On Major Perspectives on Language Acquisition: Nativism, Connectionism, and Emergentism

Abstract

The phenomenon of language acquisition is a controversial issue within the field of  language-related studies. Different approaches have been proposed to take account of this  complicated matter. The present paper attempts at reviewing the current cognitive perspectives on  language acquisition, i.e., Connectionism and Emergentism and exploring to what extent they are  different from Nativism.