Overview for Language and Communication When we think of
language and language acquisition, we typically think
immediately of the amazing capacity of virtually all human
children to acquire and use this facility. Language is almost
the quintessential complex problem, the touchtone of much of
cognitive science research, whether the discipline involved is
psychology, philosophy linguistics or computer science. An
understanding of language acquisition can perhaps most
productively begin with a high-level understanding of what
different components of language exist and are learned. The
origin of speech and language along with the development of sex
and reproduction remains one of the most significant hurdles in
evolutionary theory, even in the 21st century. In Western Europe
and in the US, almost all foreign language learning starts in
secondary school and the vast majority of the relevant age
cohort does indeed attend full-day time education at that level.
Ion other parts of the world, secondary school attendanc