Thanks to Johanna for one of her typically lucid, thoughtful discussions. I do suspect that Chomsky or Pinker would reject a learning theoretic approach to innateness as of the same species as their notion of innateness. Certainly Terrence Deacon's detailed exposition of the coevolution of language and the brain and of language as a meme is far from Chomsky's LAD and more consonant with Sampson's learning theory approach.
Of course, this has little to do with whether and how to teach grammar, and the view that children don't need to be taught grammar because they're born with it deserves the debunking that Johanna gave it.
Herb
<<< [log in to unmask] 8/16 8:08p >>>
So far as I am familiar with cognitive science people and linguists,
'hardwired' is used as a synonym for 'innate', that is, part of the
biological structure of the brain. NO particular language's rules
(French, English, Japanese) are innate to any child. The analogy is
hardware vs. software in computers. So while computers have the
potential in their circuitry to run different kinds of software, the
hardware is not the software. The software is the program that directs
what the hardware does. A particular language is like software, while
the innate predisposition to learn language is like hardware.
Children come into the world hardwired or ready for various abilities:
our particular type of 3D color vision is innate; the pitch range we can
hear is innate; the ability to learn to walk is innate; the ability to
perceive space in certain ways is innate; the ability to recognize a
human face is innate; the ability to categorize is innate; and the
ability to learn language is innate. In other words, human beings have
evolved such that they are born 'expecting' language in their
environment and they learn it flawlessly, whether it is presented to
them as spoken or signed, and whether they ever go to school or not.
They have an innate potential to learn any human language that is
presented to them in infancy and toddlerhood.
I don't know any linguist who would contest this. What is contested is
the exact nature of this innate readiness for language. We know that
it DOES NOT take the form of any particular language--so no child is
hardwired to say 'n'est-ce pas?' (French) or 'how ya doin'?' So far as
I know, among linguists the debate is about how specific to language
this innate readiness is. Is there an exclusive 'language organ', a
module or modules of the brain devoted exclusively to language, and is
not used for any other cognitive functions? This is Chomsky's claim. Or
is there a close relationship between readiness for language and other
cognitive skills such as figure/ground perception, categorizing and
generalizing abilities? Many linguists believe this is closer to the
truth (and it sounds like Bruner's position is on this side of the
argument). So there is a great debate about the nature of our inbuilt
capacity for language, but I know of no one who doubts that that
capacity is inbuilt.
I don't see how this can be an argument against grammar instruction in
schools. The main aim of traditional grammar instruction to get kids to
use a particular kind of English--standard written English. Many
children come to school having acquired a different kind of English at
home. So they still must learn standard written English. Since this
English changes, children often have to be taught things that the
conservative school grammar wants to retain, but which has been lost in
their home version of English (such as the 'who/whom' distinction,
rapidly disappearing even from middle-class English).
Also, the knowledge of a particular language that children build with
their innate competence remains at a subconscious level. In order to
become aware of what they have internalized about their native language,
it is necessary for people to learn grammatical terms and techniques of
analysis. This is also, for some, an aim of grammar instruction--to
give people a metalanguage they can use to talk about language, just as
studying physiology gives you a specialized language to talk about the body.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue * San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184 * Fax: (805)-756-6374 * Dept. Phone. 756-2596
* E-mail: [log in to unmask] * Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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