NATIVISM (Chomsky)

NATIVISM (Chomsky)

1. Chomsky challenged Skinners view

   • If children learnt from imitating they have poor materials to imitate from meaning that the quality of the language that they hear from their parents isnt good enough for them to copy and practice using "correct grammar"
     • Children also produce utterances that they could never have heard from adults- they make up words and make VIRTUOUS ERRORS
       • These are errors made by young children when a non-standard utterance reveals some understanding although this is incomplete.
         • EXAMPLE- ' runned' instead of 'ran'. this shows the child understand that 'ed' is often used to put words into past tense

2. Chomsky argues that children have an innate capacity to learn language

3. Children have an inborn language acquisition device (LAD)

4. They have an ability to extract rules from the language that they hear around them

5. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR: Where languages have different surface structures but they share the same deep structures

   • All Children possess an innate awareness of this deep structure
     • They are ready to analyse what they hear and fit it into this structure from the moment that they are born
       • This explains why children are able to learn language so rapidly
   • Most sentence structures are 'Subject, Verb, Object'

6. COMMON ERRORS: Chomsky didn't suggest that we are born knowing grammar or language- he said that something in our brains gives us the ability to work out and apply grammatical rules from language that we hear being used around us

7. LENNEBERG:

   • 'Critical Period Hypothesis'
   • He said that the LAD needs to be activates with sufficient input before a certain point in the child's development
   • There have been cases of 'feral' or 'wild' children who have been deprived of human contact and have therefore never acquired language
     • Some have been discovered at an early age and have been able to catch up but those found as teenagers have never fully been able to acquire language

8. STRENGTHS

   • The existence of grammar universals
   • Children of all cultures pass through similar stages when acquiring language
   • Childen can understand and use new sentences and constructions with no prior experience of them
   • They make up words and make virtuous errors (ERRORS BASED ON UNDERSTANDING RULES OF GRAMMAR)
   • Scientists have discovered specific areas of the brain that control language

9. WEAKNESSES

   • Under-estimates the importance of social interaction