Theory

Chomsky's research and influence on linguistics changed and modernized the discipline. For many years there has been a battle between linguistics as to whether language acquisition is innate or learned. Chomsky argues that language acquisition is an innate structure, or function, of the human brain.

Although known that there are structures of the brain that control the interpretation and production of speech, it was not clear as to how humans acquired language ability, both in its interpretive sense and its production. This is where Noam Chomsky made his contribution.

There are a few factors that Chomsky has used to support his theory of language acquisition. First is that there is an optimal learning age. Between the ages 3 to 10 a child is the most likely to learn a language in its entirety and grasp fluency. After this age, it is hard and even considered impossible for the child to completely grasp the language. This is why school systems are criticized for teaching foreign languages in high school and not in elementary.

The second factor is that the child does not need a trigger to begin language acquisition, it happens on its own. The parent does not need to coax the child to speak, if it around language production, the child will work to produce that language on its own. Several things may help the child develop faster, such as the parent producing baby talk, or being read to on a consistent basis. But these things only have a small effect, and if they are not done, the child will still eventually learn to speak without them.

Another factor found was that it does not matter if a child is corrected, they still grasp the language in the same manner and speak the same way. During one stage, a child will make things plural that are already plural. For example, a child will say geeses instead of geese. It does not matter how many times a child is corrected, the child still says geeses. In one documented case, a child, after being corrected several times by the mother to say feet instead of feets, looked at the mother, said "ohh," as if she understood and then proceeded to say feets.

Another fact is that children go through stages of language acquisition in which they learn certain parts of the language. They all go through these stages at the same time, around the same age. A child in China, will follow the same linguistic patterns of language acquisition as a child in the United States. It is with these observations, along with knowledge about neurological structures that control linguistic communication and interpretation, that Chomsky argues that language is innately organized.