Noam Chomsky
History of Cognitive Psychology, Important People
By: Char’Lee Tubbs
Figure 1 (Rado, 2011), Figure 2 (“Behaviorism”,2008)
Noam Chomsky is seen as the father of modern linguistics,(Rado, 2011), but he is
truly much more than that. He is known and respected for his many years teaching at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his marked political activism, and for his
advances in the field of cognitive psychology (Crabtree,1999). Chomsky was born on
December 7th 1928 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania to Jewish immigrants, and between the
ages of two and twelve he was away from home- attending a boarding school which
adapted an experimental model of education. He attended the University of
Pennsylvania, receiving his B.A in 1949, his M.A in 1951 and his PhD in 1955 (“American
Linguist and Philosopher”,2012). He wrote his doctoral dissertation on syntactic
structures, namely studying the phenomena of “Transformational Analysis”, he later
expanded upon this research to form the revolutionary idea of “Transformational
Grammar”, a concept which forever changed the faces of both psychology and
linguistics (Crabtree,1999).
Chomsky was first published in 1957, when a set of his lecture notes were
combined under the name “Syntactic Structures”, this work brought him into the
limelight and caught the eye of many influential people in the field of Psychology, this
initial publication is what opened the door to one of his most life-changing opportunities
. In 1958 he was contacted to write a review of B.F Skinner’s book “Verbal Behavior”,
which had been released a year earlier. Skinner’s premise had its roots in strict
behaviorism- he theorized that children acquired language strictly by observing their
parents and others around them- that vocabulary and grammar were acquired only by
observation and imitation (Crabtree,1999). Chomsky rebutted this belief in his review- by
arguing that language is an “innate structure and function off the brain” (“Cognition
and Language Acquisition”, 2003).
Chomsky’s explanation of language acquisition cites four main components as
to why the behaviorist’s view (B.F. Skinner’s theory) was incorrect in its assumption that
language is only acquired by observation, the first being that there are an infinite
combination of words and sentences in every language, and that we as humans
become capable of making each and every one of them (“American Linguist and
Philosopher”, 2012). Chomsky brings to light the logistical impossibility of observing and
repeating each and every one of these combinations. It is simply impossible to hear or
read all of the sentence combinations that we come to use throughout our lifetime, so
we must be learning them another way.
The second supporting argument that Chomsky made, deals with the fact that
there are set stages of language acquisition seen and documented across all cultures,
all children follow a set pattern of when they are most open to acquiring different
languages, and exhibit the same patterns of learning words and grammar . Children
are most open to mastering language fluency between the ages of three and ten,
these critical years have been dubbed the “optimal learning stage” (Cognition and
Language Acquisition”, 2003). The idea of an “optimal learning stage” seems to tie into
the third point made by Chomsky, which brings up the fact that language acquisition
seems to happen organically. If children are around a language for any length of time
they will pick up the mannerisms (grammar rules, vocabulary, and syntactical structure)
of that language. Learning the language does not require prompting or special
attention from the parents or caregivers- it will happen automatically (Cognition and
Language Acquisition”, 2003).
One may argue that the children are acquiring the language during this stage
because they are simply being spoken to constantly, and that they are observing the
words being spoken around them, but this brings us to Chomsky’s fourth and final point ,
that children will seek to suss out the generalized grammar rules for a language, and on
words which are exceptions to the rule (such as the pluralization of goose as geese ,
instead of gooses),they will continue to follow the generally accepted trend and
continue to refer to them as geeses, peoples, deers- even though they observe people
referring to them by the correct names, and even when they are repeatedly corrected
This hints to an innate connection in the brain, wherein we learn and standardize our
speech to the underlying rules of the language, instead of just learning the
grammatically correct patterns (Cognition and Language Acquisition”, 2003). Chomsky
saw that children were learning the more sophisticated rules of the language (albeit an
over-generalized version)instead of just what was presented to them through speech,
and this revelation became a cornerstone for his research on transformational
grammar, and further involvement in the science of cognition (“American Linguist and
Philosopher”, 2012).
Language acquisition seems to be instantaneous in children during the optimal
learning stage – but after that, the introduction of a new language becomes more and
more difficult, and the older you get the harder it is to become completely fluent in
another language. Chomsky coupled these patterns and observations with the
different stages of neurological development to theorize the existence of a Language
Acquisition Device, which basically says that” language stems from brain structures and
neural wirings unique to humans” (Crabtree,1999). If you look at the physiology of the
brain, you see that during the optimal learning phase , (where children soak up
language like a sponge), the brain has the highest number of synaptic connections- we
know that only the connections which are used regularly are allowed to remain into
adult hood. If the synaptic connections for certain traits- such as foreign fluency,
musical pitch, etc. are not used- then they are destroyed (Carlson, 2010).
Chomsky’s observations, coupled with physiological evidence, completely
changed the way that we look at linguistics. Chomsky’s critique of Skinner’s work
helped break the stranglehold that behaviorism held as the dominate psychological
school of thought for nearly half a century. Chomsky’s work was (and continues to be)
instrumental to the cognitive revolution of psychology. Chomsky is still active in the fields
of linguistics and in the political community, but he retired from teaching at MIT in 2005
(Crabtree,1999). Chomsky is widely recognized for his contributions to the ChomskySchützenberger theorem, the Universal Grammar Theory, and The Chomsky Hierarchy
(Rado, 2011).
References
Carlson, N. R. (2010). Learning and Memory. Physiology of behavior (10th ed., pp. 440484). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Crabtree, E. (n.d.). Noam Chomsky Biography. Psychology History. Retrieved July 8,
2012, from http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/chomsky.htm
Noam Chomsky - American Linguist and Philosopher - Biography. (2012, July 8). The
European Graduate School - Media and Communication - Graduate &
Postgraduate Studies Program. Retrieved July 8, 2012, from
http://www.egs.edu/library/noam-chomsky/biography/
Noam Chomsky, Cognition, & Language Acquisition. (n.d.). Psychology History.
Retrieved July 8, 2012, from
www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2003/cogrev_chomsky.htm
Noam Chomsky, Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. (n.d.). chomsky.info : The Noam
Chomsky Website. Retrieved July 8, 2012, from
http://www.chomsky.info/bios/2001----02.htm
PSYCHOLOGY: H -Behaviorism. (2008, November 1). PSYCHOLOGY. Retrieved July 8,
2012, from http://psychology23.blogspot.com/2008/11/h-behaviorism.html
Rado, P. (2011, November 20). The Father of Modern Linguistics - Theory and Life |
Articles Web. Articles Web. Retrieved July 8, 2012, from
http://www.articlesweb.org/news/the-father-of-modern-linguistics