Chomsky argues that behaviorism cannot fully explain children's language acquisition for three reasons: 1) Children learn more about their language's structure than what they are directly exposed to, 2) Children learn to distinguish grammatical and ungrammatical sentences despite exposure to errors, and 3) Language develops without systematic instruction. Chomsky proposes an innate Language Acquisition Device containing Universal Grammar principles that are triggered by language exposure to help children learn the structures of their native language. Evidence for this innatist view includes that language develops similarly in all children and separately from other cognitive skills.

1. 2) INNATISM: IT’S ALL IN YOUR
MIND
Chomsky (1959) argues that behaviorism
cannot provide sufficient explanations for
children’s language acquisition for the
following reasons:

2. Chomsky (1959) argues that
behaviorism cannot provide
sufficient explanations for
children’s language acquisition
for the following reasons:

3. –Children come to know more
about the structure of their
language than they could be
expected to learn on the basis of
the samples of language they hear.

4. – The language children are exposed to
includes false starts, incomplete
sentences and slips of the tongue, and
yet they learn to distinguish between
grammatical and ungrammatical
sentences.
– Children are by no means
systematically corrected or instructed
on language by parents.

5. Children are In the same
Language
biologically way of other
develops in
programmed biological
the child
for language functions

6. language learning to
acquisition walk.

7. LAD: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
DEVICE ( or BLACK BOX)
– It contains all and only the principles which are
universal to all human languages
(i.e.. Universal Grammar – UG).

8. If children are pre-
equipped with UG.
What they have to learn is
The ways in which their
own language make use
of those principles

9. They
By matching
children need discover the the innate
access only structure of knowledge of
to samples of the basic
a natural language to grammatical
language be learned principles (UG)
which serve
Once the to the
structures of
as a trigger LAD is the particular
to activate
the device. activated language in the
environment.

10. CONCLUSION
• Children’s acquisition of grammatical rules
is guided by principles of an innate UG
which could apply to all languages.
• Children “know” certain things of the
language just by being exposed to a
limited number of samples.

11. Evidence used to support Chomsky’s
innatist position:
Virtually all children
successfully learn their native language
at a time in life
when they would not be expected
to learn anything else so complicated
(i.e. biologically programmed).

12. –Language is separate from
other aspects of cognitive
developments
(e.g., creativity and social grace)
and may be located in a different
“module" of the brain.

13. The language children are
exposed to does not contain
examples
of all the linguistic rules and
patterns.

14. Animals cannot learn
to manipulate a symbol system
as complicated as
the natural language
of a 3- or 4-year-old child.

15. Children acquire grammatical
rules without getting explicit
instruction.

16. The biological basis for the innatist
position:
The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) –Lenneberg:
• There is a specific and limited time period
(i.e., “critical period”) for the LAD to work
successfully.
• Only when it is stimulated
at the right time

17. ONLY BY
STRONG
PUBERTY
Two versions
AFTER PUBERTY
IT WILL BE MORE
WEAK
DIFFICULT AND
INCOMPLETE

18. Virtually every child learns language on a
similar schedule in spite of different
environments.
– Three case studies of abnormal language
development - evidence of the CPH
•Victor – a boy of about 12 years old
(1799)
•Genie – a girl of 13 years old (1970)
•Deaf signers (native signers, early
learners, vs. late learners)