Universal Grammar Noam Chomsky

Who is Noam Chomsky?

Development of Mentalist Views

Language Acquisition Device According to Chomsky; the abundance of possibilities of word and sentence formation requires child to have a mechanism to easily and quickly find the suitable form from an infinite number of choices (1965, p. 32). We generate infinite sentences. Even tough we did not get them from environment.

Black Box Brown refers to this device as a “black box thought to contain all and only the principles which are universal to all human languages” and states that it prevents the child from trying wrong ways and making too many mistakes to acquire the rules of the language (Brown, 2000, p. 16). (in Chomsky’s words; a hypothetical one)

According to McNeill (1966), LAD has four main linguistic features: The ability to distinguish speech sounds from other sounds in the environment The ability to organize linguistic data into various classes that can later be refined Imagine that LAD is a factory…

Knowledge that only a certain kind of linguistic system is possible and that other kinds are not and The ability to engage in constant evaluation of the developing linguistic system so as to construct the simplest possible system out of the available linguistic input. (cited by Brown, 2006, p. 29)

UG’s Debut as a Reaction Verbal Behavior by Skinner Questioning Behaviorist Approach Neuropsychologist Eric Lenneberg (1967) Chomsky objected to behaviorist view. Eric asserted that language is “species specific” and the language oriented behaviors are innately and biologically determined

Universal Grammar Chomsky named language acquisition device as the Universal Grammar; which meant that all the main and common rules of the concept of language are innately inherited as a ‘species-specific’ endowment and with the help of peripheral induction of the new vocabulary and grammatical utterances, children pick up and test their hypotheses (Brown, 2006, p. 29).

Ideas and Theories of UG Generative Grammar (cited in Chomsky, 1957) Government Binding Theory (claiming all grammars have common and limited ways to vary)

Principles and Parameters Theory (P&P) Aspects Model (the introduction of competence/performance) The principles and parameters approach to syntax proposes that there is a set of universal principles shared by every human language, and that these are known by all human beings. Knowledge of a particular language, then, consists of knowledge of the settings of a finite number of parameters, which define exactly how the universal principles need to be applied to construct grammatical sentences.

Empirical Evidence No Access to Universal Grammar Full Access to Universal Grammar Partial Access

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE FOR UG Critical Period Hypothesis: A biological basis The abundance of exposure to the target language triggers the LAD and the rules are inductively learnt or acquired by the person. Second item is for immigrant people…

The complex nature of the everyday speech cannot be directly linked to behaviorist habit formation process as there are too many, too complex and too long sentences, which require a capacity far beyond the formal education of the language.

Even if deaf children who are born into hearing parents can learn a language, a state that behaviorist view would not suffice to explain. The research carried out by Newport (1990) proved that the critical period hypothesis is responsible for any kind of language. The participants were “native signers” (deaf from birth), early learners and late learners; and the task was the use of grammatical markers. The results conformed to previous researches carried out on spoken language (Snow and Hoefnagel-Höhle 1978, Johnson and Newport 1989) and demonstrated that the language is somewhat excluded from perceptions and other cognitive features of the human being and developed independently.

Criticism of UG The social environment and the well-established idea of a biological aid cannot be divorced. (Demirezen, 1989) The mentalist theory cannot fully account for the question “how much language exposure is needed to trigger the linguistic patterns and rules in the target language”.

The studies always concentrated on the grammar and innateness The studies always concentrated on the grammar and innateness. Therefore, “the balance between environmental influences and biological growth was still unclear (Stern, 1991, p. 302)

Children learn the language as it is due. How. (Lenneberg, 1969, pp But the environment and quality of the input is undeniable , For the biologic basement to work, peripheral activation (primary linguistic data) of innate language mechanism is needed. How can we provide peripheral activation?

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