Chomsky

1. Chomsky’s theory

2. What is Chomsky's theory?
• Chomsky's theory shows the way children acquire language and
what they learn it from.
• He believes that from birth, children are born with the inherited
skill to learn and pick up any language.
• He noted that children don’t learn language from the imitation,
they pick up nouns, verbs which become imprinted upon their
brain.
• A known fact shows that all children (despite their intellectual
ability) can become fluent within their native language within only
5 years of learning.
• Noah Chomsky suggested that learning language is a lot like
learning to walk, although you learn from practise. We are all
born with an understanding of how to walk, in addition to
language.

3. Evidence to support his theory
 His evidence proves that the theory is correct as it is
known that if a adult was talking to a child and had made a
grammar mistake, the child would in fact notice.
 He has evidence to show that children don’t learn language
through imitation, this is shown through simple grammar
mistakes that children make like “I drawed” and “ I drew”.
 When a child is in the process of learning to speak, they
would most likely always get their nouns, verbs and
subjects correct and in the right order.
 It is shown that children would use and make up words
whilst learning to speak like “mamma ball” instead od
mum. This shows that this wasn’t learnt passively.
 The evidence of Chomsky's theory show that we are all
prewired to learn any required language.

4. Evidence against his theory
 His theory is showing that children don’t learn new
language from imitation but from knowing the correct
grammar.
 However his theory doesn’t prove that children catch on
easily, any language learning could be learnt through
general learning and being able to understand interactions
and abilities with other people around them.
 He claims that every child that is born with LAD (language
acquisition device)