Which theoretical perspective asserts that humans are born with mental structures designed for language acquisition?

• A. Innatist
• B. Behaviorist
• C. Constructivist
• D. Connectionist

Answer: (A)

Humans are born with mental structures designed for language acquisition. This Innatist view, often linked to Chomsky, suggests there is an inborn language faculty—sometimes described as a language acquisition device—that provides a universal grammatical framework all languages draw from. Because children rapidly reach similar stages of grammar, even without explicit instruction, and can produce and understand sentences they’ve never heard before, this points to built-in knowledge guiding language development rather than learning language purely from experience.

Behaviorist accounts, which attribute language learning to imitation and reinforcement, struggle to explain how kids reliably acquire complex grammar they’ve not been directly taught or rewarded for. Constructivist approaches emphasize building knowledge through interaction and experience, but they don’t posit an innate, language-specific structure that uniquely steers grammatical development. Connectionist models, while showing how patterns can emerge from exposure in neural networks, describe learning without assuming a dedicated, language-specific innate module, focusing instead on statistical learning from input.