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Ug & Lad

The document discusses Universal Grammar and Noam Chomsky's theory that humans are born with an innate, biological capacity to learn language. It proposes that Universal Grammar contains categories like nouns and verbs that allow children to instinctively understand and produce grammatical sentences. The document also discusses Chomsky's theory of the Language Acquisition Device as an innate mechanism that gives children the fundamental rules for language learning.

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Sabir Hussain
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59 views2 pages

Ug & Lad

The document discusses Universal Grammar and Noam Chomsky's theory that humans are born with an innate, biological capacity to learn language. It proposes that Universal Grammar contains categories like nouns and verbs that allow children to instinctively understand and produce grammatical sentences. The document also discusses Chomsky's theory of the Language Acquisition Device as an innate mechanism that gives children the fundamental rules for language learning.

Uploaded by

Sabir Hussain
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, GIFT UNIVERSITY

Universal Grammar (UG): Universal grammar (UG) is usually defined as the “system of categories,
mechanisms and constraints shared by all human languages and considered to be innate.”

Chomsky proposed the theory of Universal Grammar: an idea of innate, biological grammatical categories,
such as a noun category and a verb category that facilitate the entire language development in children and
overall language processing in adults.

Universal Grammar is considered to contain all the grammatical information needed to combine these
categories, e.g. noun and verb, into phrases. The child‟s task is just to learn the words of her language
(Ambridge & Lieven). For example, according to the Universal Grammar account, children instinctively
know how to combine a noun (e.g. a boy) and a verb (to eat) into a meaningful, correct phrase (A boy eats).

Universal grammar, then, consists of a set of unconscious constraints that let us decide whether a sentence is
correctly formed. According to Chomskyian theorists, the process by which, in any given language, certain
sentences are perceived as correct while others are not, is universal and independent of meaning.

Thus, we immediately perceive that the sentence “Robert book reads the” is not correct English, even though
we have a pretty good idea of what it means. Conversely, we recognize that a sentence such as “Colourless
green ideas sleep furiously.” is grammatically correct English, even though it is nonsense.

Over the years, a number of arguments have been put forward in support of UG. These include the
following:
1. LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS: (All) human languages share certain properties.
2. CONVERGENCE: Children are exposed to different input yet converge on the same grammar.

3. POVERTY OF THE STIMULUS: Children acquire knowledge for which there is no evidence in the
input.

4. NO NEGATIVE EVIDENCE: Children know which structures are ungrammatical and do not acquire
overgeneral grammars in spite of the fact that they are not exposed to negative evidence.
5. SPECIES SPECIFICITY: We are the only species that has language.

6. EASE AND SPEED OF CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: Children learn language quickly and
effortlessly, on minimal exposure.
7. UNIFORMITY: All children acquiring language go through the same stages in the same order.

Species specificity: “To say that language is not innate is to say that there is no difference between my
granddaughter, a rock and a rabbit. In other words, if you take a rock, a rabbit and my granddaughter and put
them in a community where people are talking English, they'll all learn English. If people believe that, then
they believe that language is not innate. If they believe that there is a difference between my granddaughter,
a rabbit, and a rock, then they believe that language is innate.” (Chomsky 2000)

Language Acquisition Device: Noam Chomsky put forth an idea called the language acquisition device
(LAD). The LAD is a hypothetical tool hardwired into the brain that helps children rapidly learn and
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, GIFT UNIVERSITY

understand language. Chomsky used it to explain just how amazingly children are able to acquire language
abilities as well as accounting for the innate understanding of grammar and syntax all children possess.

Chomsky proposed that every child was born with a LAD that holds the fundamental rules for language. In
other words, children are born with an understanding of the rules of language; they simply need to acquire
the vocabulary.

Chomsky offered a number of pieces of evidence to support his theory. He posed that language is
fundamentally similar across all of humanity. For instance, every language has something that is like a noun
and a verb, and every language has the ability to make things positive or negative.

Chomsky also discovered that when children are learning to speak, they don't make the errors you would
expect. For instance, children seem to understand that all sentences should have the structure 'subject-verb-
object', even before they are able to speak in full sentences.

From his experiments, Dr Chomsky also noted that young children, well before reaching language fluency,
would notice if adults around them spoke in a grammatically incorrect manner. He also found that children
attempt to apply grammatical rules to words for which their language makes an exception. For example, in
following the English rules of grammar, a child might pluralize the word 'fish' as 'fishes' and 'deer' as 'deers',
even though our language makes exceptions for those words.

Difference between Behaviourism and Mentalism


BEHAVIOURISTS APPROACH
1. Language acquisition is a stimulus- response process.
2. Language is a conditioned behaviour.
3. Children learn language by imitation and analogy.
4. Language learning is based on practice.
5. The role of imitation, repetition, reinforcement and motivation is very significant in language
learning.
6. Language acquisition is the result of nature.
MENTALIST APPROACH
1. Language is an innate, in-born process.
2. Language is not a behaviour like other behaviour, but a specific mental process.
3. Children learn language by application.
4. Language learning is analytical, generative and creation.
5. The role of exposure to language is quite vital.
6. Language acquisition is the result of nurture.

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