Page "Cognitive science" Paragraph 27

The ability to learn and understand language is an extremely complex process.

Language is acquired within the first few years of life, and all humans under normal circumstances are able to acquire language proficiently.

A major driving force in the theoretical linguistic field is discovering the nature that language must have in the abstract in order to be learned in such a fashion.

Some of the driving research questions in studying how the brain itself processes language include: ( 1 ) To what extent is linguistic knowledge innate or learned ?, ( 2 ) Why is it more difficult for adults to acquire a second-language than it is for infants to acquire their first-language ?, and ( 3 ) How are humans able to understand novel sentences?