Socio‐perceptual bases for the emergence of language: An alternative to innatist approaches

Abstract

Recent challenges from a variety of fields suggest a re-examination of the nativist position and its implications for child language and communication research and theory. Basic assumptions crucial to the innatist position influence researchers to ignore the source of input, its characteristics, and its impact on language development. In contrast, from a socio-perceptual/ecological position, the linchpin of the emergence of language is the dynamic structure of the social-interactive environment in which the child develops. Evidence from a series of studies investigating the social and perceptual bases of the emergence of the lexicon is marshaled to support and illustrate this perspective. Parallel arguments can and ought to be constructed to explain other aspects of language learning.