List of contents Abstract Introduction Innaatism Chomskys Ideas Summary of the evidence The biological Basis for innatist

position Natural experiments; Victor and Jenie The inetactionist position Literature Review Conclution.

Comparative study of Innatism. Abstract

The object of this piece of assignment is to discuss innatism a language learning theory in contrast with other theories of language learning. Moreover, the best known and most influential proponent of innatist position of Noam Chomsky has been explained in broad and wide manner. In his famous review of Skinners book Verbal Behavior, he claims that imitation and SR-theories (SR= stimulus-response) of learning fail to explain how people come to produce sentences which they never heard before. Furthermore, study of some natural experiments have also been included in this piece of assignment which are considered to support critical period hypothesis CPH.

Introduction:
There are different theories of language learning all attempt to learn language in an easier and more effective manner. Though every linguist attempt to prove his arguments fit for learning of language yet some flaws are found in every theory. Language learning theories such as, Behaviorist, mentalists, cognativists (rationalists), imperialist (audio lingualism) and cognitive code theory provide wide rang of discussion for scholars to develop appropriate approach towards learning of language. Throughout the years, linguistics have striven to solve the mind boggling question of learning language by juxtaposing the two competing theories namely behaviorism and innatism. These two theories of language learning are different to each other. If, in one theory child is regarded as passive learner then in an other theory he is claimed as an active role player. Behaviorists believe that behavior plays vital role in language learning, the supporters of cognitive approach believe that language learning is a brain based process. On the other hand constructivists are of the opinion that language is a result of combination of both the behavior and brain. The innatist theory is mainly concerned with first language acquisition. It asserts that human have access to the knowledge that is processed innately. The protagonists of the nativist position of language acquisition aim to explain first language acquisition, not second language acquisition except a few researchers in this connection doubt that UG Universal Grammar is available for second language acquisition. From this it has been clearly differentiated that acquisition is related to first language whereas learning has to do with second and foreign languages. Chomskys innatist theory came shortly after Skinners theory of Behaviorism. He argues that cognition plays the vital role in creating ability to produce unlimited number of sentences with the knowledge of a limited number of sentences of grammatical rules. He calls this ability language competence and distinguishes it from performance, which is the actual use of language which under the heat of communicative exchanges or when people are tired may lead to production grammatically faulty sentences. On the other hand behaviorists believe that behavior plays decisive role in language learning, the supporters of cognitive approach believe that language learning is a brain based process. Further, constructivists are of the opinion that language learning is combination of both the behavior and brain. Behaviorists believe that accuracy is important while cognitivists (rationalists) point out that fluency is more important than accuracy. The innatist theory states that learning is natural to all human beings. They believe that babies enter the world with a biological propensity, and inborn device for learning language. Innatism: Chomskys Ideas. The linguist Noam Chomsky claims that language develops in the child in just the same way as other biological functions develop. For him language is similar to other physical developments like sitting, standing, walking and running. In the same way language learning takes place in the mind with developmental sequences, a child understands imitates utters words and sentences and ultimately gets grip over complex system of language. Hence language learning is an inner ability of a child. Chomsky further claims that a child struggles to acquire language from the linguistic environment inside home as well as out side. Form neighbor from street from bazaar whosoever he hears every time he is in process of acquiring language. A child surrounded by mother father brother sister

or other children he learns from all. This is known as the innatist position. Chomsky proposed his theory in reaction to what he saw as the inadequacy of behaviorist theory of learning based on imitation and formation of habits (Chomsky 1959). According to Chomsky behaviorist theory fails to recognize the logical problem of language acquisition, in this way the children come to know more about the structure of language than they could reasonably be expected to learn on the basis of samples of language which they hear. According to him the acquisition of language from environment for a child is full of confusing information, for example false starts, incomplete sentences, slips of the tongue and it does not cater to the language need of a child. In this respect strong evidence is that they are by no means systematically and consistently corrected or instructed on language. Parental corrections are inadequate, for the child of pre school age. Parental correction is mostly focused on meaning not on language form. Without paying attention on parental correction children often continue to speak in their own ways. Chomsky compares the minds of the children with blank slates that could be filled merely by imitation of language from environment. To him children have been gifted with innate ability which enables them to discover underlying rules of language system. This ability is called by Chomsky as a language acquisition device (LAD), this device is also called by him as an imaginary black box which may exist in any part of the brain where in lies all the principles of language system. It is through LAD that children access to the samples of language which serve as trigger to activate the device. After activation of device child discovers grammatical structures of language. Later on Chomsky and his followers termed the LAD as Universal Grammar UG which consist of set of principles common to all languages. If children are pre equipped with UG then what they have to learn is the ways in which their own language makes use of these principles and variations on those principles which may exist into particular language which they hear spoken around them ( Chomsky 1981 Cook 1988 White 1989). Chomsky further claims that children acquire language with the same way as they learn to walk. But the role of environment is an important into the variation of rate of acquisition but adult linguistic competence is very similar for all speakers of one language or dialect.

Summary of the kinds of evidence to support Chomskys innatist position.

1. Before learning any thing else so complex and complicated all children acquire their native language easily at a time in life even the deaf children learn signs of language and their progress is also similar to that of hearing children. Moreover children with limited cognitive ability develop quite complex language system from the environment where communication takes place. 1. 2. Children grasp successfully over basic structures of language, or dialects in variety of conditions, for example caring and attentive parents can be helpful to enhance language of their children and which abusive and rejecting parents can not do so . Difficult levels of vocabulary, creativity and social grace is achieved by children and all children achieve mastery on the structure of language spoken around them. This is a support of the hypothesis that language is some how separate from other aspects of cognitive development. The term modular represents that brain has different modules which serve different kinds of

knowledge and learning. 1. The language to which children are exposed to lacks linguistic rules and patterns which they eventually know. 1. Animals or primates trained by the human cannot learn to manipulate a symbol system as complicated as natural system of language of a three or four year human child 1. Children seem to accomplish complex task of language acquisition without the consistent correction on incorrect or ungrammatical language. Children learn complex system of language without the special guidance. To prove this fact we have an example from a book by Lydia White (1989).@@@@@ Following English sentences contain the reflexive pronoun himself some of them are grammatical and others are ungrammatical. a. John saw himself. b. *Himself John saw. c. Looking after himself bores John. d. John said that Fred liked himself. e. *John said that Fred liked himself. f. John told Bill to wash himself. g. *John told Bill to wash himself. h. John promised Bill to wash himself. i. John believes himself to be intelligent. j. *John believes that himself is intelligent. k. John showed bill a picture of himself. Now imagine you are the child trying to work out what the relationship between the reflexive pronoun and its antecedent is; you might conclude from (a) and (b) that the reflexive pronoun must follow the noun it refers to, but (c) disproves this. Sentences (a),(e), ( f)and (g) might lead you to believe that the closest noun is the antecedent, but (h) shows that this can not be right either. It is also evident from (h) that the reflexive and its antecedent do not have to be in the same clause. Furthermore the reflexive can be in the subject position in (i), an untensed class, but not in (j) a tensed clause. Moreover the reflexive can sometimes have two possible antecedents, as in (k) where himself can refer to either John or Bill. These few sentences are enough convince the fact that children learn complexity of language without the proper guidance.

The biological basis for the innatist position .

Eric Lenneberg the bioloigistis claims that as child learns to walk so a child learns to talk. He compares learning of talking with learning of walking .In this way Chomskys ideas are also similar to Eric Lenneberg. Children who are physically unfit at the age of infancy and cannot move about if they are cured successfully will definitely stand , walk, and run. In the same way children who can hear but can not speak for medical reasons they can also learn language and understand even complex sentences if their medical problem is solved in the early age. Critical period hypothesis. From the Lennebergs experiment it is known that ability to develop normal behaviors and knowledge in variety of environments does not continue for long. For this the time period is determined. Since all the children are exposed to language which they acquire ultimately from linguistic environments. But in rare cases if any child is deaf or isolated from the linguistic environment for long time in such conditions LAD language acquisition device does not work successfully. Hence the function of LAD is conditional to specific and limited time period which is called critical period hypothesis .C.P.H. To support this notion we have following natural case studies from the history.

Natural experiments: Victor and Genie.

Reviewing the history to find evidence to support critical period hypothesis we have examples of a few natural experiments where children have been isolated from language. Among them most famous case is of a Victor . Franscois, Truffaut created a film, LEnfant Sauvage.( The untamed child). In 1977 a naked boy of 12 years of age was wandering in the woods of Aveyron in France. After he was captured it was known that he was isolated from mankind during the critical period of learning language. So any language was unknown to him. His listening ability was only confined to those of animal sounds, the sound of cracking of a nut and sound of wind and rain. Such kind of special case was brought to a young doctor. Jean Marc-Gaspard Itard who devoted five years to Victor in socializing and teaching him language . To some extent Itard was succeeded in developing Victors sociability memory, judgment and all the other functions of his senses what he could do only he could vocalize two words of his favorite food lait.(Milk) and for exclamation he could utter O Dieu ( O God) which he used on the sight of milk .In spite of concentrating on the teaching him language he could never communicate his need and could not progress in acquiring language. Finally Itard gave up. An other example of natural experiment was that of Genie, who was discovered in California in 1970. A 13year old girl who had been isolated, deprived, neglected and abused by her parents on some reasons, she was put into small darkened room tied with chair or crib. She was beaten and none was allowed to speak her family members used to bark and growl on her .She was tamed and flourished in such inhumane environment. Therefore her innate ability was not used too acquire language, LAD had not started functioning at the specific time period of acquiring language. This case was also greater importance for linguistics. She had not listent language therefore she could not speak she could vocalize or made any king of noise she was undeveloped physically emotionally and intellectually. After she was discovered, she was exposed to language and sociability. She was admitted in rehabilitation center and she was sent to school too. Teachers and therapist attended her

on regularly. She made remarkable progress intellectually, physically and emotionally. She became social and mingled with the people easily. Even she developed deep personal relationships and strong individual tastes and traits .Despite other developments, her language progress was not that of like a normal child. Even thought after her exposure to supportive language acquisition environment for five years. She could not develop elaborated and complex language system like a normal child. Normal gap was observed between comprehension and production, inconsistency in the use of grammatical forms, a slow rate of development over use of formulaic and routine speech and the absence of some syntactic forms and mechanism always presenting normal grammatical development. ( Crutiss 1977). From this case we can conclude that these cases support Critical Period Hypothesis C.P.H. but in fact it is difficult to argue that the hypothesis is confirmed on the basis of evidence from such unusual children. The researchers are unknown from the circumstances of their lives and are unaware of the other factors which they faced during isolation. Such other impacts are not included in the research. The innatist position points out the acquisition of complex knowledge of adult speakers. According to some researchers that innatists have laid stress on the final state that is the competence of adult native speakers and not enough on performance. A recent view of language acquisition which is attracting much attention is connectionism. Connectionists differ strongly from the Chomskyian innatistisms because connections are of the adverse opinion that language acquisition does not require a separate module of the mind it can be termed as learning in general. Further they claim that what children need to know is essentially available in the language they are exposed to.

The interactionist position.

The first theoretical view of first language acquisition innatist opinion that language is in somewhere in your mind. Second view is of the connectionists that is strongly adverse to it that language acquisition may not have separate module in brain it is a part of learning in general. Like most cognitive psychologists, connectionist attribute greater to the role of the environment to them innate knowledge in learner is less important. Further they claim that innate is simply an ability to learn not any linguistic structure. The third view is of the interactionists who focus on role of environment. They are of the opinion that language acquisition is the result of interaction between environment and childs innate abilities . Interactionists attribute considerably more importance to the environment than the innatist do. Its best example is the child directed speech of interactionists argument, that language which is only addressed to children in their own adjusted and easier ways. Among interactionist position we could include those which were articulated much earlier in this century by the Swiss psychologist epistemologist. Jean Piaget( see Ginsburg and Opper 1969) . Unlike the innatists Piaget strongly advocates the notion for the language acquisition that it takes place like other learning no separate module in mind is located. For him language can be used to represent knowledge which children have acquired in childhood through physical interaction with environment. Another prominent interactionist and psychologist Vygotsky who presented the sociocultural theory who worked in Soviat Union in 1920s and 1930s ( Vygotsky 1978). He said language develops entirely from social interaction.

Acquiring higher level of knowledge and performance is only the result of supportive interactive environment it is not a solitary activity. as the childs zone of proximal development. He observed the childrens conversation with adults and with other children and saw in them the origin of both language and thought.

Literature Review.
In reviewing the literature regarding language learning theories we will have abundance of research. Different linguists and theorist have presented various theories if one theory fails to solve the problem of language learning an other theory has emerged to meet the language learning need. When we study any theory comprehensively we come to conclude that we can neither rule out completely nor take any theory as a perfect. Hence we can say it is partly correct or partly incorrect according to the situation where language learning theories are applied. As the focus in this assignment is innatist theory of language learning while other discussion revolves round it. So from the point of view of Chomsky (1981, 1986a, 1986b) that all human beings inherit a universal set of principles and parameters that control the shape, human language can take, and which are what make human languages similar to on another. On the contrary Kramsch and Throne (2002) argue that behaviorism focuses on objectively observable behaviors while it neglects the mental activities. LM Bloom (1974) says that imitation reinforcement and conditioning are three main beliefs of behaviorists. F Skinner (1957) associate behaviorism in general psychology He further says that language learning is the result of habit formation and habit is formed through reinforcement and usually reinforcement is positive or negative. Positive reinforcement is that when a child does something better he may be encouraged with like smile, hug or food etc. Definitely it will stimulate the child to do it again this way the habit of doing some thing better is formed. On the other hand negative reinforcement is that when a child does some thing wrong for example he has not completed home work say him to do it in the break hours. It decreases the possibility of reoccurrence of the same response. Muller (1971) claims that analogy plays vital role than analysis and he further points out that linguistic information is a type of information and its process which takes place in mind. The cognitive theory of language learning emphasizes on observable behaviors such as mind, memory, thinking, attitude, motivation and reflection etc, further in this theory behavior is studied learner is considered as an active participant of language learning.

Conclusion.
After given the above arguments regarding the innatist theory of language and other theories of language learning we come to know that although this theory provides some reasonable explanations about acquiring language, but this theory lacks sufficient evidence. Some of the cases against this theory include, timing of language learning varies greatly within cultures, environment shapes how much and what language learned, and feed back from other language users affects language acquisition.(Cooter and Reutizel 2004) . To sum up it can be said that innatist theory suggests that the ability to learn language is inborn, that the nature is more important than nurture and that experience using language is only necessary in order to activate LAD. But the problem

with Chomskys theory is that it doers not take enough account of the influence that thought and language have each others development. Hence we conclude with the argument that the language of thought theory that was proposed by Folder and underlies the backbone of Chomskys Universal Grammar and which is recently called the principles and parameters theory and previously called innatist theory.

References.
Bloom. L.M. (1974). Immitation in Language Development: If, When, and Why. Chomsky, N, 1959, Review of Verbal Behavior by B.F Skinner. Language. 35/1:26/58. Chomsky, N. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht. Foris. Chapter 1. Cook. V. 1988. Chomskys Universal Grammer. London. Basil.Blackwell. Gingsburg, H. and S. Opper 1969. Piagets Theory of intellectual development. An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice Hall. Itard, J-M-G. 1962. The Wild Boy Of Averyon(LEnfant Sauvage). New York: Meridith. Lenfant Sauvage. Muller. T.H. (1971). The effectiveness of two learning models: The audio lingual habit theory and coginitive code learning theory. Skinner. F.B. 1957. Verbal Behaviour. London. Mathuen. Vygotsy, L. S. 1978. Mind and society. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. White. L.1989. Universal Grammar and Second Language Accquisition. Amsterdam/Philadalpia, Pa: John Benjimins. The End.