Explaining the Mystery of Language Acquisition
The fierce debate between the rationalist and the empiricist theorists on the issue of language acquisition has captured the imagination of the linguistic world for decades. Even though each group has produced results that contribute to the research on language acquisition, the complete process of language acquisition still remains a mystery. While the rationalists' concept of specific language mechanisms in the brain has prevailed for many years, new research by connectionist theorists has tilted the balance towards the empiricists' approach.
In this paper, the two competing approaches will be examined and compared in detail. Their application in children's discourse will be explored to assess their validity. Finally, the work by the connectionist theorists and the implications on the future of linguistic research in the area of first language acquisition will be discussed.
Comparing rationalist type and empiricist type theories in first language acquisition
First promulgated by Noam Chomsky (1965), the rationalist or the "inside-out" family of theories establishes the presence of unique brain mechanisms dedicated to the function of language acquisition. In this model, the children already possess tremendous linguistic knowledge. Only with innate linguistic knowledge can children possibly overcome the complexities of language acquisition (Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 1996, p. 18). Therefore, the environment does not play a prominent role in this theoretical approach. The existence of abstract language concepts that are absent from the surface of sentences makes it difficult for children to acquire language solely from the environment. Thus, according to the rationalist type theorists, children will not be able to acquire language without a pre-programmed language system within their brains (Chomsky, 1988, pp. 26-8).
In Chomsky's (1972) original conception, the mind of chil...