Research seminar: Morten Christiansen, Cornell University, USA/Aarhus University, Denmark
Seminar
Date:Monday 22 September 2025
Time:15.00 – 17.00
Location:C307, Södra huset
Title: Language Acquisition as Skill Learning.
Abstract:
Language acquisition is often viewed as a problem of inference, in which children – like ”mini-linguists” – tries to piece together the abstract grammar of their native language from incomplete and noisy input.
This ”language-as-knowledge” viewpoint contrasts with a more recent alternative, in which the challenge of language acquisition is practical, not theoretical: by practicing across myriads of social interactions, children gradually learn to understand and produce language.
In this talk, I explore some key implications of this ”language-as-skill” framework, focusing on the need to deal with the immense challenge posed by the combined effects of rapid input, short-lived sensory memory, and severely limited sequence memory.
To illustrate, I present results from computational modeling, psycholinguistic experiments, and analyses of large language models, highlighting the key role of multiword chunks in explaining our language abilities and prompting a reappraisal of how grammatical regularities may be represented.
I conclude that language acquisition and use may be best construed as learning and deploying a sophisticated linguistic skill, on a par with learning other complex human skills such as riding a bicycle or playing a musical instrument.
