How is language acquired in human beings?

Both nature and nurture are important in language acquisition.

B.F. Skinner: According to B.F. Skinner, a behaviourist we learn language the same way as animals learn to pick keys or press bars. Language development follow learning behaviour.

Noam Chomsky view: He is a linguist, put forth the innate proposition of development of language. For him the rate of which children acquire words and grammar without being taught cannot be explained only by learning pricnciples.

Skinner’s emphasis on learning explains infants acquire the language they hear and how they add new words to their vocabularies. Chomsky’s emphasis on our built in readiness to learn grammar helps explain why children acquire language so readily without direct teaching.