Verbal Behavior

Running head : LANGUAGE ACQUISITION : NATURE OR NURTURE

Language acquisition : Nature or nurture

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30 May 2010

Language acquisition : Nature or nurture

During the late 1950s , psychologists differed on how language is acquired . Skinner argued that language acquisition is based on instrumental conditioning , while Chomsky stressed that people are born with an innate capacity for acquiring a language /s , also called nativism . This argues that language is acquired through both nature and nurture , because these two theories can help fully explain language acquisition , instead

of separately , although it is still unclear how much nature or nurture guides and impacts language acquisition

Language is acquired through both nature and nurture , because these two theories can fully explain language learning , instead of separately Chomsky 's examples and some studies on the brain and language acquisition prove that children acquire their first language through a "language faculty " which is a biologically independent system in the brain that "has an initial state which is genetically determined , like . the kidney , the circulatory system , and so on (Chomsky ,

.13 , cited in Knezek , 1997 . This is evident in how all humans , except , those with language problems , understand particular ambiguities of language in the same manner (Knezek , 1997 . Chomsky 's example is how children understand the meaning of a brown house ' across all cultures , referring to it as a house that is brown in the outside , and not inside (Knezek , 1997 This is remarkable because it shows how human beings make universal assumptions about...