ABSTRACT
The central problem in accounting for the acquisition of language is to explain how a child is able to master the extremely complex series of rules that prescribe the possible combinations of linguistic elements making up the language to which the child is exposed. The response from the nativist tradition has been to propose that the linguistically described rule system is so complex that learning it presents an impossible task and hence at least some description of these rules must be innately given (e.g. Chomsky, 1965, 1986). The child is therefore characterised as a passive recipient of language experience and acquirer of linguistic knowledge. Constructivist approaches to language acquisition offer alternative accounts which propose a more active role for the child (see Messer, 1994 for an overview). Such approaches attribute significance to factors external to the child, for example aspects of the linguistic experience such as the surface form of the language, including its prosodic and phonological nature, the social context and the pragmatic functions of communication. Factors internal to the child are also considered to be instrumental in language acquisition, for example the individual’s relative sensitivity to the physical form of the language, thereby emphasising skills such as phonological perception and prosodic awareness (e.g. Vihman, 1996), and their preferred manner of relating language to experience (e.g. Nelson, 1973).
