Briefly discuss the concept of a language acquisition device and its genetic basis

What will be an ideal response?

Noam Chomsky (1980) and Steven Pinker (1994) proposed that humans have a language acquisition device, a built-in mechanism for acquiring language. Most children develop language so quickly and easily that it seems they must have been biologically prepared for this learning. Also, deaf children quickly learn sign language, and if no one teaches them a sign language, they invent one and teach it to one another (Goldin-Meadow, McNeill, & Singleton, 1996; Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1998).

Researchers have begun to explore the genetic basis of this preparation for language. A family whose members have trouble with pronunciation and basic grammar is one such case. Their problem has been shown to stem from a mutation in a gene designated FOXP2, which regulates a protein that promotes synapse formation in the cerebral cortex (Lai et al., 2001; Sia, Clem, & Huganir, 2013). Although both humans and chimpanzees have that gene, it differs in two places, resulting in proteins with different amino acids at two sites. That gene produces not only a multitude of effects, partly on brain development, but also on structures of the jaw and throat that are important for speech (Konopka et al., 2009).