language acquisition device

{{short description|Theory that language learning is an instinctive mental capacity in infants}}

{{missing|evidence for and against|date=June 2021}}

{{Linguistics}}

The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is a claim from language acquisition research proposed by Noam Chomsky in the 1960s.{{cite book|last=Shatz|first=Marilyn|title=Blackwell Handbook of Language Development|date=2007|publisher=Wiley|isbn=9780470757833|editor-last=Hoff and Schatz|pages=1–15|chapter=On the development of the field of language development}} The LAD concept is a purported instinctive mental capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language. It is a component of the nativist theory of language. This theory asserts that humans are born with the instinct or "innate facility" for acquiring language. The main argument given in favor of the LAD was the argument from the poverty of the stimulus, which argues that unless children have significant innate knowledge of grammar, they would not be able to learn language as quickly as they do, given that they never have access to negative evidence and rarely receive direct instruction in their first language.{{sfn|VanPatten|Benati|2010|p=101}}

Critics say there is insufficient evidence from neuroscience and language acquisition research to support the claim that people have a language acquisition device.