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Brava, Zed. Thanks for the interesting datum.
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Here's a poser for you ... I had a college friend who spoke two languages fluently. Born in Egypt she spoke Arabic and English from babyhood.
Her Amah spoke to her only in Arabic, her parents only in English. So she spoke to each in the appropriate language. No "cross-overs" were allowed.
Now that's amazing! So was that innate or not?
I am befuddled.
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addict
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That IS interesting Zed. And if I think about it, I have seen every mom do just this and when I am around kids I do the same too. It probably is the strong sense of mentor that we get around kids that makes us constantly challenge them.
I however don't understand, how any of this suggests that language is innate? If anything, this should favour strongly, acquired learning, since, it is clearly the mother who is making the child *associate the two words. And so, the child who started with, 'mine', is challenged to make the connection with two new words - baby's ball. The mother is *teaching the child - acquired learning.
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If I remember the book correctly, Pinker was saying that the ability to learn language (i.e., the ability to acquire vocabulary and work out grammar rules) is innate, but that potential will never be realised without language input from the people around the infant. If children don't hear (or see in the case of sign languages) language being used before puberty it's too late.
Bingley
Bingley
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Sounds much like Noam Chomsky's theory, developed I guess about 40 years ago (I know, ICLIU).
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Sure, that's what the book is. Basically a popularisation of Chomsky's theories and setting them into a context of some more recent trends in psychology.
Bingley
Bingley
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From Encarta:
According to Chomsky, the human capacity for learning language is innate. He theorized that the human brain is “hardwired” for language as a product of evolution. By pointing to the primary importance of biological dispositions in the development of language, Chomsky’s theory dealt a serious blow to the behaviorist assumption that all human behaviors are formed and maintained by reinforcement.
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My two cents too.
I think language is innate. Every animal has a form of communication, whether vocal, visual (by movements, actions, colours), or waves (like elephants), and more that I am sure I'm forgetting.
Why would humans be any different than every other animal? We question this only because we arrogantly believe our form of communication, our language, is much more complexe than other animal species.
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old hand
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Why would humans be any different than every other animal? We question this only because we arrogantly believe our form of communication, our language, is much more complexe than other animal species.
This has always been my view, too, on this subject. We like to think that "communication" is mediated by the accepted semantics of what we say - but at the same time our utterances, by their tone and timing, fulfill a lot of other functions related to defense of territory, mating, posturing etc., for which animals have specialised devices.
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A good concrete example of the innateness of language (and by extension, grammar) is apparent in any "normal" three-year-old child. I don't get the chance very often anymore [ sic ], but I do enjoy listening to children developing grammar rules based on what they hear. When they make mistakes by analogy such as "I eated my dinner" you know they've got it all worked out, and now only need to refine. Edit: Oops, I see I sort of mantled Faldage and Jackie above.
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