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Steven Pinker, is the author of The Language Instinct, and How the Mind Works, both excellent books, (and available in a quality paperback editions, and affordable.)
Matt Ridley, is the former science editor of The Economist, and author of The Red Queen Theory—(which has a subtitle I forget).
Picker holds, with general agreement from many language experts, that human brains are hardwired for certain things... like seeing in stereo, and syntax
There is some evidence newborns don’t, but quickly learn how to resolve the two slightly different images that come into their eyes; they do so by about age 6 months.
And they begin to smile. Previous to that age, they had many ways of recognizing mother (or primary care giver)—earliest, by heart beat, (pre womb, and post,) smell, sound of mother voice, etc. But once children finally resolve stereo vision and visually recognize the care giver, and start to imitate what they see, i.e., they smile!
Likewise, babies are born with innate sense of syntax and grammar.
Children raised in radically mixed language environments, all learn to speak a common language that incorporates vocabulary from home languages.
These creoles, all tend to follow some basic rules, doesn’t matter were they originate. Where do the rules come from? From the innate sense of syntax and grammar that humans seem to posses. One example is to double a word – hot-hot, instead of having comparative and superlative suffixes ( hot, hotter hottest).
Kids do it all the time Goody-goody!
Do all languages follow the same rules? As languages evolve to the rules change—and I am sure there are host of reasons why—maybe they come in contact with a society that has larger vocabulary or they move to a different environment, and need to expand the language to meet different needs.. (nomadic herders might have different language needs than farmers..)
And there are some basics. You have nouns and modifiers... verbs and modifiers... but word order? That’s up for grabs... so some languages have prepostions, and some have postpositions (only they are not called that, there is an other term... No matter.. It’s a word order question.
But I have serious doubts that literacy will evolve. (i.e., the innate sense that abstract symbols can be combined to have a myrid of meanings)
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then Ridley's theory is impossible
A) We're most certainly not born with a blank sheet; if we were we couldn't breathe.
2) I haven't read the Ridley, but I think this is Pinker's theory we're discussing here (or someone else started it {Sapir? Whorf? No, Chomsky. That's who started it.}), Ridley merely discusses it, so let's not be trashing Ridley for our misunderstanding when it's really Pinker and/or Chomsky we should be trashing.
Þ) I have read about this theory in Pinker's The Language Instinct and, while I can't claim to understand it fully, I believe that they are talking about hard-wired syntax and grammar at a deeper level than that we poor mortals normally associate with those concepts.
Side issue:
Lactose intolerance was the norm before we started raising dairy cattle. The idea that anyone over the age of about 3 or 4 would be ingesting any lactose at all, much less the lactose from animals other than man, was unthinkable. It still is in some cultures. The Japanese, e.g., consider the idea of eating cheese somewhat revolting. The present day resurgence of lactose intolerance is, I think, more akin to a general rise of food allergies such as the famous peanut intolerance and is due to other factors. Dr. Bill and I have discussed this in PM and he has offered some interesting ideas on the subject, ideas which, I fear, I do not remember well enough to reiterate here.
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") I have read about this theory in Pinker's The Language Instinct and, while I can't claim to understand it fully, I believe that they are talking about hard-wired syntax and grammar at a deeper level than that we poor mortals normally associate with those concepts."
I haven't read Pinker's TLI yet, but plan to. And I think your interpretation is exactly correct. And I think you're also correct that Chomsky had the initial theory about this decades ago.
k
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Re: Pinker/Chomsky
I also think that, when we understand the sort of thing they are talking about we would come up with some sort of incredibly insightful comment as , "Well, duh! If that's what they mean by grammar and syntax, it's pretty obvious!"
This is the difference between the casual observer and the serious student. The serious student should question the obvious.
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If he [Skinner] is right (not that I am at all certain that he is), or even right about the first bit, then Ridley's theory is impossible
Ridley is basically saying that Skinner is wrong. Each chapter begins with a quote and the one for this chapter is "The tabula of human nature was never rasa." -W.D. Hamilton. Ridley is approaching the subject from an almost purely genetic viewpoint, using the most up-to-date (well, 2000 anyway) information from the Human Genome Project. I don't think he really thinks that literacy will become innate (he doesn't elaborate on the idea), but he's just putting it out there for consideration.
He gives an example of the language instinct:
". . . the most startling evidence for a language instinct comes from a series of natural experiments in which children imposed grammatical rules upon languages that lacked them. In the most famous case, studied by Derek Bickerton, a group of foregin labourers brought together on Hawaii in the nineteenth century developed a pidgin language -- a mixture of words and phrases whereby they could communicate with each other. Like most such pidgins, the language lacked consistent grammatical rules and remained both laboriously complex in the way it had to express things and relatively simple in what it could express. But all that changed when for the first time a generation of children learnt the language in their youth. The pidgin acquired rules of inflection, word order and grammar that made it a far more efficient and effective language -- a creole. in short, as Bickerton concluded, pidgins become creoles only after they are learnt by a generation of children, who bring instinct to bear on their transformation."
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The Pinker is very good. His arguments are extremely convincing, and even if you don't agree, his ideas are intriguing.
Dinosaurs lived for millions of years and then died off. The reason was because their environment changed and only animals small (and furry) enough to survive did. The trait of dinosaurs being LARGE etc. worked well for them, but in the end it was their mass that killed them.
Point being, the most distinct traits of a species (ours being language) are not always the most important in terms of survival and evolution, even from within a speicies.
At this exact point in history, the places that have the highest literacy and the most education are the ones that use birth control- and the ones that keep their population growth rates down. Education and literacy could wipe themselves out.
Anybody buying this?
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But all that changed when for the first time a generation of children learnt the language in their youth. The pidgin acquired rules of inflection, word order and grammar that made it a far more efficient and effective language -- a creole. in short, as Bickerton concluded, pidgins become creoles only after they are learnt by a generation of children, who bring instinct to bear on their transformation."
I am not at all convinced that instinct is the ONLY thing the children brought to bear; though perhaps I'm seeking more of clarification than correction. My guess is that each of those children learned "rules of inflection, word order and grammar" in their own homes, from their parents in whatever language, and then took that knowledge out into society and applied it to society's language.
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Josie, I'm not sure that I'd say whole nations might wipe themselves out of existence, but I think it's conceivable that the literate class might.
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My guess is that each of those children learned "rules of inflection, word order and grammar" in their own homes, from their parents in whatever language, and then took that knowledge out into society and applied it to society's language.
I think the point was that that was their home language.
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society's language
yeahbut®
that begs the question! My understanding of this area of research is that when you have a new speech community being formed from disparate roots (eg, possibly widely different mother tongues), there is a surprisingly common structure to the syntactical strategies adopted by the first generations to creolize the new language. This effect has been observed across widely varying groups of mother-tongue collections, hence leading to the suggestion that there is a 'hard-wired' language instinct at work deep in our currently evolved brains.
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I think the point was that that was their home language.
I'm sorry; I failed to state my assertion that, in their own homes, people most likely spoke their native language, especially if the "society language" was awkward. (The quote said it was laboriously complex in the way it had to express things and relatively simple in what it could express. Why would they say to their child [creole] 'make milk gone', when they could say [native language] 'drink all your milk'? I am keeping in mind that the quote referred specifically to a newly-formed group of settlers.
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there is a surprisingly common structure to the syntactical strategies adopted by the first generations to creolize the new language. This effect has been observed across widely varying groups of mother-tongue collections, hence leading to the suggestion that there is a 'hard-wired' language instinct at work deep in our currently evolved brains.
Can't say I'm convinced of the hard-wired bit, but certainly can't argue against it, either. My question, though, is: why does the development have to be furthered so much by children? I should think, especially if we're "hard-wired", that the adults would do the same thing, given enough time together.
(Ooh, I lurve this thread! Speaking of lurve, Capital Kiwi, where are you on this one?)
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