Rational versus Empiricist Approaches to Language II
Chomskyan/generative linguists seek to describe the language module of the human mind (the I-language) for which data such as text (the E-language) provide only indirect evidence, which can be supplemented by native speakers intuitions.
Empiricists approaches are interested in describing the E-language as it actually occurs.
Chomskyans make a distinction between linguistic competence and linguistic performance. They believe that linguistic competence can be described in isolation while Empiricists reject this notion.