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the original system was not a real language, it is becoming closer and closer every year, showing
the development of a new language in modern times.
The linguist Noam Chomsky is a believer in the nature approach to language, arguing that human
brains contain a language acquisition device that includes a universal grammar that underlies all
human language (Chomsky, 1965, 1972). [20] According to this approach, each of the many
languages spoken around the world (there are between 6,000 and 8,000) is an individual example
of the same underlying set of procedures that are hardwired into human brains. Chomsky’s
account proposes that children are born with a knowledge of general rules of syntax that
determine how sentences are constructed.
Chomsky differentiates between the deep structure of an idea—how the idea is represented in the
fundamental universal grammar that is common to all languages, and the surface structure of the
idea—how it is expressed in any one language. Once we hear or express a thought in surface
structure, we generally forget exactly how it happened. At the end of a lecture, you will
remember a lot of the deep structure (i.e., the ideas expressed by the instructor), but you cannot
reproduce the surface structure (the exact words that the instructor used to communicate the
ideas).
Although there is general agreement among psychologists that babies are genetically
programmed to learn language, there is still debate about Chomsky’s idea that there is a universal
grammar that can account for all language learning. Evans and Levinson (2009) [21] surveyed the
world’s languages and found that none of the presumed underlying features of the language
acquisition device were entirely universal. In their search they found languages that did not have
noun or verb phrases, that did not have tenses (e.g., past, present, future), and even some that did
not have nouns or verbs at all, even though a basic assumption of a universal grammar is that all
languages should share these features.
Bilingualism and Cognitive Development
Although it is less common in the United States than in other countries,bilingualism (the ability
to speak two languages) is becoming more and more frequent in the modern world. Nearly one-
half of the world’s population, including 18% of U.S. citizens, grows up bilingual.