Zusammenfassung der Ressource
NATIVISM
(Chomsky)
- Chomsky challenged Skinners view
- If children learnt from imitating they have poor materials to
imitate from meaning that the quality of the language that they
hear from their parents isnt good enough for them to copy and
practice using "correct grammar"
- Children also produce
utterances that they could never
have heard from adults- they
make up words and make
VIRTUOUS ERRORS
- These are errors made by young
children when a non-standard
utterance reveals some
understanding although this is
incomplete.
- EXAMPLE- ' runned'
instead of 'ran'. this shows
the child understand that
'ed' is often used to put
words into past tense
- Chomsky argues that
children have an innate
capacity to learn language
- Children have an
inborn language
acquisition device (LAD)
- They have an ability to
extract rules from the
language that they
hear around them
- UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR:
Where languages have different
surface structures but they
share the same deep structures
- All Children possess an innate
awareness of this deep structure
- They are ready to analyse what they
hear and fit it into this structure from
the moment that they are born
- This explains why
children are able to learn
language so rapidly
- Most sentence structures
are 'Subject, Verb, Object'
- COMMON ERRORS: Chomsky didn't
suggest that we are born knowing
grammar or language- he said that
something in our brains gives us the
ability to work out and apply
grammatical rules from language
that we hear being used around us
- LENNEBERG:
- 'Critical Period
Hypothesis'
- He said that the LAD needs to be
activates with sufficient input before a
certain point in the child's development
- There have been cases of 'feral' or 'wild'
children who have been deprived of human
contact and have therefore never acquired
language
- Some have been discovered at an early age and
have been able to catch up but those found as
teenagers have never fully been able to acquire
language
- STRENGTHS
- The existence of
grammar universals
- Children of all cultures pass
through similar stages when
acquiring language
- Childen can understand and
use new sentences and
constructions with no prior
experience of them
- They make up words and make
virtuous errors (ERRORS BASED
ON UNDERSTANDING RULES
OF GRAMMAR)
- Scientists have discovered
specific areas of the brain that
control language
- WEAKNESSES
- Under-estimates the
importance of social
interaction