Learning Acquisition Device
By reference to the main theories of language development in children I will discuss the suggestion that all children are born with an innate language acquisition device without which speech would not be possible. ... Chomsky (1957) brought up the concept of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) which is a mechanism in our instincts which gives us the benefit of speech. His argument for this innate device is based on a number of key points. ... Other Evidence to prove an innate language acquisition device is the fact that children can learn language despite incomplete and frequently poor environmental input. ... An evolutionary factor is another point Chomsky makes in providing backup for the innate language acquisition device. This is due to the fact that humans are the only species on earth capable of learning language. ... A recent nativist thinker following on from Chomsky’s work is Slobin (1985) who also raised the issue of an innate learning device. ... A theory which argues against the innate theory is that of the learning theory and the workings of Skinner ( 1957). ... This differs from Chomsky’s view of innate language acquisition as Skinner makes the point that interaction on a big scale with the parent is required for a child to learn anything other than babbling. ... This seems to disprove the idea of innate language acquisition as the child has only copied what has been reinforced to it. ... He links the learning of sentences and sentence structure as being down to their parents speaking what he calls “ parentese”.