Positive and Negative Evidence in Language Learning

935 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: impact of Noam Chomsky on modern syntax

Grammar is traditionally subdivided into two areas of study – morphology and syntax. Morphology is the study of how words are formed out of smaller units, syntax studies the way in which phrases and sentences are structured out of words.
Traditional grammar describes the syntax of a language in terms of a taxonomy (classification). This approach is based on the assumption that phrases and sentences are built up of a series of constituents, each of which belongs to a specific grammatical category and serves a specific grammatical function. In contrast to the taxonomic approach, linguist Noam Chomsky developed a cognitive approach to the study of grammar in which the study of language is part of the wider study of cognition. The goal of the linguist in the cognitive approach is to determine what is it that enables native speakers to speak and understand the language fluently. Any native speaker of a language can be said to know the grammar of his/her language. Native speakers have grammatical competence in their native language – they have tacit (subconscious) knowledge of the grammar of their language, they know how to form and interpret words, phrases and sentences.
Chomsky has drawn a distinction between competence -- the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his language, and performance – the actual use of language in concrete situations. Every native speaker of a language makes occasional slips of the tongue or misinterprets something but this does not mean they do not know their native language, these are just performance errors attributable to various factors such as tiredness, drugs, external distractions and so on. The ultimate goal in studying competence is to characterise a mental state, the internalised linguistic system (I-l...

... middle of paper ...

...e two types of evidence which might be expected to be available to the language learner, positive and negative evidence. Positive evidence comprises a set of observed expressions illustrating a particular phenomenon. Negative evidence may be direct – comes from the correction of children’s errors by other speakers of the language, and indirect – the non-occurrence of certain types of structure. Since parameters are binary, the child does not need negative evidence from the nonoccurrence of certain types of structure, but rather can rely on positive evidence from the occurrence of such structures. This widely accepted claim that children use only positive evidence in language learning is known as the no negative-evidence hypothesis.

Works Cited

Radford, A. (2004) English Syntax: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ISBN 0 521 54275 8 (paperback)

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Marianne Geoff Recapturing The Mohawk Language

    480 Words  | 1 Pages

    To start, Mithun and Chafe give an important insight of the Mohawk language. In 1994 Jackendoff, a well known philosophy teacher, gave three fundamental arguments involving language, but I will only focus on mental grammar. Mental grammar, in brief, is the belief that our minds naturally and automatically carry knowledge

    Read More

  • Understanding Apgar Score and Piaget's Stages in Child Development

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    2)As a child progressively learns language they begin to label things in the world. In this stage a child will acquire grammar.

    Read More

  • Are There Synthetic A-Priori Propositions?

    848 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ven though the categories seem to vary, such differences are due only to differences in the "surface grammar" of language, the ways in which things are understood as meaningful. When asked why languages are structured in certain ways, some theorists claim that the brain and our neural networks form the "deep grammar" of what things mean.

    Read More

  • Wilson Follett's On The Need Of Some Grammar

    1186 Words  | 3 Pages

    3. Although conservatives advocate syntax, linguists say that we need morphology. Morphology is the most basic grammar which deals with

    Read More

  • Grammatical Processing in Language Learners

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    The keynote article “Grammatical processing in language learners” by Clahsen and Felser, aimed to compare the grammatical processing in adult native speakers, child first language learners, and adult second language learners (L2ers) (3). The authors examined works that observed the processing of morphology, ambiguous sentences, and syntactic dependencies before going into their general discussion in which they summarize the results and suggest the shallow structure hypothesis.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of The Language Bioprogram Hypothesis

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    Chomsky argued that the human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language. Since all human brains have these same sets, the assumption is that all languages have a shared underlying, universal grammar. “I think, yet the world thinks in me” is one of C...

    Read More

  • Phonology, Morpholology, Syntax And Pragmatics

    1371 Words  | 3 Pages

    Linguistic knowledge mainly consists of four parts, and they are Phonology, Morphology, Syntax and Pragmatics. Phonology forms systems and patterns, which allows speakers to produce sounds in order to make meaningful sentence. For example, nt always appears in the middle or at the end of the words but not at the beginning. Morphology studies how words are formed as well as their relationship to other words in the language you know, which allows you to know the internal structure and the category of the word. For example, “undesirability” has four morphemes: un + desire + able + ity. Syntax refers to rules that are used to form a sentence. We have some fixed rules to determine the structure of a sentence such as “S+V+O”. In order to attain the certain effect, however, the sentence structure can change. For example, “I cannot do this thing” can be changed into “Do this thing I cannot” to emphasis the degree of rejection by the word “cannot”. Pragmatics mainly concerned with the use of language in social contexts. For example, “Turn left and you will find the post

    Read More

  • Grammar Teaching By Hossein Nassaji And Sandra Fotos

    980 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article, “Current Developments in Research on the Teaching of Grammar” by Hossein Nassaji and Sandra Fotos two main issues had been discussed. The first one is whether grammar teaching make any differences to language learning where the questions raised are whether grammar should be taught or not. The second issue is what kinds of grammar teaching have been suggested to facilitate second language learning. If grammar should be taught, how much and should it be implicit or explicit grammar teaching? Lastly, the article discussed on the current approaches to grammar teaching in which formal instruction can be integrated with communicative activities which are processing instruction, interactional feedback, textual enhancement, task-based

    Read More

  • Noam Choomsky's Theory Of Language And Language Development

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    In linguist and psychologist Noam Chomsky’s Language and Mind, he asserts that a “universal grammar provides a highly restrictive schema to which any human language must conform” (55). The theory of universal grammar that Chomsky proposed states that the ability to comprehend and produce a language is already built in the human brain before birth. Even from an early age, children’s brain is programmed to constantly analyze grammar and syntax. To back up his claim, Chomsky elaborates on “the intrinsic structure of a language-acquisition device” (99). This device is a hypothetical instinctive system located in the cerebrum that permits children to develop language competence. Chomsky emphasizes that inborn mental biases in humans are often unconscious and uncontrollable. An example of these biases is seen when children learn by recognizing that labels refer to whole objects and not parts. In other words, when a parent points at a dog and repeats the word “dog” to his or her child, the child will automatically assume that the parent is referring to the entire object as a “dog” instead of just the dog’s head or tail. Another bias that is harbored is the assumption that labels represent whole classes of things and not just individual objects. What this means is that once a child learns to associate the word “dog” with the image of a dog, the child should be able to understand that every animal that barks is

    Read More

  • Prescriptivism In The English Language

    1003 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the course, the question of the validity of prescriptivism versus descriptivism has constantly come into question. Prescriptivism characterizes a specific pattern of linguistic habits within a language as “proper” or “correct”. From those habits, linguistics, professors, and usually the ruling class dictate rules surrounding the structure and usages of those habits. On the other hand, Descriptivism dictates language should be studied, approached, and taught as it is truly used. That includes the entirety of a language’s slang, unconcise ramblings, and fragmented, choppy subordinate clauses. The discord between the two theories of grammar have incited a serious of “do’s” and “don’ts” within the English language, such as using active

    Read More

  • Language and Brain

    1338 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this paper the writer is going to present an overview of the field of neurolinguistics which is the study of the mental faculties involved in the perception, production, and acquisition of language. In other words, the neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language.

    Read More

  • Grammar Teaching Case Study

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    Grammar teaching has an irreplaceable place in English language teaching because of the fact that without teaching grammar learners cannot learn the system of English language; they may not achieve to express their intentions or meaning of the messages in a well-established communicative activity. It has been seen that throughout the history, the attention of grammar teaching has differed from time to time. In the beginnings of the twentieth century, grammar teaching was considered so essential that other aspects of language were ignored as it was thought that it was necessary to know the grammatical rules in order to communicate appropriately.

    Read More

  • Three Main Theories of Child Language Acquisition

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are three main theories of child language acquisition; Cognitive Theory, Imitation and Positive Reinforcement, and Innateness of Certain Linguistic Features (Linguistics 201). All three theories offer a substantial amount of proof and experiments, but none of them have been proven entirely correct. The search for how children acquire their native language in such a short period of time has been studied for many centuries. In a changing world, it is difficult to pinpoint any definite specifics of language because of the diversity and modification throughout thousands of millions of years.

    Read More

  • Language Acquisition

    7590 Words  | 16 Pages

    Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.

    Read More

  • Difference Between Prescriptive And Descriptive Grammar

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    When grammar is put to use in a society, people will often have different beliefs at what is the "right" or "proper" usage. This had led to the formation of two widely accepted forms of grammar, Prescriptivism and Descriptivism. These forms will often separate those who believe their form of grammar is the only correct way from those who use many forms they find to be acceptable. Descriptive grammar is formed by analyzing how speakers use a language, and deducing the rules they follow. Linguists create descriptive grammars in order to understand language more deeply. They understand that a single language can have multiple dialects, and that each dialect will have its own grammatical rules--internally

    Read More

More about Positive and Negative Evidence in Language Learning

Open Document