Is There a Second Chance for First Language Acquisition?

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1.0, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen (Anglistik), course: Psycholinguistic, language: English, abstract: The goal of this term paper is to answer the question if it is possible to achieve a later language acquisition than in the stage of a baby or a toddler, like the problems so called feral children have by discovering language at a later point in life. Therefore, it is necessary to define and describe the terms first language acquisition and feral children first. Afterwards (chapter three), the difference between first and second language acquisition will be clarified and it will also been mentioned, why it is not possible for feral children to acquire the first language like other people acquire the second language in a later point in time. To show this, different cases of those children with language acquisition in extreme situations will be used to underline the thesis.