On the legitimacy of Emergentism and Chaos complexity theory as conceivable challenges to the nativist paradigm

Abstract

Given that Emergentism is convincingly a novel challenge in the field of applied linguistics and is hotly under debate nowadays, its proponents especially Nick Ellis and his colleagues advocate it as a main alternative to the assumptions of Universal Grammar (UG) proposed by Noam Chomsky. As its main tenet, a plethora of contemporary emergentist research contend that language acquisition can be abridged to the use of simple learning strategies to pull out statistical regularities present in regular linguistic input which is exactly harmonious with what chaos, complexity scholars believe in considering the features of chaotic complex systems. In fact, emergentist scholars believe that knowledge of language is shaped in response to opportunities to interpret and/or form utterances in the course of communication.Therefore, Emergentism is an obvious challenge to UG as it disputes some of its major assumptions. In compliance with Emergentism and chaos complexity theory, the present paper tries to illustrate the implausibility of Chomskian account of language acquisition in terms of UG. What's more, the present paper sheds light on those aspects of language in which the Chomskian nativist paradigm fails to account including the explanatory adequacy of those cases and the reasons why both Emergentism and Chaos complexity theory are in dominant positions.

Language Learning as Chaos/Complexity System: Evidence Based on Iranian EFL Learners’ Backgrounds

“…It means learners are not expected to pursue a linear trajectory or path learning one linguistic item then another. In other words, according to Mirzae and Ghanizadeh (2014), language learning is not a linear curve. All of us have had the experience of learning or teaching tenses.…”

“…A number of theoretical studies regarding C/CT as a newly introduced theory in the realm of language learning and teaching (Ellis, 2007;Finch, 2001;Feryok, 2010;Hadidi Tamjid, 2007;Harshbarger, 2007;Hashamdar, 2012;Larsen-Freeman, 2002;Mahmoodzadeh, 2013;Mirzae & Ghanizadeh, 2014;Oekerman, 1997;Valle, 2000;Seyyedrezae, 2014;& Swan, 2004) try to explain and elaborate C/CT characteristics and the relation of this theory with SLA. However, as Ahmadi (2010) puts it, few studies have so far been conducted to present the application of C/CT to language acquisition in general as well as foreign language learning in particular.…”