Chomsky is a firm believer that children are born with the ability to learn any human language. He claims that the children's early linguistic structures, which they use so well are already imprinted in the child's brain. Chomsky believes in a learning devise called a 'Language acquisition device' or a 'LAD' for short which he believes that every child has. The LAD consist of the major principles of a language and its grammatical structures. This means that children then only have to learn new vocabulary and add the 'syntactic' structures from the LAD to make sentences!
Chomsky points out that a child could not possibly learn a language just through using imitation, because most of the time adult language is often irregular; adult language can also be ungrammatical or broken-up.
Chomsky's theory applies to all languages, reason for this is because all languages contain nouns, verbs, consonants and vowels which a child eventually will acquire. All children become fluent in their native language withing five or six year, regardless of their intellectual ability.
B.F Skinner
Skinner proposed the idea that language depends largely on the environment; he was a behaviorist. He believed that language is acquired through, imitation, reinforcement, including association and conditioning. Skinner believed that children learn words by associating sounds with objects, events and actions. They also learn words and 'syntax' by imitating others. Adults allow children to learn words and syntax by reinforcing correct speech.
Arguments against this include:
* Children learn language even though an adult may not consistently correct their syntax.
* Children makes mistakes, such as overgeneralizing. I.e - 'I got Hitted' The use of the past tense suffix 'ed' to the word hit
