PSYC 351 Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: Baby Sign Language, Noam Chomsky, Speech Perception
10 Dec 2013
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Document Summary
Productivity- the property of language that permits humans to produce and comprehend an infinite number of statements. Such languages are not simply passed through genetics. So, environment has to do with acquiring language! Variety aspect of language also indicate that a purely genetic explanation is not a good one. Support against purely nurture: children learn tough grammars without parents having to teach them. Noam chomsky proposed and challenged b. f skinner"s operant conditioning. Nativist theory- a theory of language development that stresses innate mechanisms separate from cognitive processes. Arguments against nurture: no rewards, punishments, imitation is not always of good models, productivity properly, rules we use in speaking or comprehending language are extremely complex but adults don"t really teach it to the kids. So, children must be born with special brain mechanisms, separate from other cognitive processes, that allow them to acquire language quickly and easily.
