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Learnability

Learnability

Date: Jul 23 2010

Topic: Grammar

Author: Ocean-SA

Lesson

Chomsky said, Human beings are born with an innate ability and knowledge to acquire language, He suggested that Children learning their L1 must rely on this innate knowledge. ((common sense Smile))

He farther argued that the input that children are exposed to are  insufficient to enable them to  discover the rules of the language .. this is referred to as the Poverty of Stimulus.

For an example:
Same kicked (fiercely) his toy car
English doesn't permit (an Adverb) comes between A Verb and A Direct Object..

Input consist of (positive evidence- indicate what is grammatical) and (Negative evidence- indicate what is ungrammatical) .. but Children do not receive the Negative Evidence…because its unlikely that the parents would correct or reinforce their  children's grammar while Learners do.

** Than how do children learn the full grammar of their mother tongue  when the info they need aren't available in the input?

-Chomsky explained that children need a prior knowledge which also refereed to as (Language Acquisition Device) to know what is grammatically possible and what is not.

Comments

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kurtz.houce

Algeria

Thank you for this precious explanation Ocean!!! I would actually like to know if an EFL  learner needs to "focus" on Negative evidence when learning a completly new language for a communicative purpose? I mean; I've had many problems in teaching adults because in the course of learning, my trainess tend to make what I used to call "fragmented speaking" and this, I think, is due to accuracy concern! 

Cheers

10:49 PM Mar 20 2011 |

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