Controversial Questions In Phonological Theory

First Language Acquisition

Discuss about the Controversial Questions in Phonological Theory.

Being a social animal, human being needed a means of communication through which his interactions within the group moves beyond the basic sound patterns that animals make to communicate with each other. Over the course of human development and the fight to evolve from animal into human beings, somewhere along the way humans acquired the intelligence to formulate and retain a set pattern of sounds that were passed on through the generations and became the basis for the modern languages that we see prevalent today. Language became this means of communication which helped humans in all spheres of life right from keeping them safe to helping mingling with each other. It is a complex system, highly governed by rules (Brown & ???, 2000). A definition of language as defined by Chomsky is:

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

In 1960s, Noam Chomsky gave a theory on First Language Acquisition which stated that the first language that a person learns is inherently stored in him and is innate to his nature. This involves an inherent knowledge of grammar also which later forms a basis for further language acquisition (Lenneberg, Chomsky & Marx, 1967).

Views of Noam Chomsky on language acquisition were something of a revolution in a stream of thinking which always believed that language learning is an acquired process and a child learns all the language he knows from the culture and environment in which he grows up.

First Language Acquisition – The learning of sounds, and words, meanings and constructions by children starting right after their birth (Clark, 2009). A number of theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon most well-read and accepted of which are Behaviourist theory, Mentalist theory (Innatism). Innatism refers to the theory proposed by Chomsky.

Behaviourist theory is a theory of native language learning that is more of a psychological theory stating that imitations, rewards and practice is the process by which infants learn language from human role models (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004). E.L.T. Thorndike was the first behaviourist to explore the fact that learning is the process establishing associations with a particular behaviour and the consequences of that behaviour.

Second Language Acquisition

Second Language Acquisition – Second Language Acquisition (SLA) refers to the process of learning a foreign, non-native language by a child after he has learnt his own mother tongue. The process of SLA is fraught with rules and restrictions and is believed to be more difficult than first language acquisition. SLA is a conscious effort made by an individual while FLA happens without much effort (Klein, 1986).

Being a conscious learning effort, SLA is influenced by personality as well as the motivation of the learner. There involves a great role of surroundings also to support that learning process and comes as a part of conscious effort on the part of learner as well as his peers. On the other hand, first language acquisition is more rapid, complete, natural and effortless. Non-practice of FLA for an extended period of time might lead to a diminished remembrance of it however it will not be wiped out from the memory completely as opposed to SLA (Hickey R., n.d.).

Profuse literature exists on Second Language Acquisition. For instance, Lightbown and Spada wrote “How Languages are Learned” to demonstrate the research findings and theoretical concepts about SLA (Lightbown, Spada, Ranta, & Rand, 1993). Different theories that explain second language acquisition include: Krashen’s Monitor theory, Cummin’s second language framework, McLaughlin’s attention processing model, Automaticity Model, Selinker’s Interlanguage theory.

The following diagram depicts the second language acquisition process as explained by Krashen’s Monitor theory. It shows how an adult graduates from an acquired system of language to learned form and finally converts it into uttered form of language.

Harris, a well-known US linguist, in 1982 proposed that a majority of language learning happens through structured relation of a word to other word and the social learning also plays a significant role in this (Harris, 1982, 1991). However, his student Chomsky in 1960s abandoned this structuralist approach towards language learning and brought in a new thought process that developed principles and parameters for the learning of grammar. Grammar as well as language development was no longer a learning based emergent system but rather became a rule-governed, top down system. (Gass & Mackey, 2013).

Chomsky likened language learning to walking. According to him, as a child has all the inherent mechanism required to walk, similar is the case with language which a child has basic mechanism to understand and only requires proper guidance and training to master. To corroborate his theory and to give further proof to the fact that language learning is inherent in an individual, Chomsky gave the concept of Universal Grammar as well as Critical Period Hypothesis. A glimpse of Chomsky’s views on Universal Grammar is seen in the following quote by him:

Behaviourist theory

It’s perfectly obvious that there is some genetic factor that distinguishes humans from other animals and that it is language-specific. The theory of that genetic component, whatever it turns out to be, is what is called universal grammar.

Universal Grammar – Chomsky noted that majority of human beings follow similar patterns while and rules when it comes to grammar. Based on this and the observation that there is a rapid pace of language and grammar learning by humans, Chomsky postulated that language is hard-wired into human brains (Tool Module, n.d.).

Universal grammar is an extension of the concept of Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that Chomsky proposed was present in human brain. This is the basic device that stores the universal grammar in itself and helps children learn and excel sentence formations and syntaxes.

Universal grammar defines how certain grammatical rules and parameters are same in case of all the languages and new language acquisition thus becomes easier because the governing rules are more or less set and only the specifics of a new language have to be learnt (Chomsky, 1965). The concept of universal grammar is also seen in the following statement made by Chomsky.

The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we may call the ‘creativity of language,’ that is, the speaker’s ability to produce new sentences, sentences that are immediately UNDERSTOOD by other speakers although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences which are ‘familiar’.

Here, Chomsky explains how even if a language is unfamiliar, due to universality of grammatical rules, it is not too difficult to understand these sentences.

Critical Period Hypothesis – According to this hypothesis, the first few years of an individual’s life are the most essential ones for him to learn a new language and if presented with adequate stimuli, the person can learn the given language very fast. It also states that the level of competence one acquires with a second language often depends upon the time period at which the learning is begun rather than the amount of time spent learning that language.

Recent experiments have found that Chomsky’s theory might have been factual and has truth to it. According to researcher Dr. David Poeppel, their experiments proved crucial aspects of Chomsky’s theory as unpopular as it might be (Ding, Melloni, Zhang, Tian & Poeppel, 2015).

As popular as Chomsky’s theories are, they are equally strongly and widely disputed also. It is difficult to accept that a child at the time of being born has certain concepts and understanding of language inherent in him. In contrast to what Chomsky believed, it is necessary to understand that language is something that a child learns through his surroundings and environment. An Australian child born and brought up in China will be able to speak Chinese more fluently than Australian English even though his genetic makeup is more inclined towards Australian environment.

Innatism and Chomsky’s theory

Conclusion

Chomsky claimed that the language is an inherent quality in a child and the further learning of language happens based on the innate knowledge (LAD) that the child has of language and its rules. The process of learning language is a process of repetitive learning and reinforcement of certain set parameters and rules through rewarding, punishment and frequent usage. Practice makes one of the most important part of learning anything and the same stands true for language also. Especially in the case of Second Language Acquisition, practice plays a major role in a person learning the language.

Language learning theories try to explain the process of both First Language learning as well as Second Language learning. A majority of these theories before Chomsky, believed in the learned nature of language and that language is an experiential effect learnt only after coming in contact with it. However, all these beliefs were challenged by Chomsky who challenged the philosophy followed by his tutor Harris and brought in the concept of parametric nature of language. He called it being hard-wired into human brain just like the knowledge of walking is. Chomsky also gave the concepts of Universal grammar which says that the linguistic grammar in usage across different cultures is fundamentally similar and is pre-coded in human brain in the form of a Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Another concept that Chomsky talked about was the Critical Period Hypothesis which states that the best period to learn any language is in the early childhood and the ease with which a language can be learned in one’s formative years cannot be repeated anytime else.

Chomsky might have affected the study and learning of linguistics and created a ripple in the complete system of learning language through his theories but he has had an equal number of dissenters too. The knowledge inherent in a child comes from his genetic makeup and for language there have not been any proven genes affecting it. Also, as mentioned earlier, a greater effect on the language learning is of the environment in which the child is growing rather than the type of language he has been programmed to learn.

References

Brown, H. D., & ???. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching.

Chomsky, N., & Halle, M. (1965). Some controversial questions in phonological theory. Journal of Linguistics, 1(02), 97-138.

Clark, E. V. (2009). First language acquisition. Cambridge University Press.

Ding, N., Melloni, L., Zhang, H., Tian, X., & Poeppel, D. (2016). Cortical tracking of hierarchical linguistic structures in connected speech. Nature Neuroscience, 19(1), 158-164.

Gass, S. M., & Mackey, A. (2013). The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition. Routledge.

Harris, Z. S. (1982). A grammar of English on mathematical principles. John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Harris, Z. (1991). Theory of language and information: a mathematical approach.

Hickey, R. (n.d.) First and second language acquisition: A brief comparison. English Linguistics. Campus Essen.

Klein, W. (1986). Second language acquisition. Cambridge University Press.

Krashen, S. (1981). Second language acquisition. Second Language Learning, 19-39.

Lenneberg, E. H., Chomsky, N., & Marx, O. (1967). Biological foundations of language (Vol. 68). New York: Wiley.

Lightbown, P. M., Spada, N., Ranta, L., & Rand, J. (1993). How languages are learned (Vol. 998). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B. (2004). The essentials of teaching children to read: What every teacher needs to know. Prentice Hall.

Tool Module: Chomsky’s universal Grammar (n.d.). Retrieved from https://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/outil_rouge06.html.