My critical view about Chomsky’s First Language Acquisition theory

Chomsky’s First Language Acquisition theory was a controversial theory through the late sixties. After several studies his theory was quite accepted.Chomsky's research and influence on linguistics changed and modernized the discipline. For many years there has been a battle among linguists as to whether language acquisition is innate or learned. Chomsky argues that language acquisition is an innate structure, or function, of the human brain. 
Although it is known that there are structures of the brain that control the interpretation and production of speech, it was not clear as to how humans acquired language ability, both in its interpretive sense and its production. This is where Noam Chomsky made his contribution. 

             There are a few factors that Chomsky has used to support his theory of language acquisition. First, the child does not need a trigger to begin language acquisition, it happens on its own. The parent does not need to coax the child to speak, if he or she is around language production, the child will work to produce that language on its own. Several things may help the child develop faster, such as the parent producing baby talk, or being read to on a consistent basis. But these things only have a small effect, and if they are not done, the child will still eventually learn to speak without them. 

             Another factor found is that it does not matter if a child is corrected; he or she still grasp the language in the same manner and speak the same way. During one stage, a child will make things plural that are already plural. For example, a child will say geeses instead of geese. It does not matter how many times a child is corrected, the child still says geeses. In one documented case, a child, after being corrected several times by the mother to say feet instead of feets, looked at the mother, said "ohh," as if she understood and then proceeded to say feets. 

          Another important feature is that children go through stages of language acquisition in which they learn certain parts of the language. They all go through these stages approximately the same time, around the same age. A child in China will follow the same linguistic patterns of language acquisition as a child in the United States. It is with these observations, along with knowledge about neurological structures that control linguistic communication and interpretation that Chomsky argues that language is innately organized. 

According to Chomsky´s theory, Universal Grammar is constructed with a number of universal principles. One of the most significant principles is structure dependency. This principle states that every sentence in every language must have at least a subject and a verb. What distinguish one language from another are the parameters. For instance, one parameter in the LAD is head setting. For example, some languages such as English are head first; others such as Japanese are head last.

Several arguments have been used to support the existence of Universal Grammar. For example, Chomsky opposed Skinner’s theory of language acquisition. Skinner believes that the acquisition of a language is throughout the input children receive, which is positively or negatively reinforced. In response to that, Chomsky has proposed the poverty of stimulus arguments, stating that the input children receive cannot be the reason for the language children produce. For instance, how do children acquire a language when they don’t know what they can’t say?  How do they learn to speak correctly when the input they receive is sometimes incorrect? According to Chomsky, they do so through an innate capacity. Considering the previous debate, I believe that the only possible explanation is innateness. I strongly agree with Chomsky’s idea of universal grammar.

     To conclude, despite the strong arguments against Chomsky’s theory of language acquisition, I find his theory the most tenable one I have studied. I support innatism and its principles and parameters theory. Apart from the sound logical basis of the theory I have been able to witness the language acquisition process of my own children.  They were able to say words that they had never heard by the simple exposure to the language. Another reason to support this theory is that it has been proved that particular languages such as American Sign Language also have their own language structure which enables deaf children to acquire a language. Chomsky’s work about language is one of the most significant theories in the history of language.