The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is a claim from
language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and s ...
research proposed by
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
in the 1960s.
The LAD concept is a purported instinctive mental capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language. It is a component of the
nativist theory of language
Theory of language is a topic in philosophy of language and theoretical linguistics. It has the goal of answering the questions "What is language?"; "Why do languages have the properties they do?"; or "What is the origin of language?". In addition ...
. This theory asserts that humans are born with the instinct or "innate facility" for acquiring language. The main argument given in favor of the LAD was the argument from the
poverty of the stimulus
In linguistics, the poverty of the stimulus is the claim that children are not exposed to rich enough data within their linguistic environments to acquire every feature of their language without innate language-specific cognitive biases. Argumen ...
, which argues that unless children have significant innate knowledge of grammar, they would not be able to learn language as quickly as they do, given that they never have access to negative evidence and rarely receive direct instruction in their first language.
Critics say there is insufficient evidence from
neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...
and
language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and s ...
research to support the claim that people have a language acquisition device.
See also
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Nicaraguan sign language
References
Sources
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* {{Cite book, last1=VanPatten, first1=Bill, last2=Benati, first2=Allesandro G., title=Key Terms in Second Language Acquisition, publisher=Continuum, year=2010
Noam Chomsky
device