ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews major lines of thinking about the role of language acquisition in language change, and outlines perspectives from classic studies as well as recent work on less commonly studied language communities. In child-oriented approaches to language change, “the child is exposed to the utterances produced around her, and may intuit a grammar that is different in some way from the grammar of her parents or caregivers”. In variationist approaches to language change, the analyst considers a wide range of possible sources of change in a community, integrating possible in uences from children, adolescents, and adults. Research on child acquisition has often assumed a dichotomy between parent in uence and peer in uence. A detailed analysis of Sui society illustrates how language acquisition and language change can interact in the context of clan exogamy.
