A Brief Overview of the Discussion on Universal Grammar with a Focus on Chomsky’s Theory

Abstract

Over the past decades, linguists have argued over whether language abilities can be described as universal, something common to all speakers, or, whether they are learned secondarily. Specifically, Noam Chomsky posits that humans possess an innate linguistic competence that allows idealized speaker-hearers to internalize underlying grammatical rules, distinguishing competence from variable individual performance. Conversely, critics such as Jerry Fodor and M. Garrett argue that abstracting away performance differences leads to an oversimplified and impoverished view that fails to address the underlying causes of linguistic variations. This paper introduces the main arguments for each side and arrives at a conclusion in support of universal language. By examining active and passive sentence transformations, this discussion illustrates how speakers naturally interpret syntactically distinct structures that share underlying meanings. Furthermore, comparing grammatical formations between languages such as English and Chinese reveals shared structural patterns, including subject-verb-noun ordering, despite significant cultural and phonological differences. Ultimately, these structural parallels provide evidence that supports Chomsky’s framework of an innate, universal grammar.