Acquiring Conversational Skills in First Language Acquisition: Innate Capacity or the Fruit of Instruction?.

Abstract

Simultaneously the most simple and the most complex achievement that we accomplish in our lives, the true nature of first language acquisition has awakened the interest of the world’s greatest thinkers as far back as the ancient world. This article presents the analysis of a transcription belonging to the CHILDES database that records the speech performance of a British infant girl of two years and four months of age, with the aim of using this analysis to support a twofold discussion: a) whether language acquisition is an innate capacity or whether it is the result of learning and teaching; and b) the importance and influence of the role of the parent or caretaker (focusing on the use of caretaker-talk) and the general environment of the child to elicit language skills and reach successful language learning. We argue in favour of the crucial role this input plays in the development of the infant’s conversational skills.