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Innatism

This theory was originally put forward by Noam Chomsky

in 1959. He said it was the child's mind not its

en!ironment which made it possible to learn a language

at such a young age with the help of only limited input. He

suggested that children must be born with an innate

ability to learn languages. He called this a '"anguage

#c$uisition %e!ice' &"#% or '(ni!ersal )rammar' &'()'.

This de!ice contained the rules and principles which were

common to all languages in the world. #s children heard

e*tracts from their own mother tongue the ac$uisition

de!ice chose the underlying rules and parameters

rele!ant for that language.

+iological proof in support of Chomsky's ideas came in theform of the ,Critical -eriod Hypothesis,.

n fa!our of Chomsky's idea is also the fact that language

seems to be rule go!erned from the beginning on e!en in

the earliest stages of language production.

The fact that second language ac$uisition is possible e!en

for adults challenges Chomsky's theses howe!er.

Innatism - Examples

Can you imagine that you can learn a language /ust from

listening to someone talk0 Think of situations in which this

could be the case

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ome researchers claim that the most important thing is

to listen to the language in situations which are

meaningful to you and the rest will take care of itself.

These researchers belie!e that we ha!e an inner language

system that only has to be acti!ated through language

input. o the idea is that e*tensi!e listening and also

e*tensi!e reading will help language learners to de!elop

an inner language system step by step. 2atch this 3lm

e*tract to hear some theorists' arguments. Take notes

while you are watching the !ideo 4 you will need them

later for the worksheet.

References:

Chomsky Noam. 1959.