A Dialectic And Materialistic Criticism Of Innateness Hypothesis

In Chomsky's Innateness Hypothesis, it is held that, in human brain, there is innate Universal Grammar which lies in one part of human brain called language acquisition device (LAD). Children's grammar is from the innate Universal Grammar instead of from the real language around them by induction or generalization. The real language around them is also necessary, but what role they play in children's language acquisition is no more than a trigger of the transformation from the innate Universal Grammar to their particular grammar.Chomsky's Innateness Hypothesis sounds unreasonable and even mystic. Then why does Chomsky put forward Innateness Hypothesis? In my view, three reasons can be stated as follows. Firstly, he fails to find out the realistic origin of grammar or he may have found out the realistic origin of grammar, but denies the possibility that children can learn grammar from real language. Secondly, he takes an isolated, static and one-sided view of children's language acquisition instead of taking it as a dialectical and developmental process, and therefore it is inevitable that he is puzzled about many phenomena arising in children's language acquisition and attributes them to the innateness of language, i.e. the innate Universal Grammar. Thirdly, Chomsky's theory is heavily influenced by the traditional western rationalism.This thesis centers on the three respects. Firstly, the prototype or the realistic origin of grammar is revealed in the process of the language formation, and also in the process of children's language acquisition. Secondly, the phenomena that puzzle Chomsky all the time in children's language acquisition are explained one by one based on the grounds that children's language acquisition is a dialectical and developmental process, thus the main arguments that Chomsky uses to support his Innateness Hypothesis are disproved. Thirdly, the deep ideological origin is found out of Chomsky's Innateness Hypothesis by tracing it back to the traditional western rationalism.