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

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