Nativism

Question 1

What is nativism?

Answer 1

Nativism is the belief that language is innate
Nativists theorists believe that children are born with an inherent ability to be able to understand and organise the laws and structures of language

Question 2

Who proposed nativism

Answer 2

• Chomsky, 1965, he proposed the Language Acquisition Device citing universal grammar which allows a child’s brain to select the correct grammar of the language they are exposed to.
• he argued a child’s LAD is triggered once they hear speech

Question 3

What is the purpose of universal grammar

Answer 3

It enables a child to learn a language through the environment around them

Question 4

Poverty of the stimulus

Answer 4

Chomsky argued that the LINGUISTIC INPUT received by young children is often insufficient for them to learn the complexities of their native language solely through imitation or reinforcement
Yet, children rapidly and consistently master their native language, pointing to inherent cognitive structures

Question 5

Arguments in support of nativism

Answer 5

• evidence for the LAD can be seen by the fact that children learn the appropriate word order from a young age
• most children follow the same stages of development : a uniform schedule regardless of quality of exposure hints at an INNATE UNDERLYING CAUSE
• Marcus (1993) suggested internal factors and an innate knowledge must be crucial to constraining a child’s generalisation
• jean Berko created ‘the wug test’ which uses words that children will not have seen before and so proves that children learn the rule and do not imitate

Question 6

Support of berkos research

Answer 6

• cruttenden 1979 defined the ‘u-shaped curve’
  
  • at point 1, the child applies the rule and gets it right
  • at point 2, the child applies the rule everywhere and gets it wrong
  • at point 3, the child learns that the rule only works in certain situations

Question 7

Pinker and ‘the language instinct’

Answer 7

• pinker (1994) agrees with language being an instinct and suggests its purpose was to meet the reliance on knowledge that would have been crucial to the continued survival of hunter-gatherer societies.
• like Chomsky, he argues that all languages are built on the same universal grammar, and that a language mechanism is built into the human brain, therefore basic structures of language are a part of OUR BIOLOGICAL INHERITANCE

Question 8

LAD

Answer 8

• within the LAD is a knowledge of language structures (universal grammar) and the knowledge becomes activated through experience
• Chomsky argues at age 7 it switches off and then it becomes difficult to learn language
• he argues children will often resist corrections to their mistakes - in this sense, the LAD is instructing them that their way of using language is correct and that the caregiver is wrong

Question 9

Virtuous errors

Answer 9

Chomsky states children make virtuous errors - errors which are made with good intentions e.g. ‘I hunted his feelings’

Question 10

Universal grammar

Answer 10

• he states that children have a universal grammar which states a set of rules on how to structure language
• his theory is supported by the fact that many languages follow the SVO (subject-verb-object) syntax - browns research states that 75% of languages use this syntax

Question 11

The wug test

Answer 11

• jean berko
• children were given a picture of a bird-like creature called a ‘wug’ and then asked to state things like what tow of these creatures would be called (‘wugs’)
• the test invented nouns and verbs to test pluralisation and over-generalisation

Question 12

Findings of the wug test

Answer 12

• 76% of 4-5 year olds and 97% of 5-7 year olds could correctly use the -s ending for ‘wug’
• the test used words that children will not have encountered before and so proves that children learn the rule and do not imitate

Question 13

Cruttenden - u-shaped curve (1979)

Answer 13

• at point 1, the child applies the rule and gets it right
• at point 2, the child applies the rule everywhere and get it’s wrong
• at point 3, the child learn that the rule only works in certain situations

Question 14

Case study: genie

Answer 14

• in the 1970s, a 13-year-old girl was found by the authorities, she was withered and held her hands like a rabbit, they found she could barely speak
• her father had trapped her in a room since she was a toddler, he would growl at her if she cried or made any noise
• linguists worked with her extensively, but because she had passed the critical point, she could not properly acquire language
• this supports Chomsky as genie had passed the critical period and Chomsky would argue her LAD had expired

Question 15

Other supporting arguments for nativism

Answer 15

• children often produce grammatically non-standard utterances and so they cannot be copied
• inflectional mistakes prove an application of a set of rules
• pinker: every utterance is practically unique, children produce utterances they’ve never heard before
• culture is not a barrier: all cultures acquire language at a similar age
• children notice mistakes (Berko and Brown)
• non-standard grammatical constructions can make sense