FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION

:First language acquisition refers to the natural process through which humans acquire their native language during early childhood, typically without formal instruction. This phenomenon is central to understanding the relationship between language, cognition, and human development. Researchers such as Noam Chomsky, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky have provided different theoretical perspectives on how language emerges — from the innate mechanisms proposed in Chomsky’s Language Acquisition Device (LAD) to the social interactionist views emphasizing communication and environment. The process involves several stages: pre-linguistic sounds, babbling, one-word utterances, two-word combinations, and eventually complex grammar. Studies in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics demonstrate that children acquire language universally and systematically, suggesting that linguistic ability is an inherent human capacity. Understanding first language acquisition not only contributes to linguistics and psychology but also supports education, speech therapy, and multilingual development.