The remarkable way in which young children acquire language has longfascinated linguists and developmental psychologists alike. Language is a skillthat we have ... » 

The remarkable way in which young children acquire language has longfascinated linguists and developmental psychologists alike. Language is a skillthat we have essentially mastered by the age of three and with incredible easeand speed despite the complexity of the task. This accessible textbookintroduces the field of child language acquisition exploring languagedevelopment from birth. Setting out the key theoretical debates it considersquestions such as what characteristics of the human mind make it possible toacquire language how far acquisition is biologically programmed and how far itis influenced by our environment what makes second language learning inadulthood different from first language acquisition and whether the specificstages in language development are universal across languages. Clear andcomprehensive it is set to become a key text for all courses in child languageacquisition within linguistics developmental psychology and cognitivescience. «