language is essential in all human; every normal human speaks but nonhuman does not. Acquisition, on the other hand, means learning or getting. Therefore, language acquisition basically means the learning or the gaining of a language. Language acquisition is normally viewed as a part of cognitive science. Many psychologists like Pavlov, Skinner, Jean Piaget, Vygotsky and Chomsky had done researches on this particular field. Language acquisition is an interesting subject to study and discuss on. Every normal child acquires his or first language – usually the mother tongue successfully in their first few years. The matter that most psychologists concern on is the critical age in first language acquisition. Is there a limit in the aspect of age for first language acquisition' Is it true that once a child passes the critical age, he will not be able to learn a language properly' Noam Chomsky proposed that language learning is innate. This simply means that human are born with wired-in capability of acquiring language. All children are able to discover the structures and rules of their native languages themselves. He claimed that children need not be taught formally to acquire language; input does not play an important role. Unlike what Behaviorists had proposed earlier that learning is an imitation, Chomsky stated that language acquisition involves very minimum imitation. Even though language is a complex system, children are able to acquire it without much effort and in a short period of time. Chomsky had also claimed that all human are born with the so-called Universal Grammar, a system that explains convincingly the organization and functions of all human languages. With the existence of Universal Grammar, adults need not spoon feed children with every single word or sentence of the desired language. What children really need is exposure to the language and they are able to process it and learn it on their own. Upon mentioning on Universal Grammar, Chomsky concluded that every child is born with Language Acquisition Device.