nativism VS behaviourism

what is nativism (Chomsky)

• language is innate

• children have an LAD (language acquisition device) which contains innate grammatical rules

• HE DID NOT CARRY OUT ANY INVESTIGATION

• he says Skinners ideas are ‘complete balderdash’ otherwise why do children say things they’ve never heard before

what study supports nativism

the wug test- Berko

• shows children can apply innate grammatical rules to anything

• showed children pictures of something supposedly called a ‘wug’ and found eventhough children don’t know that word they can still use it grammatically → they also did it with verbs and adjectives too

what other ideas support nativism

• all children seem to go through the same stages despite their individual upbringing

• a child will continue to make virtuous errors (errors which use grammatical rules that are normally correct) despite correction

what is behaviourism (Skinner)

• children learn language by imitating adults and then receiving positive and negative reinforcements

what study support behaviourism

Skinners pigeons

• pigeons were told to turn and peck and they learnt how to do these behaviours using positive reinforcement (food rewards)

what other ideas support behaviourism

• Bard and Sachs- Jim the hearing child with dead parents only learnt language through TV and was found to not be picking it up at the same right as others

• Lenneberg- CPH (critical period hypothesis) suggests that if a child isn’t subjected to language by 2/3 then they will never fully acquire it → Genie- abused child who was exposed to little language was discovered at 13 and had no verbal skills