four arguments for “the language instinct” 1. l is universal 2. all have similar structure 3....
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Four arguments for “the language instinct”
1. L is universal
2. all have similar structure
3. The rapidity and similarity of acquisition
4. Biological evidence
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Consider each of these four arguments in detail
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A1. language is universal (26)
• No human culture ever reported without a language
• Little correlation between sophistication of culture with sophistication of Language
• "Stone age societies ...but not Stone age languages..27”
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• There’s no serious distinction between language and dialect.
• All languages are dialects of universal human language.
• "A Language is a dialect with an army and navy." (Weinrich)
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A2. L is similar in structure everywhere
• A stream of speech
• Sequence of syllables
• Sequence of phonological segments (phonemes)
• Sequence of words (morphemes)
• Hierarchically organized phrases
• Recursive structures, e.g phrases in phrases
• Hierarchically organized clause(s)
• Meaningful linguistic expression
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The same descriptive terms apply to all Ls
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But not all universals qualify as "instincts."
• Why should we think language is an instinct? We must try to rule out common experiences and universal cognition/perception as much as possible.
• Piaget, for example, believed Language was just “clothes” we put on thoughts, labels with no functional structure themselves.
• For Piaget and others, language itself was not that interesting beyond its general functions.
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• We also should worry about cultural transmission of knowledge from generation to generation. This is surely a part of language, but is it ALL?? Here are several reasons for thinking "No!”
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A3 language acquisition suggests
instinct• Humans acquire language
uniformly under a range of environments and intelligences; smart non-humans (e.g. apes) don't.
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• normal acquisition by children is predictable
• They have "structure dependent knowledge" p.40-43– What the aphasic woman in video
lacked!– “The bird that the cat watched was
hungry.”– Word comprehension & order alone
won’t do!
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Which one has the “instinct?”
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an instinct implant?
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Universal stages of acquisition
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• Little correlation between acquisition and intelligence in humans other than in “content” word vocabulary. This is due to intelligence and culture.
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Lexical growth
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atypical acquisition suggests instinct
• acquisition of sign by deaf children, e.g. NSL (video)
• Creation of Creoles from pidgins by children (video)
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A4. biological evidence for the "LI”
• Universal brain and vocal tract - one can speak any language
• Localization and independence of functions
• Specific language impairments (SLI)
• Recent genetic comparisons with apes
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localization and independence of
functions• Penfield’s brain “labels”
• aphasia case p.46 and video
• split-brain cases (Gazzaniga)
• Much evidence for specific functional impairments - cognition without language or partial language.
• A case of language without cognition?
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Penfield’s brain labels
• Image of labeled living brain
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specific biological language impairments
(SLI) 48• 1. Gopnik's family (“grammar
genes”)
• 2. Williams syndrome (video)
• 3. Autism??
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Vocal tract diagram
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Universal “alphabet” of sounds
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Question: What do you see?
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production
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Answer!
• “Dogs”
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Missing parts?
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Could Pinker (and I) be wrong?
• Not all dialects have been studied– The claims about Piraha
• Could Piaget be right? Cognitive structures are directly reflected in language structures?
• Could language have been invented once or even several times, and learned by each person by their general learning processes?
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The Piraha
• Read -- Colapinto, J. (2007). The interpreter: Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our
understanding of language? The New Yorker, 83(8), 119-137.