Question

Read the following scenario and determine which perspective does this anecdotal evidence support most strongly?Although Angela does not speak French, she was able to translate an English sentence (that's her native language) into French. She used a French dictionary to translate the English words into French and then arranged them in the same order as she would arrange them in English. To her surprise, her French friend was able to understand the sentence, even though it did have some grammatical errors.A. LearningB. SocialC. GrammaticalD. Nativist

Answer 1

Answer: The correct answer is D. Nativist.

The nativist perspective is a theory proposed by Noam Chomsky which states that language is an innate faculty. This means that humans are born with a system of language rules and norms that predispose people toward understanding and producing any given languange. He called that predisposition, the "Universal grammar". He proposed that all human languages come from said universal grammar, and one of the causes that chomsky proposes for why this would be possible, is the fact that children have a facility to learn almost any tongue with ease.

In this particular case, Although angela does not speak french she is able to translate an English sentence into French, which shows that even without being familiar with a language, there is an innate predisposition towards understanding, and producing language.

The correct answer is D, Nativist.