A conceptual basis of language acquisition from Pinker\u27s point of view

Že stoletja se jezikoslovci zanimajo za razvoj jezikov, ki jih danes govorimo. Slovnična pravila, ki so jih oblikovali strokovnjaki s področja jezikoslovja in seveda družba, omogočajo razumljivo in učinkovito medsebojno komunikacijo ljudi različnih etničnih skupin in skupnosti. Kljub temu pa se mnenja teoretikov razlikujejo oziroma si nasprotujejo. V diplomskem delu obravnavam teorijo Stevena Pinkerja, priznanega kanadsko-ameriškega psihologa in kognitivnega znanstvenika, ki se ukvarja predvsem z razvojem jezika pri otrocih. Njegov namen je začrtati različne vidike jezika in jezikovnih pravil. Njegovo raziskovanje je usmerjeno predvsem v impulze in kalkulacije, ki se pojavljajo v človeškem mišljenju, ko le-ta poskuša razumeti in doumeti različne dogodke ter jih posredovati okolici. V skladu z njegovo teorijo se jezik pri otroku instinktivno razvije na podlagi prirojenih osnovnih konceptov, kot so materija, čas, prostor in vzročnost. Z vsakodnevno komunikacijo se besedni zaklad neprestano spontano širi. Na podlagi posploševanja in uporabe pravil so otroci sposobni tvoriti neskončno število možnih kombinacij iz omejenega števila primerov, slišanih iz okolice. Pinker metaforično predstavi jezik kot okno, ki nam omogoča raziskovanje narave človeka, ki se odraža skozenj.For many decades language theorists and linguists have had a great interest in the development of the languages spoken today. Grammatical rules suggested by language experts and indeed society at large through the processes of standardization and codification enable people of a particular ethnic group or community to communicate with each other in an understandable and functional manner. However, there are many disagreements and contradictions among theories and theorists. In my paper I deal with the theory of Steven Pinker, a well known Canadian-American experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist, especially interested in language development in children. He aims to outline different aspects of language and its rules. His research is particularly dedicated to the impulses and calculations emerging in the human mind when it is trying to capture and comprehend different events and communicate them to the environment. He argues that language instinctively emerges in a child based on innate basic concepts such as substance, time, space and causality. The vocabulary becomes spontaneously extended through everyday communication. By following rule generalizations, children are capable of forming a countless number of possible word combinations out of the finite number of examples they have heard so far. Pinker introduces a metaphor for language as a window through which human nature manifests and can be explored