Universal Grammar Theory

A. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Universal Grammar Theory

Noam Chomsky is the main proponent of Universal Grammar Theory, a theory that claims language is innate – every human is born with a set of rules about language in our heads. According to Chomsky (1976), there is a 'system of principles, conditions, and rules that are elements or properties of all human language.’ The universal grammar serves as an underlying basis that explains the origin of human languages.

He also introduced the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) which forms his language acquisition theory (Chomsky, 1957). This LAD is a system of principles that children are born with that enable them to learn language, and explain the order in which children learn structures, and the mistakes they make as they learn (Cook, 1988).

Figure 1: Universal Grammar Theory Model

Figure 1: The Universal Grammar Theory Model (Chomsky, 1957)

The language acquisition device is also referred to as universal grammar (UG). The LAD takes in the input that comprises of sentences of the language and produces the output in the form of mental grammar of the language (Parilah et al, 2010) . This device is likened to a "black box" in the brain that enables a child to identify when a language is being spoken. This LAD “ is viewed to possess all the principles which are universal to all human languages” (Bruner, 1983). This is illustrated in figure 2 below.

This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of Chomsky’s Universal Grammar Theory as well as the role it plays in language teaching, especially for language teachers. For Universal Grammar Theory, its strengths are as follow; firstly, UG is able to explain how children acquire language at a very young age even though they are not given enough exposure to the language; secondly, it explains how novel and infinite number of sentences can be generated through the...