Chomsky proposed that children are born with a specialized mental organ, the language acquisition device (LAD), which allows them to
a. understand any language that is spoken around them at birth.
b. speak any language fluently once they learn the pragmatics of the language.
c. compare the structure of the language they hear to the innate grammar they were born with and make appropriate modifications.
d. develop expertise in the form of the language that is spoken around them.
Question 2Universal grammar refers to
a. the basic speech abilities that most humans are born with.
b. the basic grammatical rules that typify all languages.
c. the nonverbal ways in which people from all cultures communicate with each another.
d. the basic sentence structures that ate common to all languages.
Question 3Lenneberg's position that language is based in biology, not in learning, was based on the ideas that language is all of the following except that
a. it is difficult to prevent.
b. it is species uniform
c. it develops in a regular sequence.
d. it is learned in the way that other abilities are learned.
Question 4Modern nativist theorists essentially propose that
a. language acquisition grows out of children's social interaction with others.
b. language is based in large part on children's developing social-cognitive abilities.
c. children possess a language instinct.
d. the first word a child raised in vocal isolation utters will be from the world's oldest language.
Question 5Proponents of _______ essentially argue that children are born with a broad theory of language that they modify in accordance with the speech they hear growing up.
a. the social-interactionist perspective c. neo-Piagetian theories
b. behavioralist theories d. nativist theories.
Question 6Most researchers today
a. do not take the empiricist position.
b. believe that grammar is acquired simply by conditioning.
c. believe that imitation plays a role in language development that behaviorists proposed.
d. do not acknowledge that a child's language environment is important for language acquisition.
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