This paper, contrasts social conventions with individual psychology, has a means of explaining the nature of human language. It will also take a closer look at controversies regarding the nature of language and the debate of psychology over structuralism.
Noam Chomsky has already established first language acquisition as an innate human ability. In his opinion language is part of the individual and therefore a result of natural human biology development. However, in Fernand de Saussure’s opinion language is not only part of a social construct by it is controlled by social conventions. The aim of this paper is to compare and to contrast, Chomsky and Saussure’s ideologies. I will start by presenting Saussure notions regarding language and its nature. Thereafter I will contrast Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky theories. Overall, I hope to give evidence that supports Chomsky notions of language acquisition, showing that language cannot originate outside the human mind, because it is a property of the individual mind/brain. language “la langue” as a social convention
According to Saussure (cited in Baskin, 1959), mankind is born with a “faculty of constructing a language, i.e., a system of distinct signs corresponding to distinct ideas (p. 10).” The signifier which corresponds to the concept and the signified which corresponds to a sound image of the concept. Saussure (cited in Baskin, 1959) referred to this correspondence as a two-sided psychological entity, a sign.