Are children like computers when learning grammar? Inherently smart but needing a helping hand along the way? REBECCA SHERRY tackles the language acquisition debate

I don’t remember learning to talk, nor do I have siblings or have been around younger children to see the process to take place. However, I do know that my parents tell me my first word was ‘no’, and that sums up the answer to whether we in the field of linguistics have ended the ancient debate as to whether language acquisition is something innate in children, or whether it is all taught.

Since the early 1960s, the ‘innatist’ approach to child language acquisition has predominated; it is the belief that children don’t learn language – especially grammar –  like they learn how to tell time but “instead it is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains” (Pinker, 2003, p. 18). Theorists linked to this approach believe that children are pre-wired and have a language instinct, therefore when exposed to language it triggers this part of the brain and they absorb what they hear, therefore learning the grammar of their language.

Noam Chomsky’s idea of Universal Grammar (UG) influenced Pinker’s language instinct hypothesis. Effectively, UG is the “properties of language that are mentally represented by an internal linguistic system” (White, 2003, p. 2)  which claims that children are pre-wired to be able to master the grammar of their language. Evidence for this includes the phenomenon of overgeneralization whereby children produce logically correct but conventionally incorrect inflections on, for instance, irregular verbs – ‘I runned’, ‘Mummy buyed’, ‘sheeps’ etc. According to Chomsky, the language stimuli that children are exposed to would never include such inflections –  called the ‘poverty of stimulus’ – and therefore they must already have internalized system of grammatical rules.

Is the concept of UG dying out, and if so why is it as Max Planck one noted, “older scholars tend to hang on to the old ways” or is it just because its simply nonsense” (Ibbotson & Tomasello, 2016)?

Critics of this approach have proposed an alternative explanation for children’s seemingly effortless abilities to acquire grammar, often labelled as ‘social constructivism’. According to Rowland (2014, p. 128) constructivists “claim that children do not come equipped with innate knowledge of grammar”. They believe that children have broader innate cognitive skills, of which language is just a part, due to their social and cultural environment (Evans, 2014, p. 96-97). Unlike Chomsky’s viewpoint, children socialise as a desire to communicate rather than just absorbing language blankly like a sponge. This function in use approach is the driving force for this constructivism approach and two skill sets form the fundamental components of such – ‘intention-reading’ and ‘pattern-finding’.

Both components are otherwise known as a bottom-up approach, in which grammatical “categories and rules are built up gradually” (Rowland, 2014, p. 96) and where language is “facilitated by parents, […] and others” (Kaufman, 2004, p. 304). This idea showcases how constructivists rely heavily on the notion of the caregiver and their input, therefore prioritizing the language input over the idea of innateness.

Ibbotson and Tomasello, two key constructivists, argue strongly for this position. With utterances such as “can you open the door for me?” or any others expressed by a caregiver, the child would need to follow the attention of the speaker, an example of an allegedly innate intention-reading skill. Whether the child can guess the intention behind what the caregiver is doing “will have a strong effect on whether [the child] interprets what [the caregiver] says accurately and, ultimately, whether the child learns the correct meaning of the sentence” (Rowland, 2014, p. 101). Next will come pattern-finding where a child needs to move “beyond individual utterances […] and create abstract linguistic schemas” (Tomasello, 2012, p. 70). This proposes that the child will begin to put, for example, wants and the desired object together as a pair in a sentence such as ‘I want X’ or ‘Mummy needs X’. Such basic schemas are argued to assist with sentence construction in the language acquisition process.

Many academics and theorists in the near future will continue to debate whether one approach is more valuable than the other, rather than simplistically right or wrong.

REBECCA SHERRY, English Language undergraduate, University of Chester, UK

References

Evans, V. (2014). The language myth: Why language is not an instinct. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kaufman, D. (2004). Constructivist Issues in Language Learning and Teaching. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, p. 303-319. Cambridge University Press.

Ibbotson, P. and Tomasello, M. (2016, September 10). What’s universal grammar? Evidence rebuts Chomsky’s theory of language learning. Salon.

Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind (2nd ed). London: Penguin Books.

Rowland, C. (2014) Understanding Child Language Acquisition. London, Routledge.

White, L. (2003). Second language acquisition and universal grammar. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

 

 

One thought on “Are children like computers when learning grammar? Inherently smart but needing a helping hand along the way? REBECCA SHERRY tackles the language acquisition debate

  1. Jack Harrison-Jones says:

    I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog and felt that you gave a great summary of both sides of the debate. You made a valid overall point that there will be an everlasting debate on this subject. However, it is important that linguistics like you and me should still have our own say on the matter.

    Your title intrigued me “Are Children Like Computers When Learning Grammar?” With children improving their technological abilities every day, maybe the innate approach reveals how similar they may be!

    Chomsky’s Universal Grammar (1960) (UG) is definitely still a valid talking point. You mention “overgeneralisation” which I think is a perfect example of why UD should be considered. Have you looked at Berko Gleason’s “Wug” test (1958)? This is an interesting investigation in to children overgeneralising when presented with a novelty word such as Wug.

    I feel that social constructivism is an equally strong side of this debate. Clearly, social interaction is key in order for a child’s language abilities to advance. This relates to my own family as I have three younger siblings. My youngest brother is 10 years old, yet he is very well spoken and intelligent for his age. My parents insist that from their perspective, this is clearly due to the constant interaction with his older siblings. Do you think that if you had siblings, your own abilities might have progressed differently?

    Linking to this point, the study of the feral girl Genie demonstrates why social interaction plays a vital role in language abilities. After being locked away for 13 years since birth, Genie had not gained any language due to lack of interaction. Maybe this proves that language is not innate and requires interaction from birth?

    For me, language is possibly a combination of both innatism and constructivism. Not just either or. I feel that social interaction is needed for progression. Without this, children cannot advance similarly to Genie. However, factors such as overgeneralisation leave me wondering, why do children make mistakes like this? Maybe there is a “pre-wired ability” too.

    Thanks for an intriguing read Rebecca!

    References

    Berko, J. (1958). The child’s learning of English morphology. (pp. 150-177). United State of America: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Curtiss, S. Genie: a psycholinguistic study of a modern-day wild child. Academic Press, 2014.

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