The High Amplitude Sucking technique (Kuhl, 1987) is a study that backs up the idea that everybody is born with a LAD. It shows that even babies can tell the difference between different phonemes from any language proving that it is an innate ability. The language that children come across during their early years will not all be grammatically correct and they will certainly not hear all examples of the language that they will use in the future. Therefore, the UG idea is relevant as children can be creative through their use of language. constructing new utterances that they have never heard before as well as showing more complex knowledge of a language. Language acquisition has no link to any other intelligence, there is no correlation. People grasp the same basic linguistic level despite other factors such as upbringing.
The way in which animals communicate supports Chomsky’s viewpoint in that they possess a level of intelligence yet can’t use language in a sophisticated way as humans do, they don’t have the LAD required to do so, only humans universally use language. This may just be a result of animals not having the physical features that are needed to produce speech. The errors that a child makes during the early years also prove that language is an innate ability. They may overextend a grammatical rule such as adding the inflection “-ed” to any word that is in the past tense. If corrected by an adult for their grammatical error, children appear unconcerned, whereas if they were learning language from their parents they would be. This shows that language is an innate ability as they will not have imitated incorrect grammar from an adult, it is a systematic error.
The Critical Period hypothesis (Penfield, 1959) is an argument against Chomsky. It suggests that there is a crucial period in which language can be acquired normally. The crucial period to acquire language ends at the age of twelve. The plasticity of the brain is an important factor as this is how flexible the brain is in acquiring new functions. After the child turns twelve, the brain loses some of this plasticity so it is more difficult to learn language. The well-known case study of Genie exemplifies this. From the age of twenty months, she was locked in a small cupboard by her father. She had nothing to do and was restrained, only being able to move her hands and feet. She was never spoken to and unable to hear other people’s voices. She came out of the closet aged thirteen when her father died. As she had not been in a language environment during the critical period, Genie was unresponsive to language and had limited social skills. Following months of therapy she was able to recognise many words and produce up to a three word utterances. However, she remained at the telegraphic stage of language acquisition and is still shows many signs of delayed speech. This is more supportive of Skinner’s theory which takes a behaviourist approach to language acquisition, that language is acquired from the environment around us and that there is a great need for socialisation in order to speak a language fluently. Skinner believes that language is down to nurture, in contrast to Chomsky. Instead of humans possessing an LAD, he has the view that everything to do with a language must be learnt through the environment and our biology has no influence. However, Chomsky believes that in order for children to understand the environment around them an LAD must be present.
Chomsky believes that newborn children are born with an LAD device and the ability to use it. However, Piaget takes a cognitive view upon language development. He believes that newborns have little capability to learn language and instead gain their linguistic skills through interactions with the environment as they grow up.
A human’s biological make-up is also an argument against Chomsky. They state that we have evolved to adapt and have the ability to use language and that there is little scientific evidence that a LAD exists in the brain. Chomsky covers our physical biology in his theory by stating that the brain has evolved to understand and process language over time. Another biological perspective that supports Chomsky’s view is that there are specific parts of the brain used especially for language functions. For example, Broca’s area is in the brain’s left hemisphere, with its function linked to the production of speech
The ease and speed that a child acquires language is also an argument that can be used against Chomsky. A young child will be exposed to language every day, therefore it will be much easier for them to acquire a new language than an older person learning a new language. As Chomsky suggests the UG idea, David Crystal (2004) stated that past tenses and prepositions vary between different languages, which would make the idea of UG less reliable. He points out that all languages around the world have nouns and vowels, supporting the theory of a similar grammar system worldwide.
This essay has examined the way in which children acquire language and theories surrounding the debate. It has shown how there is strong evidence that we are born with the ability to communicate through language. As the essay shows, acquiring speech is a complex process that appears to be grasped with ease by children due to a Language Acquisition Device that every human is born with. However, it is likely that it is not just biological factors that determine our ability to speak. Environmental factors are likely to play a role in language acquisition, in that children need to gain life experience so they can use their everyday knowledge to talk. The Nature Vs Nurture debate regarding language acquisition is one that has been long debated and it is most likely that both our genetics and the environment contribute to our ability to acquire language.
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References
Chomsky, N. (1975) Reflections of Language. New York: Pantheon Books
Crystal, D. (2004) Making Sense of Grammar. Pearson Longman
Hardie, A. (2009) Language Acquisition. In Culpeper J., Katamba.F., Kerswill P., Wodak R. & McEnery T. (Eds.), English Language – Description, Variation and Context. Palgrave Macmillan .
Kuhl, P.K. (1987) The special mechanisms debate in speech research: Categorization tests on animals and infants. In S. Harnad (Eds.), Categorical perception: The groundwork of cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Preissler, M. (2009) Language Development [PDF Document]. Retrieved from
https://luvle.lancs.ac.uk/09-10/PSYC/PSYC101.nsf/0/75EB8332D504945D802576620051D5FF/$FILE/101_L9_Language.pdf
Skinner, B. F. (1970) Verbal behavior New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts
