Abstract
Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker have brought to the linguistic arena the terms Universal Grammar (UG), Generative Grammar (GG) and Language Instinct. UG/GG are based on the premise that human babies are born with an intact, generalized language instinct – language somehow is already preconfigured in their brains – so that much of the complex structures of human language is encoded in the human genetic inheritance. In this paper I look at the theories of language instinct, UG and GG to determine if these theories have a grounding in empirical science brought about by new technologies and new research. I also ask the question: If we indeed do have a language instinct, should it have an impact on how we view languages and teach them?
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