Chomsky

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Support for Chomsky (Nativism)

The following studies support Chomsky's nativism theory:

'The Wug Test'

Jean Berko Gleason created what is called ‘The Wug Test’.
In this, children were given a picture of a bird-like creature called a ‘wug’ and then asked to state things like what two of these creatures would be called (‘wugs’). The test invented nouns and verbs to test pluralisation and over-generalisation.

Findings of 'The Wug Test'

76% of 4-5-year olds and 97% of 5-7-year olds could correctly use the -s ending for ‘wug’.
The test used words that children will not have encountered before and so proves that children learn the rule and do not imitate.

Cruttenden

This research was supported by some research by Cruttenden in 1979 in which he defined the ‘u-shaped curve’:
- At point 1, the child applies the rule and gets it right.
- At point 2, the child applies the rule everywhere and gets it wrong.
- At point 3, the child learns that the rule only works in certain situations.

Case study: Genie

In the 1970s, a 13-year-old girl was found by authorities. When authorities found her, she was withered and held her hands like a rabbit.
At first, welfare officers assumed she was autistic, but further probing discovered she could barely speak (limited to a very small number of words).
Her father had trapped her in a room since she was a toddler, detaining her in a straight-jacket and tying her to a chair. He growled at her if she cried or made any other noise.

Case study: Genie (cont.)

Linguists worked extensively with Genie, but because she had passed the critical period, she could not properly acquire language.
This case study supports Chomsky. As Genie had passed the critical age, Chomsky would argue that the LAD has expired and so cannot be activated.
This case study also supports the idea that children cannot learn language by interaction with caregivers alone.

Other supporting arguments

Children often produce grammatically non-standard utterances, and so they cannot be copied.
Inflectional mistakes (Berko Gleason) prove an application of a set of rules.
Pinker – every utterance is practically unique – children produce utterances they’ve never heard before.
Culture isn’t a barrier – all cultures acquire language at a similar age.
Children notice mistakes (Berko and Brown).
Non-standard grammatical constructions can make sense.

Criticisms of Chomsky (Nativism)

There has been some debate over Chomsky’s thoughts. It can be argued that children make lexical mistakes in the sense they miss out words rather than syntactical mistakes.

Tomasello

Chomsky’s theory is often dismissed by critics because it is based on hypothetical thinking rather than real-life children.
- Leading linguistics like Tomasello have dismissed Chomsky as an ‘armchair linguist’.
- This criticism of Chomsky’s research throws into question the validity of his theory.

Pinker

As Pinker points out, nearly every utterance a child produces is a brand-new combination of words, and so he questions whether a child can learn from imitation.

Overall limitation

Overall, Chomsky’s theory is limited by not having scientific evidence, but is still very important in considering how a child learns language.

1Children's Language Development

1.1Stages of Development

1.1.1A Child's First Year & Consonant Acquisition

1.1.2Consonant Acquisition

1.1.3Beginning Stages of Language

1.1.4Lexical Development

1.1.5Stages of Development

1.1.6Grammatical Constructions

1.2Theories of Language Development

1.2.1Behaviourism

1.2.2Interactionism

1.2.3Interactionism 2

1.2.4Nativism

1.2.5Chomsky

1.2.6Cognitivism

1.2.7Social Constructionism

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