THE IMPACTS OF INTERDISCIPLINARY DIVERSITIES ON THE LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DOMAIN

Abstract. The development of modern research has notably been marked with fuzzy borderlines between different fields. Language acquisition seems to be more subject to the influence of coterminous sciences due to its specificity. The diffusion of the LA domain is stipulated by a loosely delineated subject of the discipline. The subject matter of LA is duly associated with linguistic content that is to be reduced to language use within the domain. Language use is inextricably linked to innate mental operations of the speaker which involves a complicated set of cognitive strands. Language cognition eventuates in the development of the speaker’s capacities which again go back to the knowledge of a language constrained by the performance the individual is able to manifest in the form that reliably causes certain inner processes and responses in the hearer. Behaviorally grounded communicative intentions of the speaker and the hearer are constrained by social factors and conditions. The premises given reproduce the state-of-the-art in the field under consideration. The LA domain is traditionally represented as a tightly intertwined arrangement of varied entities functioning on the edge of a number of coterminous or associated disciplines and borrowing a lot from their methods and terms. That is why most research on the LA field is inevitably biased towards a particular aspect, with linguistic, cognitive, behavioral, computational or other facets prevailing. It is for this reason that explorations into the LA are predominantly cross- sectional studies avoiding overall longitudinal conclusions. The problem of LA real integrity is seldom, if ever, considered, and up until now, its domain delineation has stayed an open question. One way to resolve the problem is to determine a universal productive unit of language learning encompassing the properties induced by adjacent realms but conceptually and functionally belonging to the LA domain. There have been proposed a few building blocks potentially capable of functioning as learning units, their scope ranging from phonemes to full sentences. A research method of universal unit validity assessment establishing properties of language acquisition per se is introduced and argued.

Keywords: language acquisition / LA, communicative premise, functionalism, functional domain, conjugate transformation