TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction...... 3 2. Development of the Mentalist view.... 3 2.1 The notion and development of Language Acquisition Device.... 3 2.2. Universal Grammar (UG)......... 4 2.3. The Role of LAD in the language acquisition ............. 5 2.4. Competence and Performance ................. 5 3. Supporting evidence for Mentalist Theory.. 6 4. Counter arguments on Mentalist Theory .... 8 5. Conclusion.......... 9 References............................... 11 3
INTRODUCTION In the late fifties, there have been very fundamental developments in the language-learning field. The belief that is strongly held that language, like all human behaviors, is acquired through a stimulus-reaction (or more recently reaction-stimulus) chain had entrenched in the minds of many linguists. By describing linguistic principles as verbal behavior, or as habits, behaviorists applied the other human learning principles to the human speech (Stern, 1991, p. 293). It was not until 1959 that people started strongly criticizing this behaviorist view and questioning if it really was responsible for language acquisition on the whole. Chomsky (1959) objected to the results of works by Skinner, who claimed the behaviorist derivations drawing on animal experiments conformed to all living species and actions like speech, and he rejected that language is unique amongst other human actions and the concepts of a behaviorist approach is inadequate to account for language behavior. Chomskys attack on the behaviorist view gave birth to many theories and fruitful data. From then on, many linguists and psychologists both expanded and promoted their ideas. A neuropsychologist Eric Lenneberg (1967) asserted that language is species specific and the language oriented behaviors are innately and biologically determined (Brown, 2006). So, the view of Chomsky and his followers has been widely named as Mentalist Theory, Nativism, Innateness Position or Rationalist Position (Demirezen, 1989). Because the theory itself mainly originated from Noam Chomskys view of the first language and how one come to acquire a language, it has rarely been dealt with in foreign language learning (in this case, acquisition).
Comment [LG1]: tense Comment [I2]: Comment [LG3]: tense Comment [LG4]: no the Comment [LG5]: Great introduction! 4
2. DEVELOPMENT OF THE MENTALIST VIEW 2.1. Universal Grammar (UG) Chomsky later named language acquisition device as the Universal Grammar; which meant that all the main and common rules of the concept of language are innately inherited as a species-specific endowment and with the help of peripheral induction of the new vocabulary and grammatical utterances, children pick up and test their hypotheses (Brown, 2006, p. 29). The Universal Grammar concept contained a couple of new ideas and theories which later evolved; - Generative Grammar (cited in Chomsky, 1957), - Aspects Model (the introduction of competence/performance), - Government Binding Theory (claiming all grammars have common and limited ways to vary), - Principles and Parameters Theory (P&P)- to be defined below, - Minimalist Program. (Cook, 2007, p. 3) 2.2. The Role of LAD in the language acquisition Chomsky often embodied his theories in examples from conventional speech. The hypothetical language acquisition device often faces utterances finite in amount, restricted in scope and degenerate in quality (Chomsky, 1965, p. 31). In his own words, the LAD must be capable of utilizing primary linguistic data (raw speech) as the empirical basis for language learning search through the set of possible hypotheses Comment [LG6]: Which needs a comma. That does not. Comment [LG7]: Word choice 5
select grammars that are compatible with the primary linguistic data, interpret the data. (Chomsky, 1965, p. 32)
Input (Primary linguistic data) Output (a generative grammar) Figure-1 Function of the language acquisition device (Cook, 2007, p. 53) As clearly stated by Noam Chomsky, according to the nativist view; the device considered to underlie the language acquisition, has a fundamental role in constructing hypotheses, interpreting and thus denying and practicing them. 2.3. Principles and parameters theory According to the principles and parameters approach to syntax, there is a set of universal principles shared by every human language, and that these are known by all human beings. Knowledge of a particular language, then, consists of knowledge of the settings of a finite number of parameters, which define exactly how the universal principles need applying to construct grammatical sentences. If the parameters -according to which languages may- vary could all be found, and a given human language could be completely described by the values it assigns to each parameter; it would be the only human language with the parameters set in that way. To set this in example, one of the most important principles can be the locality principle, which suggests that the element that is moved within the sentence (as in wh- questions) cannot be too far from the sentence from which it originates (Cook, 2007, p.36). This principle is common to all languages and such principles are the basis of universal grammar, which all humans are endowed with. Knowing the finite number parameters will then be enough to fully know the grammar of the target language.
LAD Comment [LG8]: Confusing wording Comment [LG9]: is 6
2.4. Competence and Performance A very popular notion having arisen from the mentalist view is the distinction between competence and performance. Chomsky refers to competence as the the speaker-hearers knowledge about his language (1965, p. 4). According to Chomsky, the main problem of the learner is the ability to put the underlying system of rules mastered into real practice; to which Chomsky refers to as performance; the actual use of language in concrete situations. (1965, p. 4) 3. SUPPORTING EVIDENCE FOR MENTALIST THEORY There have been many linguists who give out ideas on behalf of the nativist theory. Lenneberg (1967), who is one of them, expressed his idea that language, as far as its origin is concerned, is an inborn system and age plays an important role on account of the assumption that receptiveness of the acquisition system span is short and that language acquisition after a certain age cannot be fully native like. Lenneberg defines the language acquisition age as 16, which coincides with the time at which the human brain attains its final state of maturity in terms of structure, function, and biochemistry (1969, p. 639). This hypothesis of Lennebergs has come to be accepted as a biological basis of for the mentalist position (Brown, 2000, p.19). This has often been based on some cases of castaway children, found in puberty and rehabilitated, but never made to speak. Among them, Genie is the most popular one. She was found in California, America in 1970 when she was at the age of thirteen. She was isolated, deprived and maybe abused. Nobody had talked to her and consequently she didnt have a language. After she was founded, a research team was assigned and monitored her language acquisition process, only to find out that she couldnt do it although her semantic and cognitive advanced normally. The mentalist view saw the case as a proof for the innate abilities and that when Comment [LG10]: found Comment [LG11]: define what exactly it is 7
the language acquisition device is not triggered, the natural and maturational process of language learning cannot be achieved (Brown, 2000, p. 19). All the healthy children learn comparable grammars of great complexity with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this. (Chomsky, 1959) Mentalists take it as a proof that all human beings have the capacity to acquire the language if he has the opportunity to be engrossed in the rules and grammar of it. Social environment and scaffolding has barely impact during the acquisition process on what structures to adopt and which ones to dismiss. It is because the child only needs the environment in which he can test his abilities and hypotheses. It may sound too assertive to say, but it is claimed that the child has a innate theory of potential structural descriptions that is sufficiently rich and fully developed (Chomsky, 1965, p. 32) It is referred as hypotheses testing in language acquisition. People immigrating to other countries always prove successful in their unconscious attempt to acquire the language. The abundance of exposure to the target language then triggers the LAD and the rules are inductively learnt or acquired by the person. It is a similar case to a child learning a language in a new environment. However, it is not always the case. Generally immigrated parents can not acquire language the way their children can because of the loss of brain plasticity (lateralization). The complex nature of the everyday speech cannot be directly linked to behaviorist habit formation process as there are too many, too complex and too long sentences, which require a capacity far beyond the formal education of the language. Even if deaf children who are born into hearing parents can learn sign language, a state that behaviorist view would not suffice to explain. The research carried out by Newport (1990) Comment [LG12]: confusing wording. Would probably be better to make this into two sentneces. Comment [LG13]: wording Comment [LG14]: Always? Comment [LG15]: cannot Comment [LG16]: Confusing wording. Reads more like a fragment than a complete sentence. 8
proved that the critical period hypothesis is responsible for acquiring any kind of language. The participants were native signers (deaf from birth), early learners and late learners; and the task was the use of grammatical markers. The results conformed to previous researches carried out on spoken language (Snow and Hoefnagel-Hhle 1978, Johnson and Newport 1989) and demonstrated that the language is somewhat excluded from perceptions and other cognitive features of the human being and developed independently. 4. OPPOSNG ARGUMENTS ABOUT MENTALIST THEORY Most of the points the assumptions thought to be a basis and evidence for the mentalist theory in the sixties became targets of serious criticism (Bohannon and Bonvillian, 1997: 276). 1. The radical idea that language is a fully inborn ability and that linguistic development of the human being takes only time and input loses its credibility at times. According to nativists, a person learning a language is all alone in the learning process. The only contribution of the environment is to provide primary linguistic data (Cook, 2007, p. 53) and all the remaining job of learning falls on the shoulders of the kid. However, almost all the children who are acquiring acquire a language with the help of peers or adults. The social environment and the well-established idea of a biological aid cannot be divorced. (Demirezen, 1989) 2. The mentalist theory cannot fully account for the question how much language exposure is needed to trigger the linguistic patterns and rules in the target language. 3. The mentalist theory often seems experimental and gives too much value to observable things. The studies always concentrated on the grammar and innateness. Therefore, the 9
balance between environmental influences and biological growth was still unclear (Stern, 1991, p. 302). 4. Now that any child can build the language of any complexity and abstractness, with sufficient input and without much social assistance, any kid watching television must acquire the language, which is contrary to the real case. Sachs, Bard, and Johnson (1981) reported on a deaf couple with two hearing children from Connecticut. The children were not taught spoken language and with the absence of the spoken input, apart from the only one, television; they communicated using the sign language. When the older one, Jim attended the school, it was understood that the boy had very little capacity to comprehend and produce spoken language. His mean length of utterance was only 2.92, way below normal expectations. After a few months of nursery school and speech language therapy, speech of a normal child emerged (cited by Bohannon and Bonvillian, 1997, p. 278). This case highly contradicts and refutes the Genies example and suggests that in the language learning process, there are no certain lines. 5. CONCLUSION According to Mentalist Theory, language develops unlike any other mechanism in the human body and psychology. Chomsky asserts that an infant has an innate theory of potential structural descriptions that is sufficiently rich and fully developed so that he is able to determine [] which structural descriptions may be appropriate to a signal, and also he is able to do this in part in advance of any assumption as to the linguistic structure of this signal. (1965, p. 32). As for the behaviorist view; language, like all human behaviors , is a learnt behavior through stimuli-response bonds, reinforcement, overgeneralization and drills. The findings from the researches on human behaviors were coming from very formal animal Comment [LG17]: Great examples and really good interpretation of the examples. 10
experiments and generalized to human language. This procedure reached its peak in 1957, when B.F. Skinner published his heavily controversial book titled Verbal Behavior, to be criticized by linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomskys reaction to behaviorist claims had some positive effect. It drew the focus of the linguistic studies from the animal experiments to the observation and investigation of the child language acquisition. Nevertheless, what attracted as much objection as the behaviorist theory was that the role of social environment was neglected and theories intensified on the syntactic problems thereafter. The notion of language acquisition device has given linguists fresh insights into the nature of the language acquisition. However, a mentalist view cannot account for the first or second language learning process all by itself. Especially in language learning issue, without any adequate drilling [] and reinforcement [] nothing can be achieved. (Demirezen, 1989, pp. 158) It seems quite clear that the behaviorism is too empirical and deals with surface structures, while mentalism is too theoretical and busy with deep structures. A really great paper. Very well researched and written. Your formatting is close to perfect. You have a few grammatical and word choice errors that didnt interfere with the meaning of your sentences, but did cause me to have to re-read the sentence to ensure I understood your meaning. Really excellent work! Grade: 49/50
Formatted: Normal, Left, Line spacing: single Formatted: Font: Calibri, Italic 11
References Bohannon, J. & Bonvillian, J. (1997). Theoretical approaches to language acquisition. In Berko, G. J. (Ed). The development of language (pp. 259-316, 4th ed). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Brown, D. H. 2000. Principles of language learning and teaching, 4 th edition. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Brown, D. H. 2006. Principles of language learning and teaching, 5 th edition. New York: Pearson Eduction, Inc. Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of theory of the syntax. Cambridge: MIT Press. Chomsky, N. 1959. A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, Language, 35 (1): 26- 58. Cook, V. 2007. Chomskys universal grammar: An introduction, Hong Kong: Blackwell Publishing. 12
Demirezen, M. 1989. Mentalistic theory and language learning. Hacettepe niversitesi Eitim Fakltesi Dergisi, 2, 153-160. Lennenberg, E. H. 1967. The Biological foundations of language. New York: JohnWiley and Sons. Lennenberg, E. H. 1969. On Explaining Language, Science, Vol. 164, No. 3880, pp. 635- 643 Newport, E.L. 1990. Maturational constraints on language learning. Cognitive Science, 14, pp. 11-28. Stern, H.H. 1983. Fundamental concepts of language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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