Description of the Project: Cognitive and Social Determinants of Language Acquisition

Abstract

The general and long-term goals of the language acquisition project are as follows:

• 1) Gathering of data concerning the linguistic development of three children (two middle-class, one lower-class) from the point at which the first words are spoken¹ up to the fourth birthday.

• 2) Explorative analysis of the collected data and development of experimentally testable hypotheses concerning cognitive and interaction-structural prerequisites of language acquisition. The main interest of the research is devoted to the investigation of the extent to which — as an alternative to the maturational approach of Chomsky and his school — structural conditions of social interaction determine the logic of the sequence of developmental stages in language acquisition. This interest is expressed in the basic assumption of the project that the logic of syntax acquisition can be adequately described only in the framework of a logic of the acquisition of language as a system of cognitive and communicative abilities.

• 3) Preparation of experimental settings for the empirical checking of hypotheses which result from point 2.