Language Acquisition Device; Noam Chomsky

Language Acquisition Device

What is Language Acquisition Device?

is a hypothetical module of the brain posited to account for children’s innate pre- disposition for language acquisition.

The LAD Theory

posits that a set list of acceptable sentence structures -that is, possible combinations of subjects, verbs, objects, and modifiers — are known to children at birth.

(a)

Generative

Gramma

r

Structural

DescriptionPrimary

Linguistic data

utterance

Chomsky (1964) put the mentalist account of language acquisition in dramatic form by

outlining two “devices”.

A

B(b)

GRAMMAR

What is Universal Grammar?

Universal Grammar (UG) is a theory in linguistic.

• Ability to learn grammar is

hard-wired into the brain.

Roger Bacon

The concept of UG has been traced to the

observation of Roger Bacon, a 13th century Franciscan Friar

and Philosopher, that all languages are built upon

common grammar.

Roger Bacon

The Expression was popularized in the 1950s

and 1960s by Noam Chomskyand other linguistic.

• Acquiring language cannot be reduced to simply developing an

inventory of response to stimuli, because every

sentence that anyone produces can

be a totally new combination of words.

NOAM CHOMSKY

Generative Grammar refers to the set of rules that

enables to understand sentences but of which we are usually totally unaware.

“that’s how you say it”RATHER THAN

“how that’s you it say”

Ex.

Generative Grammar refers to the set of rules that

enables to understand sentences but of which we are usually totally unaware.

“Bob” and “him”

• Bob loves him.• Bob knows that his

father loves him.

Ex.

Generative GrammarNOTE:

Generative grammar has nothing to do with grammar textbooks, whose purpose is

simply to explain what grammatically correct and

incorrect in given language.

• All languages in the world must

sharecertain structural

properties.

NOM CHOMSKY

• Chomsky and the other,Generative linguists like him

Shown that 5000 to 6000languages

in the world, despite their different grammars,

do share a set of syntactic rules and principles.

NOM CHOMSKY

Universal Grammar and

Second Language AcquisitionL1 Input

UG Principle ParametersL2 Input

a grammar of L1

a grammar of L2

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