63.  Discuss the biological basis of language acquisition.
   Language acquisition is a genetically determined capacity that all hu-mans possess. Although the development of a communicative system is not unique to human beings, the natural acquisition of language as a system of highly abstract rules and regulations for creative communication distinguishes humans from all other animal species. In this sense, humans can be said to be predisposed, that is, biologically programmed, to acquire at least one language. Language development can thus be regarded as analogous to other biological developments in human growth and maturation, such as the growth and maturation of one’s limbs and organs. Humans are equipped with the neural prerequisites for language and language use, just as birds are biologically “prewired” to learn the songs of their species.
64.  What is the role of imitation in first language acquisition?
    At one time, it was widely believed that children learned language by simply imitating the speech of those around them. We now know that this cannot be true, since many utterance types produced by children do not closely resemble structures found in adult speech. . If children learn their native tongue by imitating their parents, how can we account for the utter-ances that are typical of children' s language, such as the plural form "my foots," the past tense forms of " I eated," and the negative construction of “No the sun shining”?  It is impossible that children imitate these structures from adults because they are never heard in adult conversations. In addition, Children with speech impairment for neurological or physiological reasons learn the language spoken to them and understand what is said. A more rea-sonable explanation is that children are attempting to construct and generalize their own grammatical rules.
    Some young language learners do seem to make selective use of imitation, but they do not blindly mimic adult speech in a parrot fashion, but rather exploit it in very restricted ways to improve their linguistic skills. The point is that imitation plays at best a very minor role in the child' s mastery of lan-guage