The Nature of Language Acquisition: Where L1 and L2 Acquisition Meet?

Abstract

Language acquisition (LA) is one of the widely researched topics, and perhaps the most. It is really a complex process that has not been fully accounted for yet. There are as many questions remaining as there are many facts that have been discovered in such a field and hence an adequate characterization of such a phenomenon is still a matter of current and future research. Many researchers have asserted that though the majority of young children acquire their mother tongue with no major difficulties, there are also specific conditions that have to be attained in order for them to learn to speak (Shormani, 2012). For instance, since exposure to linguistic input plays an essential role in the LA process, it is necessary for a child to acquire a language to be exposed to such linguistic input and this requires him not to be deaf. Moreover, the exposure to linguistic input is conditioned and tied to certain age (what has been known as puberty). In fact, how humans acquire language has been one of the top-debated topics in human investigation. Thus, in this paper, I explore the nature of language acquisition in its both spheres, i.e. L1 and L2. I tackle the knowledge of language as an abstract and mysterious type of knowledge examining two most influential and most controversial theories, viz. behaviorism and mentalism and how each alone fails to account for both L1 and L2 acquisition. I, thus, maintain that a well-defined and adequate theory should be built on some kind of complementarity between both theories. I also briefly look at some attempts to modelize L2 acquisition process discussing two influential models proposed in the literature, namely, Ellis’s (1993) and Krashen’s (1982) based on the similarity and difference between L1 and L2 acquisition each holds, respectively.