There are at least three positions being considered here.

1) My position is that part of our biological endowment is knowledge
about language.  I have offered some evidence for such a claim.

2) The position taken by Johanna and, I assume, Herb, is that our
knowledge of language is the result of some general cognitive
capacities.

3) The position taken by Eduard is that language must be consciously
learned.

As Johanna and Herb have correctly observed, positions (1) and (2) both
agree that by the time children start formal education they have a very
complex knowledge of language.  The teaching implication that both of
these positions reach is that this knowledge can be used to make this
knowledge of language conscious.  

On the other hand, the third position has to offer very different kind
of teaching suggestions because children don't know much about language.



>>> [log in to unmask] 09/03/06 11:08 PM >>>
1. The innateness argument is irrelevant to the question of whether or 
not children have unconscious knowledge of what a noun is. However they 
learned it, they have learned it well before age 5, but not consciously.
None of us can access the knowledge and mental processes that are
happening while we use language; they are not any more accessible to
conscious awareness than is the work our brains are doing when we see
color or walk. Our brains have billions of neurons, and only a small
portion delivers conscious awareness.
 . . . 

3. It is a truism in linguistics, proven by decades of research, that 
infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers need no direct instruction to 
learn their native language. Their brains are built to learn language 
(whether through a brain organ devoted exclusively to language, as 
Chomskyans believe, or through more-general cognitive processes, or 
some mixture of the two). All they need is to hear language being used 
around them, and for those around them to interact with them 
linguistically (by talking with them, not teaching them what nouns 
are). This learning process is very different from conscious learning 
of grammatical terminology and analysis techniques. This _does_ require 
instruction. But that instruction must be both accurate and 
well-designed, which the current K-12 curriculum is not. I am wondering 
whether either Eduard or Phil has looked at any of the language-arts 
grammar materials currently being used in K-12 schools.

 

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