Psychology of Learning - Noam Chomsky Nativist theory
Language Learning
Noam
Chomsky Nativist theory[1]
Limitations of
Behaviorist view of language acquisition led in 1960’s led to the alternative
‘generative’ account of language.
Noam Chomsky published a criticism of the behaviorist
theory in 1957. [2]
·
Impoverished language input that
children receive does not affect the language development to a greater extent.
·
Adults do not typically speak in grammatically
complete sentences. In addition, what
the child hears is only a small sample of language.
Nativist theory
·
Main Proponent: Bloomfield & Noam Chomsky.
·
Children must be born with an innate capacity
for language development
·
Children are born with an innate tendency for
language acquisition, and that this ability makes the task of learning a first
language easier than it would otherwise be.
·
The human brain is ready naturally for language
in the sense when children are exposed to speech, certain general principles
for discovering or structuring language automatically begin to operate
Research on the
human capacity for language provides strong support for a nativist view. First,
language is a species characteristic of
humans. No human society has ever been discovered that do not employ a
language, and all medically intact
children acquire at least one language in early childhood. The typical
five-year-old can already use most, if not all, of the grammatical structures
that are found in the language of the surrounding community. Yet, the knowledge
of grammar is tacit. Neither the five-year-old nor the adults in the community can
easily articulate the principles of the grammar they are following.
Chomsky concluded that children must have an inborn faculty for language acquisition. According to
this theory, the process is
biologically determined - the human species has evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain
linguistic information at birth. The child's natural predisposition to learn
language is triggered by hearing speech and the child's brain is able to
interpret what s/he hears according to the underlying principles or structures
it already contains. This natural faculty has become known as the
Language Acquisition Device (LAD).
Chomsky did not suggest that an English child is born
knowing anything specific about English, of course. He stated that all human languages share
common principles. (For example, they
all have words for things and actions - nouns and verbs.) It is the child's task to establish how the
specific language s/he hears expresses these underlying principles. For example, the Language Acquisition Device
already contains the concept of verb tense.
By listening to such forms as "worked", "played" and
"patted", the child will form the hypothesis that the past tense of
verbs is formed by adding the sound /d/, /t/ or /id/ to the base form. This, in
turn, will lead to the "virtuous errors" mentioned above. It hardly needs saying that the process is
unconscious. Chomsky does not envisage
the small child lying in its cot working out grammatical rules consciously.
Chomsky's ground-breaking theory remains at the center
of the debate about language acquisition.
However, it has been modified, both by Chomsky himself and by
others. Chomsky's original position was that the Language Acquisition Device contained
specific knowledge about language. It was later that he
suggested that all human language share some common principles. These
principles are present as some form of concept in every child.
Major Concepts
1.
The
Universal Grammar Approach: According to Noam Chomsky, UG focuses to answer
three basic questions about human language:
·
What constitutes knowledge of language?
·
How knowledge of language is acquired?
·
How is knowledge of language put to use?
‘Knowledge of language’ stands in UG for the
subconscious mental representation of language which underlies all language
use.
What Constitutes Knowledge of Language and
how it is acquired? : UG claims that
all human beings inherit a universal set of principles and parameters which
control the shape human language can take.
Chomsky’s proposed principles are unvarying and apply to all human languages similar
to one another; in contrast, parameters
possess a limited number of open values which characterize differences
between languages. The biologically endowed UG equip the children naturally
with a clear set of expectations about the shape of the language according to a
predetermined timetable and atrophies with age.
Universal Grammar (UG): The term Universal Grammar (UG) is used for the innate biological properties of the human brain,
whatever exactly they turn out to be, that
are responsible for children's rapid and overwhelmingly successful acquisition
of a native language, without any obvious effort, during the first few years of
life. The person most strongly associated with the scientific investigation
of UG is Noam Chomsky, although the idea of Universal
Grammar has clear historical antecedents at least as far back as the 1600s, in
the form of the Port-Royal Grammar.[3]
2. Competence and Performance: Chomsky
(1965) provides a distinction between competence and performance – between the underlying ability which allows
linguistic behavior to take place and the behavior itself. Linguistic competence is concerned with the
child’s grammar, the linguistic input and construction of the grammatical
structures. Performance deals with the nature of child’s rule system; the
psychological processes the child uses in learning the language, and how the
child establishes meaning in the language input.
3.
Structure
Dependency: This principle states that language
is organized in such a way that it crucially depends on the structural
relationships between elements in a sentence. Words are regrouped into
higher-level structures which are the units which form the basis of language.
All languages are made up of sentences which consist of at least a Noun-Phrase
and a Verb-Phrase, which in turn optionally contain other phrases or even whole
sentences. The hierarchical nature of human language is a part of human mind
therefore children use computationally structure-dependent rules.( Your cat is
friendly? Is your cat friendly?) UG focuses on the structural relationships
rather the linear order of words
4.
Parameters
are a tightly constrained point of variation across languages. In the early
1980s parameters were often conceptualized as switches in a switchbox (an idea
attributed to James Higginbotham). In more recent research on syntax,
parameters are often conceptualized as options for the formal features of
functional heads. They determine the ways in which languages can vary. Each
phrase has a central element that is called ‘Head’. Head Parameter specifies
the position of the head in relation to its compliments within phrases for
different languages.
5.
Principles:
In contemporary Generative Grammar (from the late 1970s to the
present), the Principles and Parameters framework has
been the dominant formulation of UG. In this framework, a principle is a grammatical requirement that applies to all
languages. The learner’s initial state is supposed to consist of a set of
universal principles common to all human languages.
6. Language acquisition device: Chomsky
originally theorized that children were born with a hard- wired language
acquisition device (LAD) in their brains. He later expanded this idea into that
of Universal Grammar, a set of innate principles and adjustable parameters that
are common to all human languages. The child exploits its LAD to make sense of
the utterances heard around it, deriving from this ‘primary linguistic data’ –
the grammar of the language. LAD is exploited to explain the remarkable speed
with which children learn to speak, and the considerable similarity in the way
grammatical patterns are acquired across different children and languages.
According to Chomsky, the presence of Universal Grammar in the brains of
children allows them to deduce the structure of their native languages from
"mere exposure". LAD provides children with knowledge of linguistic
only. They are concerned with general universals procedures such as discovering
existence language of word.
Primary data is then used to make sentences or
structures after a process of trial and error, correspond to those in adult
speech
The
child learns a set of generalizations or rules governing the way in which
sentences are formed in the following sequence:
ü
Input
ü
Output
ü
Language acquisition device (LAD)
ü
Primary Grammatical Linguistic
ü
General Language Knowledge
ü
Child’s Data Speech
ü
The Learning
ü
The Adult Principles Rules Speech
The fact that
Universal Grammar plays an essential role in normal child language acquisition
is evident from species differences: for example, children and household pets may be exposed to quite similar
linguistic input, but by the age of three years the child's ability to
comprehend multi-word utterances vastly outstrips that of the dog or cat.
This evidence is all the more impressive when one considers that most children
do not receive reliable correction for grammatical errors. Indeed, even
children who for medical reasons cannot produce speech, and therefore have no
possibility of producing an error in the first place, have been found to master
both the lexicon (vocabulary) and the grammar of their community's language
perfectly. The fact that children
succeed at language acquisition even when their linguistic input is severely
impoverished, that is when no corrective feedback is available, is known as
the argument from the poverty of the stimulus. This argument is another
important source of empirical support for a central role of UG in child
language acquisition.
Limitations of Chomsky's theory
Chomsky's work on language was theoretical. He was
interested in grammar and much of his work consists of complex explanations of
grammatical rules. He did not study real
children. The theory relies on children
being exposed to language but takes no account of the interaction between
children and their careers. Nor does it
recognize the reasons why a child might want to speak, the functions of
language.
In 1977, Bard and Sachs published a study of a child
known as Jim, the hearing son of deaf parents. Jim's parents wanted their son to learn speech
rather than the sign language they used between themselves. He watched a lot of television and listened
to the radio, therefore receiving frequent language input. However, his progress was limited until a speech
therapist was enlisted to work with him. Simply being exposed to language was
not enough. Without the associated
interaction, it meant little to him.
Subsequent theories have placed greater emphasis on
the ways in which real children develop language to fulfil their needs and
interact with their environment, including other people.
Criticism of Noam Chomsky’s Nativist Theory
·
Nativist theory puts lots of onus on Language
acquisition device but the role of adult
speech cannot be ruled out in providing a means of enabling children to
work out the regularities of language for themselves
·
It has
proved difficult to formulate the detailed properties of LAD in an
uncontroversial manner. Further changes in generative linguistic theory, that
have taken place in later years, and alternative accounts of the language
acquisition process have questioned the functionality of Nativist theory.
·
The concept of LAD is unsupported by
evolutionary anthropology. It shows that there is a gradual adaptation of the
human body to the use of language, rather than a sudden appearance of a
complete set of binary parameters (which are common to digital computers but
not to neurological systems such as a human brain) describing the whole
spectrum of possible grammars ever to have existed and ever to exist.
·
The
theory has several hypothetical constructs, such as movement, empty categories, complex underlying structures, and strict
binary branching that cannot possibly be acquired from any amount of input.
·
The emphasis on the rule-learning is
over-enthusiastic. Linguistically, this approach’s primary concern is only
syntax (grammars/composition) Semantics, Pragmatics and discourses are
completely excluded.
·
UG is
concerned exclusively with the developmental linguistic route. Social and psychological variables are
ignored.
·
UG approach is methodological. The theory is
preoccupied with modeling of competence. The study of naturalistic performance
is not seen as a suitable source to analyze mental representations of language
Educational Implications[4]
·
Children
should be encouraged to use their creative tendencies when they are
learning to read. Encourage children to write before they read, in keeping with
their predisposition for linguistic creativity.
·
The major portion of language usage consists of
sentences that have never been uttered before so motivate the child to right on
new topics and speak on them.
·
What the child has to learn is available only
indirectly from experience, and must be constructed in large part by the child
himself. So a teacher has to provide instances for the child to construct
knowledge.
·
Children are not “taught” language in any formal
sense, but acquire it naturally, in the course of maturing. So expose children
to a rich variety of language inputs in interesting, stimulating situations.
Allow children who read widely on their own. Give them opportunities to use
broad range of complex language inputs. Controlled texts and carefully graded
materials in the from children’s literature is good exposure.
·
The child needs raw material from the
environment on which to work. So provide exposure to the language in meaningful
situations, useful communication, and attentiveness to the task at hand.
·
Children’s independent reading (and listening)
has an impact on their language development. So they should be given more
chances to read and listen.
·
School might effectively play in fostering
language development, namely reading aloud to children, and encouraging them to
read freely on their own.
·
The family background is more of a factor when
the child is younger, and as he matures his own activities begin to make more
of a difference so provide a rich language environment at home by talking,
reading stories and discussing.
Chomsky Vs
Skinner
Among all the species, it is only a human child who
grows up to use an extremely sophisticated system for self-expression and
communication known as “language”. Behaviourism and Nativism are two different
schools of thought that explain the phenomenon of language acquisition.
Skinner
(Behaviourist)
|
Chomsky
(Nativist)
|
B.F. Skinner’s published verbal behaviour in 1957
|
Noam Chomsky published “Syntactic Structures” 1957
|
Philosophical
|
Rational and factual
|
Extension of psychological theory that held
environmental influences responsible for all human behaviours; including
first language acquisition
|
A scientific measure taken to explain linguistic
abilities based on biological adaptation and natural selection
|
Environment stimulates the verbal behaviour in a
child which is reinforced and strengthened by the time due to frequently
occurring events
|
A child’s brain is born with the ability to acquire
language and capability of linguistic innovation. Thus, it can be seen that
children say a lot of things that they have never been trained to say.
|
Skinner believed in empiricist traditions and
emphasized that only after the documentation of observed perceptible events
one can formulate theories.
|
Chomsky grew out of rationalist tradition and
suggested that human brain first forms questions and analysis of events which
are then developed rationally to test perceptible events.
|
Child is a blank slate that is filled up by
knowledge gained through experience
|
Child’s has a position within the smart-baby
tradition because of “innate learning mechanism that enables a child to
figure out how the language works”
|
It is possible that both views are equally responsible for first
language acquisition but Chomsky (1959) and skinner (1957) strongly denied each
other’s views. However, researchers in 21st century find it hard to depend on only
one school of thought because according to recent discoveries; learning
behaviour starts before birth as foetus’s auditory system is capable of
perceiving environmental sounds in third trimester of pregnancy. Thus, more
research in this area is required to explain and take in to account foetus’s
perceptual system to define first language acquisition.
Transformational Model of Chomsky: Deep
structure and surface structure
·
In 1957, Noam Chomsky published Syntactic
Structures, in which he developed the idea that each sentence in a language has
two levels of representation — a deep structure and a surface structure.
·
Surface
Structure represents the Physical properties of language.
·
The deep
structure represented the core semantic relations of a sentence, and was mapped
on to the surface structure
·
Deep structures followed the phonological form
of the sentence very closely via transformations. Chomsky believed that there
would be considerable similarities between deep structures of language.
According to him these structures would reveal properties, common to all
languages, which were concealed by their surface structures.
Transformations
had been proposed prior to the development of deep structure as a means of
increasing the mathematical and descriptive power of Context- free grammars. Deep structure was devised largely for
technical reasons relating to early semantic theory Minimalism. Chomskyean
Minimalism aims at the further development of ideas involving economy of
derivation and economy of representation in Transformational Theory.
Economy of derivation is a principle
stating that movements (i.e. transformations) only occur in order to match
interpretable features with uninterpretable features. Economy of representation is the principle that grammatical
structures must exist for a purpose, i.e. the structure of a sentence should be
no larger or more complex than required to satisfy constraints on
grammaticality
An additional
aspect of minimalist thought is the idea that the derivation of syntactic
structures should be uniform; that is, rules should not be stipulated as
applying at arbitrary points in a derivation, but instead apply throughout
derivations.
Transformations:
The usual usage of the term
transformation in linguistics refers to a rule that takes an input typically
called the Deep Structure (in the
Standard Theory) or D-structure (in
the extended standard theory or government and binding theory) and changes it
in some restricted way to result in a
Surface Structure (or S-structure).
Deep structures were generated by a set of
phrase structure rules. Transformations actually come of two types:
(i)
the post-Deep structure kind, which are string
or structure changing
(ii)
Generalized Transformations: They take small
structures which are either atomic or generated by other rules, and combine
them like embedding etc.
In
the Extended Standard Theory and government and binding theory, GTs were
abandoned in favor of recursive phrase structure rules
Chomsky Vs
Skinner
Among all the species, it is only a human child who grows up to
use an extremely sophisticated system for self-expression and communication
known as “language”. Behaviourism and Nativism are two different schools of
thought that explain the phenomenon of language acquisition. Behaviourist view
argues that environment stimulates the verbal behaviour in a child which is
reinforced and strengthened by the time due to frequently occurring events. For
example, families verbally communicate to children since birth and gradually
they acquire their first language. On the other hand, nativist view argues
strongly for the innate source of the child’s ability to learn language
(Schophler & Mesibov, 1985). According to this view, a child’s brain is born
with the ability to acquire language and capability of linguistic innovation.
Thus, it can be seen that children say a lot of things that they have never
been trained to say.
The publication of B.F. Skinner’s verbal behaviour in 1957 paved
the way to behaviourism (Schophler & Mesibov, 1985; Moerk, 2000). Two years
later, Noam Chomsky published “Syntactic Structures” through which he gave
birth to Nativism and criticized skinner’s behaviourist view (Schophler &
Mesibov, 1985). Both linguists came from different philosophical and scientific
backgrounds. Skinner believed in empiricist traditions and emphasized that only
after the documentation of observed perceptible events one can formulate
theories. Chomsky, on the other hand, grew out of rationalist tradition and
suggested that human brain first forms questions and analysis of events which
are then developed rationally to test perceptible events. Hence, nativist view
and behaviorist view define the acquisition of language through different
prisms.
Moreover, behaviourist view was an extension in psychological
theories that held environmental influences responsible for all human
behaviours; including first language acquisition. Nevertheless, nativist view
was more of a scientific measure taken to explain linguistic abilities based on
biological adaptation and natural selection. Thus, nativist view is rational
and factual whereas behaviourist view is philosophical (Schophler &
Mesibov, 1985).
Lastly, behaviourist view approaches child as a blank slate that
is filled up by knowledge gained through experience (Traxler, 2012). However,
nativist view defines child’s position within the smart-baby tradition because
of “innate learning mechanism that enables a child to figure out how the
language works” (Traxler, 2012).
It is
possible that both views are equally responsible for first language acquisition
but Chomsky (1959) and skinner (1957) strongly denied each other’s views.
However, researchers in 21st century find
it hard to depend on only one school of thought because according to recent
discoveries; learning behaviour starts before birth as foetus’s auditory system
is capable of perceiving environmental sounds in third trimester of pregnancy.
Thus, more research in this area is required to explain and take in to account foetus’s
perceptual system to define first language acquisition.
[1]
http://www.tuninst.net/LAT/n-Brown4/n-ch02/n-ch02.htm
[2]
Creativity and Innovation in Child Language, Chomsky C., Harvard University
http://www.bu.edu/journalofeducation/files/2011/06/BUJOE-189.3ChomskySnow.pdf
[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_nativism
[4]
http://www.bu.edu/journalofeducation/files/2011/06/BUJOE-189.3ChomskySnow.pdf
[5]
http://www.tuninst.net/LAT/n-Brown4/n-ch02/n-ch02.htm
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