LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE

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LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE, short form LAD. In LINGUISTICS, a genetic mechanism for the acquisition of language proposed by Noam CHOMSKY (Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, 1965). LAD was ‘wired’ with language universals and equipped with a mechanism which allowed children to make increasingly complex guesses about what they hear around them, aided by an in-built evaluation measure that enabled them to select the best GRAMMAR consistent with the evidence. It has, however, proved difficult to specify and test this theory, and Chomsky has abandoned it in favour of parametric theory (Knowledge of Language, 1986), which suggests that children are preprogrammed with some universals but only partially ‘wired’ with others. They have advance knowledge of certain basic language options, but have to discover by experience which occur in the language they are exposed to. In Chomskyan terminology, they know the parameters along which language can vary, but have to fix their values, perhaps by setting a ‘switch’ in one of two possible positions. According to this theory, languages are similar at deep, even though on the surface they appear different.

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