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Ever since language and learning: afterthoughts on the Piaget-Chomsky debate
1Dipartimento di Scienze Cognitive, Istituto San Raffaele, Milano, Italy.
Cognition
|April 1, 1994
Summary
Recent findings in generative grammar and language acquisition support Noam Chomsky's "language specificity" thesis, refuting Jean Piaget's sensorimotor abstraction hypothesis. This validates Jerry Fodor's theories on conceptual systems and learning.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- The 1975 Piaget-Chomsky debate centered on the origins and nature of language acquisition.
- Jean Piaget proposed language develops from sensorimotor abstractions.
- Noam Chomsky advocated for an innate, language-specific faculty.
Purpose of the Study:
- To reconstruct the arguments from the 1975 Piaget-Chomsky debate.
- To evaluate recent evidence in light of the debate's core issues.
- To assess the validity of competing theories on language development.
Main Methods:
- Chronological and logical reconstruction of the 1975 debate.
- Analysis of recent developments in generative grammar.
- Examination of new data on language acquisition, including pronoun acquisition in congenitally deaf children.
Main Results:
- Recent data corroborate Chomsky's
Conclusions:
- Recent evidence supports Chomsky's nativist view of language.
- Piaget's hypothesis of language developing from sensorimotor schemata is refuted.
- Fodor's argument against learning as a transition between conceptual systems is supported.