Week 8.2 Language Acquisition: Nature vs Nurture

In our second video on language acquisition, we ask how children are able to acquire language as rapidly and systematically as they do. Are they born with a blank slate for their mind and just incredibly good general learners, or are they genetically pre-endowed with some mental knowledge or specialised learning mechanism that specifically allows them to acquire language? That's the nature versus nurture debate, and we'll have a look at a couple of phenomena that might shed some light on the issue... For additional materials such as slides and handouts visit: http://ling101.com/plin0006/ Credits: Intro Music: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-...