Chomsky's Question of Innateness and Language Acquisition Acceptance and Disapproval

Abstract

A whole new subdiscipline has developed in recent years called psycholinguistics . This can be seen as the intersection between psychology and linguistics. It has also some relation with logic and the philosophy of language . It links also with neurolinguistics ( the study of the neurological basis for language) . The above discipline tries to show the relation between throught , mind and language. The conception of the relationship of thought , language and speech is clearly a mentalistic one . A ccording to that conception , a person is regarded as having mind that is distinct from that person's body . Body and mind are seen as interacting with one another. In this work , we try to reflect the different views about Chomsky's belief that a sizeable part of early linguistic learning comes from an innately specified language ability in human beings , and that the role of the environment and the like effects is no more than activating this process of language acquisition . Also, Chomsky's other belief ( acquisition of even the barest rudiments of language is quite beyond the capacities of any other wise and intelligent ape ) will be criticized by psycholinguists owing to the obvious capacities of the trained chimpanzees to cope with some signs of language. More points are going to be discussed in the following pages beginning with "Chomsky and mentalism" and ending with some views that stand with or against the question of innateness