SAR SH 524 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Universal Grammar, Universal Property, Noam Chomsky
Document Summary
Chomsky"s theory: all language is innate and you just need a little exposure to it to acquire it. Communicative approaches to language and social interactionist approaches to development. Constructivist approaches to development in conjunction with cognitive and constitution-based approaches to grammar. Universal grammar, which contains the universal properties of language, is innate. language experience triggers innate knowledge and sets language-speci c parameters. Children acquire language because they want to communicate with others. Communicative interactions with others, not just language input, is crucial. Children"s social-cognitive abilities serve the language acquisition process. Language is a set of formulas for constructing utterances that operate over categories ranging in their level of abstraction. Knowledge of these formulas and the necessary linguistic abstractions emerge from the child"s pattern learning abilities in conjunction with their social cognitive understandings of speakers" intended meanings. Language is a system of patterns among smaller elements of sound or meaning.