Chomsky on Children & Language

[Coggeh]

Currently doing Childcare as a course and when Chomsky came up as a theorist i was pretty much over the moon but when i heard his theory its pretty weird.
Chomsky created the LAD- language acquisition device
1. Baby already knows about linguistic rules, as they are born with an innate knowledge of language.
2. The baby hears examples of his/ her native language
3. The linguistic rules help the baby make estimations and presumptions about the language it is hearing.
4. From these estimations and presumption the baby works out grammatical sets of rules. As more language is heard the grammar becomes more and more like adults.


Point one is the one I'm having concerns with, how could a child be born with an ability to understand the rules of linguistics as they even vary among languages?



It surprised me how he goes against the behaviorist theory on language acquisition which states basically the child isn't born with any knowledge of language and learns from imitating parents/siblings gradually understanding the meaning of words etc .


What do people think? is Chomsky right/wrong?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I have shown how misguided Chomsky is here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/noam-chomsky-t136963/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/human-naturei-t68061/index2.html

I have also shown how his theory is not only anti-Marxist, it's thoroughly Idealist, here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13_03.htm

Use the search function in your browser to look for 'Cartesian Paradigm' (without the quotes) and 'Chomsky' (again, without the quotes).

And you are right, it's not possible to follow a rule if you are unaware of it (unless, of course, you are copying someone else).

[Black Sheep]

1. Baby already knows about linguistic rules, as they are born with an innate knowledge of language.
Is this scientifically grounded, or is it a hypothesis by Chomsky, after observing how fast and efficiently humans learn a language at such a young age?
I think the latter,which i consider a fair hypothesis.

Rosa, your last link requires (the reader to gather up) context,which Ctrl+F fails to do.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BS:


Is this scientifically grounded, or is it a hypothesis by Chomsky, after observing how fast and efficiently humans learn a language at such a young age?
I think the latter,which i consider a fair hypothesis.

Except, when adults learn a second language, they do so just as quickly as children do. So, this is a rather poor hypothesis.

Anyway, when Chomsky invented this idea, he offered absolutely no evidnece in its support.


Rosa, your last link requires (the reader to gather up) context,which Ctrl+F fails to do.

I'm sorry, but I do not understand this. Others seem to be able to access it OK.

[JazzRemington]

Point one is the one I'm having concerns with, how could a child be born with an ability to understand the rules of linguistics as they even vary among languages?

I think Chomsky believes there is a "general grammar" that all languages adhere to.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jaz you are right, but despite the best efforts of Chomskyans for over forty years, we are no nearer to finding out what that grammar is.

So, how we are all supposed to be able to use it is a mystery.

[Black Sheep]

Wouldn't such a grammar violate the Halting problem obstacle?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In what way?