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What's the meaning of 'whereby'?

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The term acquisition is preferred to "learning."
Because many psycholinguists believe that no psychological theory of learning, as currently formulated, is capable of accounting for the process whereby children come to achieve a fluent control of their native language.

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1. What is the meaning of 'whereby' in this script?

2. The term acquisition is preferred to "learning."
-> Is it mean that "acquisition" is much more popular than "learning" in terms of usage?

Thanks for your kind help!

For learning: English
Base language: English
Category: Language

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Moonlight4u
Jan 30, 2013
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Whereby can be used instead of "through which".
Hopefully that will help you understand the paragraph a little better.

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JoelD
Jan 30, 2013
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As I understand it, I think what they mean is that children "acquire", or "adapt" to their native language. The process is spontaneous and they do not need to put effort into it.

Whereas the "learning" process would probably involve the studying - one has to put effort into it.

So the first term ("acquisition") better describes the process how children "learn" (i.e. acquire) the native language. It would be more suitable to use it in this context.