Jimena Rinaldi: First Language Acquisition

How come we acquire language, the most difficult thing in our life, at the age of five and

without any effort?

I strongly agree with Chomsky’s theory of innateness. Its main argument is that children are

creative with the language, so they do not learn it by imitation. Besides, Chomsky argues that

there must be a natural order to acquire the language in all human beings. Even though

language is a complex system, a child does not need to be formally taught to acquire it. Of

course it does not exist a way to prove how this “Black Box” works because there is

no technology to study the process that happens inside the mind; but the

theory has been proved by observing children acquiring their first Language.

Furthermore, it is very interesting to understand the arguments why Chomsky maintains the

existence of the Universal Grammar. We do not need extensive Input, just a few of it to trigger the

process because the things that are missing from the Input are added by the UG. As a result,

there can be many possible responses to only one stimulus (stimulus free). In other words,

Chomsky’s theory suggests:

The poverty of the stimulus argument:

In my opinion, this is the most engaging part of the Chapter because it explains Chomsky’s

theory in a deeper way. And it is interesting how Chomsky’s and Plato’s theories are

contrasted. Personally, I agree with Plato’s theory about previous lives, and I believe

Chomsky’s “black box” is part of our consciousness. Nowadays, scientists study memory

beyond death and the consciousness is being studied as an independent part of the brain, as if

it was part of the soul. However, I am aware that this is a very personal belief without any solid

scientific source.

To conclude, I think that there is no theory that can refuse Chomsky’s. Even though

there is no evidence on how U.G. works inside the brain, there are no doubts about all the

facts that have been studied about how humans acquire the language.

Jimena Rinaldi