Language Acquisition across Linguistic and Cognitive Systems

The last twenty years have witnessed the development of promising methodologies and innovative paradigms that have brought substantial findings concerning language acquisition that previously could not have been expected or that were discussed as entirely speculative ideas. Theoretical perspectives have also entirely renewed old questions or defined new routes to explore bilingualism or language disorders. Finally, recent developments in modelling have played the same role for psycholinguistics as mathematics have done for physics. Language studies are now able to address simultaneously lively debates by associating pathology, including disorders that can be experimentally and temporarily provoked by TMS, experimental on-line studies concerning adults and children, research using brain-imaging techniques, and simulations that make it possible to symbolically manipulate pseudo-lesions in the brain or systematic modifications of basic parameters, such as processing speed or the efficiency of inhibitory mechanisms.

Such a scientific context creates unprecedented opportunities towards the understanding of the complexity underlying the mechanisms of language acquisition. Motivated questions can now be precisely formulated on the basis of enriched empirical grounds and intriguing findings will require further methodological
and theoretical advances.

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