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Biological Foundation of Language Acquisition

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Biological foundation of language acquisition: Summary

How humans have evolved differently from other primates to allow for the use of complex human language? According to a number of modern linguists such as Chomsky who is frequently regarded as the father of modern linguistics, the same elementary linguistic structure is shared between all human beings, and they acquire language naturally. This means biological foundations lay out the foundation for language acquisition of all human beings. This presentation will be talking about the biological foundations of language acquisition, evolutionary biology of language, and provide an example of a case in which an individual cannot acquire language, respectively.

When a person knows a language, he/she utilizes it either by producing sounds or remaining silent and receives auditory signals. Therefore the knowledge of a language doesn’t necessarily mean the ability to speak and structure sentences but the ability to comprehend the essential structure of language. However, the ability to speak still holds an important role in language acquisition. The voice production is made up of three main parts: Respiration (lungs), phonation (larynx), and articulation (mouth,lips,teeth, nose etc).

So how can a child acquire language before the latter stage of communication? It is the brain that allows the child to do it. The brain consists of two hemispheres: left and right. And the corpus callosum plays a role of connecting the two hemispheres. On the left hemisphere, there are the Broca and Wernicke’s area which are located at the front and back part of the hemisphere. To add on, there are mechanisms that also help a child acquire language before the latter stage of communication too. In the very early life of a child, a biological device starts to function as soon as being exposed to language in order to acquire it without

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