Question

Fo you believe language meaning is innate? Explain your rationale

Answer 1

Language is a cognitive skill essential to human communication.Without language as a means of communication, life would be very different. In linguistics there has been a long standing debate as to whether language is innate or learnt. To this date, the nature versus nurture debate has proved controversial, with evidence supporting either side.

Children learn their native language with ease when they are young, though adults learn a second language with greater difficulty. As a result, linguists came to conclude that there might be something called a critical period in which your first language is learnt. Some children grow up bilingual and have two first languages. Some children however, have never been exposed to language at a young enough age

Despite the evidence for a naturalistic approach to language, behaviourist B.F. Skinner claims that language is learnt and not innate. Behaviourism observes human behaviours as a result of a response to a stimulus. It looks at language development as a type of imitation process