Caretaker speech
It is common for mothers (less so for fathers) to conduct constant, simplified verbal interaction with their child, deliberately correcting the child's 'mistakes' in their replies. E.g. 'I drunked it.' 'You drank it, did you?'

It is debatable how important this 'motherese' is for the child's language development. Some cultures and some parents do not speak to the child in a simplified way, and some children are hardly spoken to at all by adults. There is no firm evidence that lack of exposure to 'motherese' will hinder the child's language development.

Do children learn by imitation?
The Wug Experiment shows that children do not simply imitate. Here is one wug. If another one arrives, there will be two ...

The ability to form a plural of words which have never been heard before shows how children identify rules in the language around them, and apply those rules in new contexts.

Chomsky's theory
Noam Chomsky, the great Twentieth Century American Linguist, argues that this can only be possible if we are all born with language's already deep structures coded within our brain. This deep structure is the same for all humans. The grammars of different languages are transformations into a surface representation of the same deep structure.

Note: Chomsky's theory suggests that only the grammar is innate. No modern linguists seriously suggest we are born with an innate vocabulary.

Chomskyan linguists argue that the similarities of languages all over the world is evidence that they are all versions of the same fundamental structure. For example, the subject > verb > object word order is extremely common.

Derek Bickerton has argued that Pidgins and Creole are even more remarkably similar in their grammars, and that they give us some insight into the structure of the Universal Grammar.

Can you think of any other explanations for the similarities between languages, and/or between Pidgins and Creoles?

The evidence from brain damage: Broca's Aphasia
'Mr Ford, could you tell me what you've been doing in hospital?'

'Yes, sure. Me go, er, uh, P.T. nine o'cot, speech ... two times ... read ...wr...ripe, er, rike, er, write ... practice ... get-ting better.'

Damage to Broca's area in the brain affects language production in very specific ways. Grammatical ability is impaired, though general intelligence and the ability to understand and recognise nouns, verbs and adjectives are unaffected. If Wernike's area is damaged, language comprehension (reading and listening) deteriorates, but language production (speaking and writing) is relatively unimpaired. Other areas of the brain are also believed to be involved, but their exact functions and relationships are still not clear.

Chomsky's theory of language acquisition
All children go through a Critical Learning Period in the first three years of their life. During this period, the child's Language Acquisition Device or LAD is active. It will be much more difficult for someone to acquire a language outside of the Critical Learning Period.

It is still very hypothetical as to how the Language Acquisition Device actually works, but the relative ease with which infants learn a language provides evidence for its existence.

Alternative views
Chomsky's views have become more and more accepted since they were proposed, and evidence is accumulating to support them. However, there is still argument over just what proportion of our language skill is instinctive and innate, and how much is learned from our environment. For instance, Michael Halliday takes an opposite view to Chomsky. He believes we are born with a 'meaning potential', but not a deep grammar. Grammar he believes, like our vocabulary, is entirely learned by the child.

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