Noam Chomsky Biography and contribution to Development Theory
Biography Summary
Noam Chomsky was born in 1928 in Philadelphia and grew to become one of the greatest names in developmental theory due to his influence in research in the field. His first encounter with linguistics was through his father, a renowned Hebrew scholar, after which his special education contributed immensely to his perspective on life. For instance, the progressive school he attended run by Temple University was pro creativity and prioritized this as learning progress above all other techniques. At 16 years, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, although he dropped out after two years. However, this was not the end of his journey in language development or education since a linguistic known as Zellig Harris invited him to explore other fields and undertake a graduate course.
Chomsky’s educational achievements included a B.A and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, although the unique program he attended at Harvard was more influential in what he achieved later in life. Due to his diverse perspectives, he did not quite fit in a single profession; hence his first Job offer was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Noam also acquired numerous honorary doctorate degrees and widespread acclaim in many disciplines. Chomsky was a force of change, having published over 70 books and more than 1000 articles in different fields such as politics, linguistics, cognitive sciences, and psychology (Barsky, 1998). As such, he was known as a linguist and an expert in foreign affairs, with some of his best contributions noted during his opposition against the American Military’s invasion in Afghanistan and Iraq. Later he would be known as the more significant inspiration for linguists and researchers due to his different outlook on language development and childhood experiences.
Chomsky’s Contribution to Developmental Theory.
Since publishing the syntactic structures in 19757, Noam Chomsky made an imprint on Developmental Theory through his description of operations used to form and transform sentences. Due to his education and practice background, Chomsky devised a new theory combining mathematics and linguistics into elaborating the process of learning language and the building blocks for communication. To further evaluate Chomsky’s contribution, various aspects of rules, constraints, structure, and language are essential compared to other linguists.
Regarding rules, Chomsky worked to discredit the Storage Bin theory that had been widely accepted as an explanation for how Children learned sentence structure. According to this theory, the learning process involved learning a fixed number of sentences, but Chomsky suggested that the process instead involved occasional creation of new ones. This highlights the existence of internal rules that enable us to determine which potential sentences are more likely to be grammatically correct and convey the intended message to the receiver. Therefore, the concept would explain the existence of sentences never heard of before but making sense to the involved parties. Alternatively, the rules of transforming the structure are complicated, and children’s ability to routinely make them indicate a high degree of developmental mastery.
Complexities are another aspect of the developmental theory that Chomsky directly contributed to by also considering the mastery of linguistic rules in a specific period. Children seem to master linguistic rules and procedures in the short term, although this does not reflect on grammar intricacies. These develop much later, followed by grammatical rules learned past six years at a more intricate level. This observation is based on the ability of children to learn first and even second languages from their immediate environments. Since even adults’ speech has errors, slips, false starts, and interrupted fragments, complexities can never be fully resolved, although structures may be easier to note.
According to Chomsky’s developmental theory, a structure mainly revived around the concepts of deep structure and surface. A deep structure is a structure on which we perform new operations to create sentences. As such, Chomsky’s definition of deep structure sufferers forms the flaw of lack of universality. For instance, the English language is based in a subject-verb-object word order, which subsequently influences its transformation much different from others like Japanese, which follow an alternative order of SOV. Although Chomsky did not directly study children, his references to their growth process and the linkages to developmental theory inspired other linguists’ studies. The vagueness and inconsistencies on his accounts facilitate a more profound curiosity and need for scholars to understand the building blocks of language.
Finally, when considering language as an integral part of developmental theory, observing the growth of mastery in children since birth is a foundation for inspired psychological research. Since Chomsky’s theory was based on the innate nature of language, then this meant that all humans were born with the capability to learn and assimilate it for communication. Specifically, when observing children’s growth since birth, one can note sensitivity to rhythm and pitch as initial indicators of understanding language. The subsequent steps from 1st and 2nd-word utterances then grammar development and transformation all occur between 3 and 6 years of a person’s life and progressively rather than all at once. The comparative adult grammar at 5 to 6 years involves more stabilized and understandable language. Language is considered a highly specialized language independent of other forms of cognition hence the basis of Chomsky’s contribution to developmental theory.
References
Barsky, R. F. (1998). Noam Chomsky: A life of dissent. MIT Press.
Crain, W. (2015). Theories of development: Concepts and applications: Concepts and applications. Psychology Press.