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| Natalya O. |
Natalya Orzheklovskaya
ESL 91
Spring, 2000
Essay Topic: Describe the language acquisition theories of Noam Chomsky and B. F. Skinner. Then compare and contrast these theories.
Language has a very
important meaning for everyone. We express our feelings, thoughts, emotions,
and we communicate with each other through language. The necessity in language
communication appears from the first months of our life. When we grow up, our
language develops and improves. Psychologists, sociologists and linguists are
all very interested in what are the main factors of language development, and
how we acquire our native language skills. For example, the linguist Noam
Chomsky and the psychologist B.F. Skinner uncovered these themes in their
theories.
Noam Chomsky thought that
everybody has knowledge of the grammar of their native language from birth, and
nobody needs to learn the grammar specially because we are able to reproduce
the phrases in correct word order from our birth. Chomsky explained his theory
by children’s possibilities. It means that children produce correct word order,
when they start to produce phrases and simple sentences. They don’t need to
learn it and try to understand special explanations.
My son’s experience partly
supports Chomsky’s theory. My son started to create small sentences and phrases
when he was approximately one year and six months old. Those phrases and
sentences had correct word order according to the rules of our native Russian
language. Nobody had taught him specifically; he just produced it naturally.
But grammar does not only involve correct word order. I have to explain other
grammar aspect to him, and he learns these aspects through communication with
environment.
On the other hand the
psychologist B.F. Skinner is sure that children have to learn native language
grammar, and they get knowledge through the experience of communication.
Children learn the rules of their native language on the basis of what they
hear. In other words, they copy other people’s language.
The case of a girl named
Genie confirms his theory. Genie didn’t have possibility to learn her native
language in detail for a long time. Her social isolation continued from the age
of eighteen months to the age of thirteen years, so her resulting native
language skills were very poor.
Obviously, Chomsky’s and
Skinner’s theories are absolutely opposite. While Chomsky insists that people
have an inborn feeling of native language, Skinner is sure that they acquire
this feeling in the process of communication and cognition of language.
Therefore, Chomsky’s theory shows that our speech is reproduced automatically,
but Skinner’s theory demonstrates that it happens by replication.
Although we see different
views of one topic, we can conclude that both theories make valid points, and
that they complement each other. It means, successful language acquisition is
result from the knowledge of the grammar and the acquisition of the grammar
through communication with environment. We can’t develop our native language
skills without innate basis, and contrariwise, we can’t have only innate
knowledge without development through environment.
Scientific interest in the
topic of language acquisition shows its importance. What will help us to
improve our language possibilities? What period is most opportune for language acquisition?
Scientists have tried to give answers to these questions because language has a
very important role during all our life.