Name : Dewi Roosnitasari

NIM : 22113036

Class : B

Activity 1 – 2 The Critiquing: Chomsky's Nativist Theory

Noam Chomsky is an influential linguist that published a book called Syntactic

Structures in 1957, introducing the controversial idea that humans are born with an innate
understanding of language processes. Central to Chomsky's nativist theory is the idea that all
languages inherently have a universal grammar. The nativist theory proposes that instead of
memorizing a series of phrases and maxims, children understand language structures and rules
that they use to create their own word sequences. Children do not merely imitate language they
have learned, but they extend this knowledge to create new, unique sentences. Children will
sometimes, instead of "went," use words like "goed," which adults in their environment are not
saying.

The set of tools or capacity children are born with to acquire language is the language
acquisition device (LAD). The term language acquisition device was first used by American
linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf but was reinterpreted by Chomsky. In Chomsky's view, the LAD
includes a significant amount of innate proficiency. This inherent or native knowledge of
language is responsible for making sense of the language education children receive from other
people, such as their parents. In this theory, the LAD is made up of the knowledge of universal
grammar. The LAD is sometimes described as a hypothetical or pseudo "organ" that inherently
holds the capacity to learn language.

Critics to the nativist theory of language acquisition suggest that language is learned from
their environment and isn't innate. Another con to the nativist hypothesis is that not all languages
abide by the same rules and constraints and therefore question whether a universal grammar is
possible.