Nancy, don't stay awake! I write at this time only because I'm in the other
hemisphere.
I cannot recall Chomsky using the term `hardwired'. `Innate knowledge' is, I
think, his term for it. As a respectable concept it certainly got the
kibosh, at least from the Philosophical Linguistics camp. But then, what the
heck! I like your image too. It's just that my hackles rise when I smell the
possibility that an anti-grammar argument may rise yet again from Chomsky's
`innate knowledge' fizzer. And Bruner is a good chap: he doesn't waste his
time on `innate knowledge'; he is all `acquisition's, and very plausibly.
(No answer, please, until you've slept!)
Sophie
----- Original Message -----
From: Nancy Patterson <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 6:06 AM
Subject: Re: Is direct grammar instruction needed in grade school?
> Oh dear. It's way late and I have to get up early and I have no business
> tackling this when my head is about to hit the keybaord. But...
>
> First, doesn't Chomsky say we are "hardwired" for language. Not a
specific
> language, of course. Just whatever gets the job of communication done.
We
> as humans have an innate ability to communicate. (I have no comment on the
> other primates who sign and do cool stuff). It is Bruner, I believe, who
> points out that children are born able to create all of the sounds found
in
> all of the languages, and that as they grow and hear the sounds of what
will
> become their home language, the sounds not found in that language sort of
> fall away. So, we make noises and we attach meaning to those noises.
> Bruner thinks it happens during the bonding moments between mother and
> child. I like that image, and, since I'm not a linguist, and am a
> constructivist, I can get away with liking that image.
>
> Children have a driving urge to communicate and to construct meaning. If
> they cannot communicate through spoken language, then they find some other
> means of representing thought. They pick up on linguistic structures
> because they are smart and want to negotiate the world around them and
learn
> quite quickly that language is the vehicle through which they can
negotiate.
> And because they are smart, they build a repetoire of constructions, based
> on their own experiences, their own transactions. This repetoire grows in
> sophistication.
>
> How'm I doin' so far?
>
> Now, here comes the part that set me off and is making me stay up past my
> bed time. A child or an adult who says "Where are yous going?" IS
> displaying linguistic competence. He or she is speaking according to the
> standards of his or her home language. And where that home language fits
on
> the old Socio-Meter of Good Manners in Spoken Language depends on who has
> the money and the power. Northeastern educated european descended males
had
> the money, so they got to set the standard that says "Where are yous
going?"
> represents bad manners. But it does not represent linguistic
incompetance.
>
> Now I can tuck myself in.
>
> Nancy
>
> At 02:32 PM 8/16/01 +1000, you wrote:
> >Why does 'innate knowledge' persist? Chomsky himself never did deliver on
> >it. (Remember the Putnam and Goodman arguments?) Perhaps what we mean,
> >speaking as pedagogues, when we talk of children coming to us `hardwired'
> >with grammar, is that once articulate, children have an estimable ability
to
> >perform linguistically. But `performance' is not the same as
`competence'.
> >For instance, the child who says `Where are yous going?' to a group is
not
> >competent in the way that the child who says `Where are you going?' is
> >competent.
> >
> >The difference between the two children's linguistic performance is
> >explainable in terms of grammar: though both are performance capable, one
is
> >competent either as a matter of luck (he had good exemplars for his
copyist
> >behaviour when he learned to speak) or as a consequence of his
instruction
> >in grammar. (Instruction in grammar will certainly help the child who is
> >hardwired to say `Where are yous going?)
> >
> >Sophie
> >
> Nancy G. Patterson
> Portland Middle School, English Dept. Chair
> Portland, MI 48875
>
> "To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone
can
> learn."
>
> --bell hooks
>
> [log in to unmask]
> <http://www.msu.edu/user/patter90/opening.htm>
> <http://www.npatterson.net/mid>
>
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