Noam Chomsky’s Theory:The Critical Period

IntroductionComsky’s theory represents a revolutionary point of view since it includes features never seen before such as the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) which the belief says that is made up of a set of general principles called “Universal Grammar” that can be applied to all the languages in the world starting from a finite number of rules and words to create infinite syntactic structures. I chose Noam Chomsky theory because his theory is controversial, all theories that have been once this controversial have been found real years later.

Learning Objectives1- To understand and make a deep study on Chomsky’s Theory to know how it functions and what it states.2- To establish a clear difference between the main classification of the various theories of language acquisition.

Main classification of Language AcquisitionTheories

Nativist: Native capacity to acquire a language

Environmentalist: Language is acquired because there is an environment that makes it easier to do it.

Interactionist: Language is acquired by the interaction with children’s surroundings.

Noam’s Chomsky’s Theory is a nativist Theory thatassumes that children are born with a language acquisition device( LAD) that allows them to create syntactic structures with the new words they have learned, that means the children have an internalized knowledge of the language that as native speakers of that language they possess. It is what allows the children to be creative as language users.

Statements of this theory

Linguistic competence and linguistic performance

Deals with internal knowledge of the language

Deals with language production

Statements of this theory

Statements of this theory

• Children do not need any kind of formal teaching to learn to speak.• Children are born with a natural capacity to

learn language.• The brain contains systems for recognizing patterns of sound.

Statements of this theory

* There is a critical period for language learning.* Every human is born with innate principles of language.* Children learn language spontaneously and

speak creatively.

“GENIE” The forbidden ExperimentOn November 4, 1970, the social services of the City of Los Angeles found a 13 years old girl, a child unable to speak after having spent his life locked in a dark room and subhuman conditions. As described by the witnesses in that room was nothing but a potty chair, some TV-Guide magazines and the wire cage in which her father forced her to sleep every night.

“GENIE” The forbidden ExperimentWhen psychologists examined the girl they found she walked with difficulty and behaved like a wild creature, spitting, scratching or trying to masturbate compulsively. She had a vocabulary of twenty words, most commands like "stop!", "No" or "no more".

Weaknesses of this theory

• It is not easy to prove it because it is not allowed to insolate somebody just to do a research.

• There is no agreement about how long this sensitive period lasts.

Weaknesses of this theory

Despite having studied the case of "Genie" (as the researchers called the girl) theres not enough evidence to prove the truth of Chomsky's theory, as they never get to know if the girl was already mentally retarded or if she already had passed its critical period for learning language.

References* sitemason.vanderbilt.edu

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis

* http://www.forbes.com/