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THE INNATIST THEORY
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THE INNATIST
THEORY
Introduction
The Innate Theory (also known as Innatist Theory, Nativist Theory, Rationalist Theory, Mentalist Theory) of language acquisition was developed in the mid-20th century (1959) by the renowned American linguist Noam Chomsky. It emerged as a reaction against the Behaviourist language learning theory, and contradicted its model at almost every point of basic structure.
Although Chomsky is credited to be its originator, in reality, the theory has been around for hundreds of years. Chomsky’s proposal just breathed a new life into the old concept and confirmed its formalisation. Though radical in many ways, it was able to lay out some major connotations for understanding language acquisition. In the last few decades, the amount of discussion about first language acquisition in the context of the Innate Theory has grown considerably.
The theoretical assumptions underlying the Innate Theory are as follows:
- Language acquisition is innately determined; that is, children are biologically programmed for language learning. They develop language in the same way as other biological functions. They start to speak at roughly the same age and proceed through roughly the same stages.
Theoretical
Bases
- Environmental differences may be associated with some variation in the rate of language acquisition.
- Children are born with a special ability to systematically discover for themselves the underlying rules of a language system. This special ability enables them to learn the complexities of language in a relatively short period of time.
Eric Lenneberg's concept of a critical period is the best evidence for Chomskian proposal. Lenneberg suggested that there is a biologically pre-determined period of life during which language can be acquired most easily. Yet, he presents abundant evidence to support the view that the form of language is innate:
Evidence Used to Support Chomsky’s Innate Theory
The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument: The first argument in favour of this statement is concerned with the logical problem of language acquisition, which the behaviourists failed to recognise. This argument is known as The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument.
Language
Universals
To justify this argument Chomsky opines that, language is not a set of habits, but it is rule-governed; subsequently, the mind is responsible for the perception and processing of linguistic data because it is genetically equipped with a device that make language acquisition possible. This mechanism is referred to as LAD (Language Acquisition Device). LAD consists of Universal Grammar (UG) and all the languages are basically formed with that universal ground.
UG does not claim that all human languages have the same grammar, or that all humans are programmed with a structure that underlies all surface expressions of human language. Rather UG provides a set of basic grammatical elements or fixed elements or fixed abstract principles that are common in all natural languages, which explains how children acquire their language(s) or how they construct valid sentences of their language in a relatively short period of time. Chomsky defined these abstract representations of grammatical rules as language universals. Chomsky says that there are two types of language universals:
1. Substantive Universal: The substantive universals consist of fixed features of language like phonemes or syntactic categories like nouns (N) and verbs (V). Let us consider, for example, some distinctive phonological features. One of them is “voicing” that differentiates /p/ from /b/ in the pronunciation of such words as pin and bin, or “nasality” that makes the difference between /b/ and /m/ in bad and mad.
2. Formal Universal: The formal universals are the general principles which determine the form and the manner of operation of grammatical rules of particular language.
Chomsky further argues that the universal principles that children discover form their core grammar. On the other hand, the rules or features that are not determined by universal grammar form their peripheral grammar. Rules of core grammar might be easier to acquire than the rules of the peripheral grammar, since the latter are thought to be outside of the child’s programmed instruction.
Chomsky's work has been highly controversial, rekindling the age-old debate over whether language exists in the mind before experience. Despite its few limitations, the Innate Theory is rich enough to provide a substantial idea of how a child acquires his/her first language.