Noam chomsky on Universal Grammar

1. NOAM CHOMSKY’S
THEORY
ON
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
MARA A. GABRIEL
Lecturer
Graduate Studies, Masters in Education,
Major in English Language Teaching
Panpacific University North Philippines
gabriel_mara24@yahoo.com

2. NOAM CHOMSKY
NOAM CHOMSKY IS ONE OF THE MOST
INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE FIELD OF
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION. HE HAS BEEN HUGELY
INFLUENTIAL IN THE FIELDS OF LINGUISTICS,
PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIND AND HUMAN
NATURE, AND POLITICS.
LINGUISTS IN THE CHOMSKYAN TRADITION
THINK OF THEMSELVES AS NATURAL SCIENCES
(NOT SOCIAL SCIENCES.)

3. NOAM CHOMSKY
HE BELONGS TO THE LINGUISTIC SCHOOL OF
THOUGHT KNOWN AS GENERATIVE LINGUISTICS.
HE IS ALSO THE PROPONENT OF NATIVIST THEORY
THAT IS INCORPORATED WITH THE LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION APPROACH AND THE LAD.
HE IS ALSO THE MOST IMPORTANT PROPONENT OF
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR(UG).

5. NOAM CHOMSKY CLAIMS THAT ALL
LANGUAGES HAVE A COMMON UNDERLYING
SYSTEM AND ALL HUMAN BEINGS INHERIT A
UNIVERSAL SET OF PRINCIPLES THAT
PROVIDE SLLS TO ACQUIRE L2 AS THEY
ACQUIRE THEIR NATIVE LANGUAGE WITH
THE HELP OF AN ACQUISITION DEVICE THAT
IS UG.
MUCH OF UNCONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF
GRAMMAR
( ABSTRACT LINGUISTIC SYSTEM )DOES NOT
NEED TO BE LEARNED
IN THE COURSE OF L1 ACQUISITION AS IT
DERIVES FROM UG.

6. A CHILD'S LINGUISTIC SYSTEM IS SHAPED TO A
SIGNIFICANT DEGREE BY THE UTTERANCES TO
WHICH THAT CHILD HAS BEEN EXPOSED.
THAT IS WHY A CHILD SPEAKS THE LANGUAGE
AND DIALECT OF HIS FAMILY AND COMMUNITY.
NONETHELESS, THERE ARE ASPECTS OF
THE LINGUISTIC SYSTEM ACQUIRED BY THE
CHILD THAT DO NOT DEPEND ON INPUT DATA IN
THIS WAY. SOME CASES OF THIS TYPE, IT
HAS BEEN ARGUED, REFLECT THE INFLUENCE
OF A GENETICALLY PRESPECIFIED BODY OF
KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HUMAN LANGUAGE. THE
TERM UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR -- COMMONLY
ABBREVIATED UG -- REFERS TO THIS “HARD-WIRED”
KNOWLEDGE.

7. DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY,
LINGUISTS WHO THEORIZED ABOUT THE HUMAN
ABILITY TO SPEAK DID SO FROM THE BEHAVIOURIST
PERSPECTIVE THAT PREVAILED AT THAT TIME. THEY
THEREFORE HELD THAT LANGUAGE LEARNING, LIKE
ANY OTHER KIND OF LEARNING, COULD BE EXPLAINED
BY A SUCCESSION OF TRIALS, ERRORS, AND REWARDS
FOR SUCCESS. IN OTHER WORDS, CHILDREN LEARNED
THEIR MOTHER TONGUE BY SIMPLE IMITATION,
LISTENING TO AND REPEATING WHAT ADULTS SAID.

8. Acquiring language
cannot be reduced to simply
developing an inventory of
responses to stimuli,
because every sentence that
anyone produces can be a
totally new combination of
words. When we speak, we
combine a finite number of
elements—the words of our
language—to create an
infinite number of larger
structures—sentences.

9. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR, THEN, CONSISTS OF A
SET OF UNCONSCIOUS CONSTRAINTS THAT
LET US DECIDE WHETHER A SENTENCE IS
CORRECTLY FORMED. THIS MENTAL
GRAMMAR IS NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME
FOR ALL LANGUAGES. BUT ACCORDING TO
CHOMSKYIAN THEORISTS, THE PROCESS BY
WHICH, IN ANY GIVEN LANGUAGE, CERTAIN
SENTENCES ARE PERCEIVED AS CORRECT
WHILE OTHERS ARE NOT, IS UNIVERSAL AND
INDEPENDENT OF MEANING.

10. Robert book reads the.
The grass eats the cow.

11. THINK OF THIS….
A pair of dice offers a useful metaphor to explain what
Chomsky means when he refers to universal grammar as a “set of
constraints”. Before we throw the pair of dice, we know that the
result will be a number from 2 to 12, but nobody would take a bet
on its being 3.143. Similarly, a newborn baby has the potential to
speak any of a number of languages, depending on what country
it is born in, but it will not just speak them any way it likes: it will
adopt certain preferred, innate structures. One way to describe
these structures would be that they are not things that babies and
children learn, but rather things that happen to them. Just as
babies naturally develop arms and not wings while they are still in
the womb, once they are born they naturally learn to speak, and
not to chirp or neigh.

12. IMPLICATIONS:
1. THERE IS NO NEED TO TEACH
PRINCIPLES BECAUSE THEY ARE
UNIVERSAL AND
EXIST IN ALL HUMAN LANGUAGES.
2. WE SHOULD DESIGN OPTIMUM INPUT
FOR TRIGGERING PARAMETERS.
3. THE TEACHING OF VOCABULARY
ITEMS WITH SPECIFICATIONS OF HOW
THEY CAN OCCUR IN GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURES IS IMPORTANT.

13. STRENGTHS:
1. CHILDREN RAPIDLY ACQUIRE NATIVE
SPEECH OR LANGUAGE WITHOUT
HAVING AN INTENSIVE LEARNING.
2. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR OFFERS A
SOLUTION TO THE POVERTY OF THE
STIMULUS PROBLEM BY MAKING CERTAIN
RESTRICTIONS UNIVERSAL
CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN
LANGUAGES. LANGUAGE LEARNERS ARE
CONSEQUENTLY NEVER TEMPTED TO
GENERALIZE IN AN ILLICIT FASHION.

14. WEAKNESS:
1. THE APPLICATION OF UG IN CLASSROOM
TEACHING IS
LIMITED BECAUSE IT IS CONCERNED WITH
THE ABSTRACT
MENTAL REPRESENTATION OF LANGUAGE
AND THE
COMPUTATIONAL MECHANISM
ASSOCIATED WITH IT, WHICH
ALL HUMAN BEINGS POSSESS, CALLED
COMPETENCE.

15. WEAKNESS:
2. THIS APPROACH TO GRAMMAR AFFECTS
THE NATURE OF
INTERLANGUAGE – THE KNOWLEDGE OF
THE SECOND
LANGUAGE IN THE LEARNER’S MIND.
THEIR SOURCE (OF
KNOWLEDGE) MIGHT BE PARTLY THE
LEARNERS ‘ L1,
PARTLY THEIR LEARNING STRATEGIES,
PARTLY OTHER SOURCES.

16. REFERENCES:
HTTP://WWW.IASJ.NET/IASJ?FUNC=FULLTEXT&AID=4499
HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/UNIVERSAL_GRAMMAR
HTTP://WWW.SOUTHERNCROSSREVIEW.ORG/9/CHOMSKY.HTM
HTTP://THEBRAIN.MCGILL.CA/FLASH/CAPSULES/OUTIL_ROU
GE06.HTML

18. NOAM CHOMSKY’S
THEORY
ON
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR