The s Theory On Language Acquisition Essay - 1365 Words

Every human being holds a set of inherent behaviors that enables them to thrive and evolve over time. Be it, anger, jealousy, or closing your eyes when exposed to extreme brightness, one of the most unique human instincts is language. Language is the system in which humans can communicate amongst each other, an incredible phenomenon, and yet for many years psychologists and scientists have yet to come up with one set theory as to how we acquire the languages we have. There are two fundamentally different theories on language acquisition that I will be presenting, the first by linguist Noam Chomsky and the second by psychologist B.F Skinner. To establish clarity, I am dividing my paper up to two parts. As stated before there are two basic theories on language acquisition that were developed by two different men. In the first half of my paper I will be discussing Noam Chomsky’s theory on language, I will then turn to Skinner’s theory on language acquisition, to examine it s strengths as well as weaknesses. Noam Chomsky is a skilled linguist; his studies concern themselves with the nature of foreign languages and techniques of communication. Born in 1928, Chomsky began studying linguistics at the age of sixteen at the University of Pennsylvania and soon enough became a significant figure in this field due to his many well written works on the matter. Chomsky introduced his theory on language acquisition in the publication of his first book, Syntactic Structures, publishedShow MoreRelatedVygotsky And Jean Piaget s Theories On Language Acquisition3023 Words   |  13 PagesWhen comparing the works of Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget, the simplest analogy would be nurture versus nature. 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