Psy 402 Topic 7 DQ 2

Psy 402 Topic 7 DQ 2 Chomsky’s theory on the evolution of language suggests that language is generative, meaning that humans have the ability to create a number of unique sequences. Do you agree or disagree with his theory? Give concrete examples from your readings to support your answer. Class, I do agree with Chomsky in the idea that language is degenerative. Language seems to be innate for humans as it is within the first months of a baby’s life that they make noises to receive maternal attention and even mock sounds and movements of their mouths that they see others doing. This behavior is similar for primates and other animals as they are seen to exhibit gestures as a form of communication early on in their life as well (Gazzaniga, Ivry, Mangun, 2009). With infants who are taught sign language it is proven that preverbal children can communicate with sign language as early as two moths old (Okyle, 2017). Although development of speech can be delayed due to lack of socialization, it is clear that children are constantly absorbing language as they grow, it seems as though over night a healthy infant who only knows a few words begins to know and use full sentences just from those who model the use of language around them. Thank you for reading! Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., Mangun, G. (2019). Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind. Fifth Edition. W.W. Norton and Company Okyle, C. (2017). Show Me a Sign, Baby! School Library Journal, 63(7), 34–36. Topic 7 DQ 2 Hello class, According to Lemetyinen (2012), Chomsky’s theory is known as “Universal Grammar”. Universal grammar “is considered to contain all the grammatical information needed to combine these categories, e.g. noun and verb, into phrases” (Lemetyinen, 2012, para 10). This means that Chomsky believed that children have the instinctive ability to know how to combine nouns and words into correct phrases with meaning. Personally, I disagree with this theory. I am leaning more towards Skinner’s theory of language acquisition. According to Lemetyinen (2012), Skinner believed that language is developed by means of environmental influence and reinforcement principles by associating words with meanings. For example, when a child says “ball” and the parent reacts positively and hands the child the ball, the child will associate the word ball with the ball, enhancing language development. Another reason I disagree with Chomsky’s theory is because of the variety of languages and their structure. How can a child innately know how to put a sentence together with verbs and nouns from birth without learning the rules of the language first? For example, English and Spanish use different places for verbs