Language acquisition Psycholinguistics

there 2 schools of thought how children acquire or learn language, , there still debate theory correct one. first theory states language must learned child. second view states abstract system of language cannot learned, humans possess innate language faculty, or access has been called universal grammar. view language must learned popular before 1960 , represented mentalistic theories of jean piaget , empiricist rudolf carnap. likewise, school of psychology known behaviorism (see verbal behavior (1957) b.f. skinner) puts forth point of view language behavior shaped conditioned response, hence learned.

the innatist perspective began noam chomsky s highly critical review of skinner s book in 1959. review helped start has been termed cognitive revolution in psychology. chomsky posited humans possess special, innate ability language , complex syntactic features, such recursion, hard-wired in brain. these abilities thought beyond grasp of intelligent , social non-humans. according chomsky, children acquiring language have vast search space explore among possible human grammars, yet @ time there no evidence children receive sufficient input learn rules of language (see poverty of stimulus). hence, there must other innate mechanism endows language ability humans. such language faculty is, according innateness hypothesis, defines human language , makes different sophisticated forms of animal communication.

the field of linguistics , psycholinguistics since has been defined reactions chomsky, pro , con. pro view still holds human ability use language (specifically ability use recursion) qualitatively different sort of animal ability. ability may have resulted favorable mutation or adaptation of skills evolved other purposes. view language can learned has had recent resurgence inspired emergentism. view challenges innate view scientifically unfalsifiable; say, can t tested. amount of computer power increasing since 1980s, researchers have been able simulate language acquisition using neural network models. these models provide evidence there may, in fact, sufficient information contained in input learn language, syntax. if true, innate mechanism no longer necessary explain language acquisition.