Cognitive revolution paved the way for new ways of thinking about human ps ychology and the mind. The relationship between language and cognition and the effect each has on the development of the other one has been one of the most controversial issues in the field of linguistics and psychology. Different theoretical perspectives like Artificial Intelligence, Connectionism, Modularity and Cognit...

The semantic bootstrapping hypothesis proposes that children acquire their native language through exposure to sentences of the language paired with structured representations of their meaning, whose component substructures can be associated with words and syntactic structures used to express these concepts. The child's task is then to learn a language-specific grammar and lexicon based on (pro...

This action research examines the concept of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in a second language acquisition context. The researcher investigated the contributors of WTC in a foreign language classroom setting. Therefore, a multiple assignments method and sequence was applied. Participants of this study were students who matriculated in a United States (U.S.) undergraduate program, studying G...

C, honasky's proposition that language is handled hy a language-specific laeulty needs more justi|ieation. In language acquisition ill i)artieular, it is still in question whether the faculty is necessary or aot. We succeeded in explaining one eonstrainl oil language acquisition in terms of a general learning mechanism. This paper describes a mach ine learning s y s t e m Rhea applied to the do...

Prior to the advent of generative grammar, theoretical approaches to language development relied heavily upon the concepts ofdifferential reinforcement andimitation. Current studies of linguistic acquisition are largely dominated by the hypothesis that the child constructs his language on the basis of a primitive grammar which gradually evolves into a more complex grammar. This approach presupp...

Intake  is  a  concept  that  has  long  fascinated  second  language  researchers  as  it  provides  a window  onto  the  crucial  intermediary  stage  between  input  and  acquisition.  A  better understanding of this intermediary  stage can  help us to distinguish between input that  is used for immediate (e.g. communicative) purposes only and input that is drawn on for learning. This articl...