Fathers’ Involvement with Their Infants

My name is Chia-Jung (Ruby) Yeh, a doctoral student majoring in Early Childhood Development & Education at Texas Woman’s University. I have proposed a study to explore the phenomenon of father involvement cross different countries and further investigate what factors could impact the father involvement with their infants. The study title is “A Cross Country Exploration Pilot Study of the Multiple Predictors of Fathers’ Involvement with Their Infants.” It is an online study. We are looking for volunteer fathers in the U.S. who have infants under age two to fill out the online survey. The consent forms and questionnaires will be Pop out after you log in the following IP website. (https://www.psychdata.com/s.asp?SID=152831 ) If you know any father who has infants under age two in the U.S., please forward the e-mail or flyer to them. If you are father who has baby younger than 2 years old, please fill out the online survey for me. I appreciate your participation. Thank you so much again. Sincerely, Chia Jung Yeh (Ruby)

Reflection of Chomsky's Theory

Noam Chomsky is well known for his dissenting theories of linguistics. Chomsky is credited with revolutionizing the field of linguistics and his father taught him some of the historical principles of linguistics. Noam Chomsky’s influences and research on linguistics changed and modernized the discipline. He argues that language acquisition is an innate structure, or function, of the human brain. There are structures of the brain that control the interpretation and production of speech and it was not clear as to how humans acquired language ability; it could be both in its interpretive sense and its production.

Chomsky believes that language development actually begins before birth as the fetus perceives the sounds transmitted to the womb, quiets and alerts to them, and begins to synchronize their movements to the mother's voice and body sounds. He mentioned that language development and growth of cognitive abilities together allow the child to interact with their world in new ways. According to Chomsky, children will go through stages of language around the same age, at the same time. Chomsky believes that it is a very important aspect of language has to do with the establishment of social relations and interactions.

Sonia

Online resources

After reading the four blogs about Chomsky’s theory and perspectives, we hope you developed a better understanding of his theory. To explore Chomsky theory further, we provided the following links for people who are interested in his theory.

Noam Chomsky (2006). In Chomsky.Info. Retrieved October 17, 2011, from Chomsky.Info Online: http://www.chomsky.info/ .

Noam Chomsky (2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 17, 2011, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/114218/Noam-Chomsky..

Please Following the direction to explore more information.
1. Type in Noam Chomsky on the searching box.

2. You will be able to assess to see several links about Chomsky.

Transformational Grammar

What is transformational Grammar? It generates only the well-formed or grammatically correct sentences of a language since it is meant to create the rules and principles which are in the mind or brain of a native speaker. These rules and principles are, by definition, about the language itself. Chomsky believed that grammar has recursive rules allowing one to generate grammatically correct sentences over and over. Our brain has a mechanism which can create language by following the language principles and grammar.

Transformational Process of the Syntactic Structures according to Chomsky’s Transformational Grammar can be best summarized by adding, deleting, moving, and substituting of words. These changes take place through specific rules, which are called Transformational Rules.

Generally, any sentence structure contains a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP). For instance, the sentence “Vicki laughed.” ‘Vicki’ is a NP and ‘laughed’ is a VP. Also, the sentence could change to “The woman laughed.” ‘The woman’ is the NP and ‘laughed’ is the VP. People could extend the sentence to “Vicki who lives near me laughed.” In the previous sentence, “Vicki who lives near me” is the NP; “laughed” is the VP. Expanding the sentence, “Vicki who lives near me laughed loudly,” the NP consists of “Vicki who lives near me” and the VP is “laughed loudly.”

To explore Chomsky’s theory further, please visit the following link.

Searle, J. R. (1972). Chomsky's Revolution in Linguistics. Retrieved from http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/19720629.htm

WordReference.com Language Forums (2011). Deep Structure VS Surface Structure. Retrieved from http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=52751

The third link provides more explanations on this similar topic. Retrieved from http://www.uea.ac.uk/~j108/deepstructure.htm

Deep and Surface structure in Chomsky’s theory

We may be able to summarize the Deep and Surface Structure concepts as follows. Sentences may be present in the brain at two levels. Simple, basic or Kernel Sentences consisting of ideas or rough meanings, must be present at a deep level. The way these sentences are formed at that level is known as deep structure. One cannot see or hear the Deep Structure (DS) because it is an abstract or theoretical concept. The deep level is assumed, since the brain or mind first assembles certain concepts, that is, a basic sentence. In contrast, one can hear or see only the surface structure. The assumed concept will be operated by rules and changed into more complex sentences. If you understand what I just explained, you need to be so proud of yourself since you have begun to understand the complexities of Chomsky’s theory.

To explore Chomsky’s theory further, please visit the following link.
Searle, J. R. (1972). Chomsky's Revolution in Linguistics. Retrieved from http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/19720629.htm

WordReference.com Language Forums (2011). Deep Structure VS Surface Structure. Retrieved from http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=52751

The third link provides more explanations on this similar topic. Retrieved from http://www.uea.ac.uk/~j108/deepstructure.htm

A coin always has two sides

Based on Chomsky’s biological perspective, human beings are born with a unique language organ. This specific language organ contains both the deep structures embedded into the human brain and the surface structures which can be applied in daily conservations. According to this concept, some people may argue with Chomsky’s theory about how the environment plays a role in language acquisition if children are in-born has language capacity. Before I address this concept, we discuss motor development. Children are born with motor organs, such as legs and hands, but they cannot walk and hold things when they are born. These motor capacities need to be developed as they grow and then those skills are enhanced through repeated practice in the environment. I personal believe that language acquisition is interrelated to the language organ, but to be able to express language, children need to interact in their environment to develop the growth of the language organ. In other words, to be able to operate and function, human beings still need to have a social environment and self-exploration skills that are conducive to stimulating language acquisition and to enhancing the development of the inborn rules of deep structures in the externally surface structures, language usages, and language entries. Language acquisition is a long process that combines and integrates the biological mechanism and recurrent exploration attributed to both internal motives and the environment. Biology or the nativist theory should not be separated from social interaction and the constructivist models. After all, a blade can have two edges and a coin always has two sides; therefore, a good approach of exploring language acquisition should not be divided by either a biological perspective or a social interaction perspective. I believe Chomsky’s theory can be very beneficial for a student from the human development field if that student is able to understand the fundamental ideas of his theory. His theory has influenced current development trends, particularly in the language development area.

Ruby Yeh

The Coin picture was retrieved on November 13, 2011, from The Department of Treasury Seal.
http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/$1coin/?action=reverse

Reflection about Chomsky’s Theory

Noam Chomsky is a one of the fathers of modern linguistics, as well as one of the world’s most renowned theorists of the 21st Century. Besides the theoretical field, he published in other research fields, including the Applied Science and Applied Linguistics arena with a focus on Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Language Development, and Language Acquisition. These theories and publishes are all new for me since I am not a linguistics major. All I know about Noam Chomsky is from my child development textbook. I still remember from my child development textbook, the author stated that Chomsky’s theory belong to the Nativism Theory. Children are born with language capacities to access and development language. Initially, this is all I knew about Chomsky. When I started to read his theory one year ago, I was so frustrated and did not know how fully grasp and understand his theory. I chose to read his biography first. I highly recommend the book from our TWU library that looks at the life of Noam Chomsky. This book is in electronic format, so a student can access the book from home. The book is entitled, Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. If you are like me without any background related to Chomsky’s theory, you can begin to explore this book and our blog. The purpose of this blog is to share some useful websites and information for others to have a better understanding of Chomsky’s theory. We also welcome others to post any comments and reflections on this blog.

Barsky, Robert F. (1998). Noam Chomsky a life of dissent. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.