| Summary: | The present article aims at providing a critical overview of the nature-nurture debate on language, language acquisition and its place within human nature and biology. This paper focuses on a mentalist approach to the study of language, without excluding the role of social and contextual environments in the individual’s language acquisition process. This is justified, not only by the numerous discoveries made while studying pragmatic and communicative deficits in people with pervasive developmental disorders, but also by hypotheses put forth regarding human evolution in general. A thorough investigation of these disorders, Theory of Mind and general cognition will undoubtedly be the source of promising debates on the mysteries of the human mind.
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