EDU 02 Psychology SEMINAR Noam Chomsky and his concepts.

concepts by Chomsky.

1. Noam Chomsky - Language Acquisition Device-Universal Grammar.

2. How do people learn a language? Do we learn language the way we learn everything? Or is there some special way our brains learn a language?

3. Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky ( born December 7, 1928) – American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic and political activist. “The father of modern linguistics” Awarded doctorate in 1955 for his theory of transformational grammar.

4. Noam Chomsky: A Revolutionary Figure in Linguistics Noam Chomsky's groundbreaking work in the mid-20th century transformed the field of linguistics, shifting focus from behaviorist explanations to cognitive ones. His theories challenged prevailing ideas, proposing that language is not merely learned through imitation but is an innate, biological capacity .

5. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE (LAD) Hypothetical tool hardwired in to the brain that helps children rapidly learn and understand language. According to Chomsky language acquisition is an innate process or function of the brain. He believed that children learn language because they possess the ability to acquire since birth. There are structures of the brain that control the interpretation and production of speech.

6. “ Children are born with a special biological brain mechanism to learn languages” Innate and inborn. All humans are born with an innate tendency to learn a language. This innate language specific ability that facilitates the acquisition of language in man is called the LAD. LAD processes and shapes the primary linguistic data received by the child from his surroundings. It enables him to acquire ideas about the rules of language as applied to one’s own language without even being aware of it. LAD is considered to be the seat of universal grammar shared by all human beings.

7. Unpacking the Language Acquisition Device (LAD): What Is It? Biological Endowment The LAD is a hypothetical module or faculty in the human brain, specifically dedicated to language processing. Innate Capacity It's believed to be an innate system, present from birth, pre-programmed with the fundamental rules of grammar. Input to Output The LAD takes raw linguistic input from the environment and, through its internal mechanisms, generates the grammatical rules of a specific language. Think of the LAD as a specialized "language processor" that makes sense of the sounds and words children hear, transforming them into a coherent grammatical system.

8. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR Chomsky developed LAD in 1950s, and since then, has moved to a greater theory called Universal Grammar. Despite many superficial differences found in the surface structure of different languages of the world, they have the same basic underlying grammatic structures and principles which he called as Universal Grammar. LAD contains knowledge of Universal Grammar. Humans are born with an innate, biological language faculty, a genetically determined ‘toolkit’ of fundamental linguistic principles that allows them to acquire language rapidly and efficiently.

9. GENERATIVE GRAMMAR A system of rules that can generate (produce) all possible grammatical sentences of a language. When a child is exposed to language, their mind uses the Universal Grammar (UG) to form an internal grammar system. This internal system allows them to not just repeat what they hear but also create new sentences they’ve never heard before.

10. The boy kick the ball The boy kicked the ball The ball was kicked by the boy.

11. DEEP STRUCTURE AND SURFACE STRUCTURE Deep structure – concepts , thoughts, ideas and feelings. Surface structure – words, language we use to represent deep structure. DEEP STRUCTURE SURFACE STRUCTURE UNDERLYING LAYER OF A SENTENCE, ABSTRACT OUTWARD LEVEL OF A SENTENCE,CONCRETE SEMANTIC MEANING SYNTACTIC/PHONOLOGICAL FORM PROVIDES BASIC MEANING STRUCTURE PROVIDES SPOKEN OR WRITTEN FORM UNIVERSAL DIFFERENT

12. TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE GRAMMAR Transformational grammar explains how one deep structure can be transformed into different surface structures. It connects meaning and expression. In short it is the rules that change sentence forms without changing meaning.

13. UG → provides the universal capacity. GG → describes the specific set of rules in each language. TG → shows how those rules transform sentences into different forms. All humans have the same UG. Each language applies UG differently, producing its own GG. Within GG, TG explains how we move from deep meaning to varied sentence forms. UG = The human brain’s natural language ability (common to all). GG = The grammar rules of a particular language (English, Hindi, etc.). TG = The transformations that give us different sentence forms (questions, negatives, passives).