TY - JOUR

T1 - Constructing language

T2 - a framework for explaining acquisition

AU - Rowland, Caroline F.

AU - Westermann, Gert

AU - Theakston, Anna

AU - Pine, Julian

AU - Monaghan, Padraic

AU - Lieven, Elena

PY - 2025/5/21

Y1 - 2025/5/21

N2 - Explaining how children build a language system is a central goal of research in language acquisition, with broad implications for language evolution, adult language processing, and artificial intelligence (AI). Here, we propose a constructivist framework for future theory-building in language acquisition. We describe four components of constructivism, drawing on wide-ranging evidence to argue that theories based on these components will be well suited to explaining developmental change. We show how adopting a constructivist framework both provides plausible answers to old questions (e.g., how children build linguistic representations from their input) and generates new questions (e.g., how children adapt to the affordances provided by different cultures and languages).

AB - Explaining how children build a language system is a central goal of research in language acquisition, with broad implications for language evolution, adult language processing, and artificial intelligence (AI). Here, we propose a constructivist framework for future theory-building in language acquisition. We describe four components of constructivism, drawing on wide-ranging evidence to argue that theories based on these components will be well suited to explaining developmental change. We show how adopting a constructivist framework both provides plausible answers to old questions (e.g., how children build linguistic representations from their input) and generates new questions (e.g., how children adapt to the affordances provided by different cultures and languages).

U2 - 10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.015

DO - 10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.015

M3 - Journal article

JO - Trends in Cognitive Sciences

JF - Trends in Cognitive Sciences

SN - 1364-6613

ER -