Outline and Evaluate Chomsky's Approach to Language Acquisition.

Ideas About Language ELA020C014A Emma Lomas

Assignment One

Outline and Evaluate Chomsky’s Approach to Language Acquisition.

Noam Chomsky, born in 1928 in Philadelphia, is the most influential figure in the field of linguistics. He is also highly regarded for his work in politics and philosophy. His ideas on language acquisition were radical and controversial which is part of the reason that he is the most sited living author today. Before Chomsky, linguists such as Frederic Skinner had been working with the theory of Behaviourism. Skinner believed that behaviour was learnt. The theory suggests that everything is learned through experience including language, which was said to be behaviour. Skinner and Bloomfield, another influential linguist in the behaviourist theory, believed that a child is born with no knowledge of its language and that the language has to be learnt. Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s book Verbal Behaviour in 1957 was regarded to have shattered the ideas of behaviourism for many linguists. His publications then went on to introduce his theory of Mentalism. His works suggested that the creative use of language ruled out the possibility that that language was learnt as a response to a stimulus. Mentalism theory looked at the internal processes of the mind. Chomsky believed that language was acquired and that it was innate. He wrote about his ideas on a child being born with the ability to acquire language, the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and a Universal Grammar (UG).

Chomsky used three questions in his work with linguistics to set out the targets of the science. These three questions are stated in Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, An Introduction by V. Cook

“What constitutes knowledge of language?

How is such knowledge acquired?

How is such knowledge put to use?”

(Cook, 1991: 2)

In this essay Chomsky’s second question is the most important one but the questions are linked. In order to discuss how people acquire knowledge there has to be an understanding of what the knowledge of language people have.

In his approach to language acquisition, Chomsky’s main principle was to show the importance of language as knowledge. To do this he referred to acquisition of language as states of the mind. When a child is born they are at the initial zero state or So and when they are an adult with a complete knowledge of the language they are at the steady state or Ss as they have acquired their native language. Chomsky also discussed I-language or internalised language and E-language or externalised language. These were different approaches to looking at the development of language acquisition. I-language focused on the principles and was not concerned with the individual child’s details where as E-language followed the development.

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Chomsky theorises that language is innate. Every human is born with the ability to acquire a language as they are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Chomsky’s LAD also focused on language being knowledge. The LAD only functions for a relatively short time; by puberty a person is no longer acquiring language. This device is part of his evidence to prove that language is not learnt as was previously suggested. Chomsky related the LAD to an input/output model. The language that a child is able to produce i.e. the output does not compare with what is heard by the child whilst they are acquiring their language i.e. the input. This input/output imbalance suggests that there is knowledge of grammar, a set of rules already present in the brain. Chomsky reworked the LAD model to incorporate the principles and parameters theory and is linked to the Universal Generative Grammar. This is because the language known from the LAD consists of the rules of the UG. In the development of the LAD three levels of adequacy were used to explain the linguistic theory. Observational, Descriptive and Explanatory adequacy levels were the different terms for the knowledge of the language.

Chomsky’s Universal Grammar is central in his approach to language acquisition. It does not lend itself to the study of behaviourism, as it is a theory that concentrates on knowledge and ideas. Chomsky describes the very nature of the Universal Grammar as

“The system of principles, conditions, and rules that are elements and properties of all human languages…the essence of human language.”

(Chomsky, 1976: 29)

With this he is arguing that the UG is something that everyone is born with, regardless of what language they speak. It is the prompt for the acquisition of any language. It is the outline for a language, which everyone shares and from which any language can then be learnt. The Universal Grammar consists of principles and parameters. The principles are the rules that you are born with that are relevant to every language for example there are verbs, subjects and objects. The parameters are the rules that you learn for your specific language for example in English, which is an SVO language, the order in a sentence in subject, verb and object. The principles are constant for every language whilst the parameters are variable depending on the specific language.

A basic principle of Universal Grammar is Structure Dependency. This principle is based on the fact that the knowledge of a language is dependent on the structural relationship in a sentence, which is made up of different phrase structures. In the English language the phrase structures are Noun phrases, Verb phrases and Determiners. Chomsky demonstrated the use of phrase structures in a sentence primarily with the use of tree diagrams and then in a new form known as the rewrite rule in 1957, which was a very significant development in his work.

Chomsky proves the innate nature of the Language Acquisition Device and Universal Grammar, in his evidence dealing with the rapidity, complexity, imperfection and uniformity. The average child has the principles and acquires most of the grammar and language, by the age of three. By the age of five they have learnt the majority of the rules or parameters of their individual language. Chomsky suggests that this is far too much knowledge to learn in such a short amount of time and so there must be knowledge already present. The rapid development can be seen in the fact that there are only four stages of language acquisition. Cooing and babbling are stages one and two and every child goes through this stage between the ages of two and six months. One-word stage is stage three and two-word stage is stage four. The last two stages occur from ten months to two years old. After this the development is so quick that there are no definitions; a child goes from two-word constructions to whole sentences in the space of a year.

The complexity of the language that a child has also makes it difficult to believe in the behaviourism theory. There are so many rules in language that it seems impossible to think a child could learn them all before the age of five. The ability to be creative and complex with language disproves the behaviourism theory. Chomsky suggests that people produce sentences that they would not have heard before and therefore cannot have learnt the sentence but have the generative grammar already in them to be able to form original utterances.

Children often make mistakes when they first start using language. They make mistakes that they would not have heard from adults. Incorrect verb endings such as *I goed instead of the correct form I went would not have been heard by a child but this is a common error. Imperfections such as these show that the child has acquired and is using the rule that most verbs in the past tense end in –ed but has not yet learned the irregular forms, which will follow later in the acquisition process.

Uniformity in language acquisition also provides evidence for Chomsky’s theory of an innate language. Every child at stages one and two has the cooing and babbling ability even deaf children which suggests that language is not learnt from repetition as deaf children would not be able to hear language around them. Assuming a “normal” environment every child is at the same stage in the speaking process at every age regardless of the language that they are speaking.

Chomsky’s approach to language acquisition was seen as radical when his works started to be published because his ideas were so different to what had been seen before. Skinner and Bloomfield’s behaviourism theory and their ideas that language was nurtured were accepted as correct and there was no major theory to conflict it until Chomsky. His ideas that language was in fact biological or nature rather than nurtured were a complete change from the existing theories. It is Chomsky’s theories that are now seen as the most influential and his ideas in my opinion have more evidence to back them up.

I agree that Chomsky’s Universal Grammar does exist and that we are born with a Language Acquisition Device as the evidence seen in terms of rapidity, complexity, imperfection and uniformity highlights that the language cannot fully be learnt. I also think that language is innate. There are arguments from the behaviourism theory that I think can be also used with the Mentalist theory, as there has to be and is a stage where a person stops acquiring language and starts to learn other grammatical and lexical language. Also when a person that is at stage Ss and has a full knowledge of their native language, starts to learn a second language they are not acquiring this language but learning through repetition. This is where the behaviourism theory’s ideas on response to a stimulus is seen to be true. The idea of a person being a blank slate is also relevant here as there is no knowledge of the second language and everything has to be learnt. This is different though if a child is brought up in a household with two languages, and is bilingual then it is Chomsky’s language acquisition that is the relevant theory.

Other social factors must come into the development of speech, as it cannot all be acquired. If a person was brought up and did not hear any language, then they could only develop their language to a certain degree. The LAD switches off at puberty so they would not be able to acquire language but if they were then put in an environment where they were surrounded by language again, there could be a chance they could learn some language but they may not be able to maintain it to a high level.

There has not been any other linguist since Chomsky that has disproved his ideas about language acquisition or has worked on a more influential theory. His approach to language acquisition is the most well proven theory, which is why it is so influential in the field of linguistics. The majority of linguists do believe that language is acquired and Chomsky’s work is yet to be sufficiently challenged enough to change opinion.