Patty,

I suspect Bob, Johanna, and I might all answer your question in slightly different ways, but we'd probably agree on the major points.

When we speak of innateness, we're talking about the hypothesis that detailed information about the structure of language is part of our genetic endowment.  When we learn our first language, this innate knowledge knows what to expect and what to look for.  As a specific language is acquired, rules and principles of this innate grammar are refined to suit the date of the particular language, but the nature of Language doesn't change.  Just the individual instantiation of language.  The rules that we talk about children learning early on are facts of language, generalizations that allow the child to become a speaker quickly.  The rules of tag formation that Johanna has alluded to are rules of this type.  We know them as English speakers in the sense that we produce question tags correctly pretty consistently.  We don't--and don't have to--know them consciously unless we have studied them.  The rules that we write as grammarians, as representations of the rules we've learned in the acquisition process, are just that, representations, approximations.  They are part of a theory of language, which will necessarily change as our understanding improves.  Many of our statements of rules are pretty good, but keep in mind that as understanding of linguistics improves, models change to reflect that.  Until about 1995, virtually all of phonology involved rules of some sort, rules that applied in a particular order.  Since that time, rules are out and variously ranked constraints are in because they account for a lot of phonological phenomena better.  Theories change as we test them against data, a normal process of science.

The rules of grammar that we want to teach children are pedagogically sound versions of the scientific knowledge.  This claim is what leads to much of the debate over what should be taught.  We can't and shouldn't want to transfer the theoretical models of science directly into the K12 classroom.  But we should work out the best pedagogically-sound rules we can and present that information at appropriate levels in K12.

As to the notion "critical period", the anomolous cases of stimulus-deprived children, like Genie, don't prove a linguistic critcal period.  They demonstrate rather that cognition and language are closely interdependent and neither can develop normally if the other is impaired.  Genie was cognitively severely impaired by the age of 12 because she had been denied linguistic stimulus since 18 months.  By 12, that cognitive impairment was extensive enough to severely limit language learning.

Herb

 
Hello all-

Regarding the summation below - I have a question.

When we talk about language acquisition, the evidence clearly shows that
children do seem to learn language innately.  In fact, if I recall correctly
there are several cases of deprived/abused children never acquire language
after a certain age (I believe 5 or 6, but I would have to fact check to
make that a certainty) - this indicates that the time for learning to speak
is finite and a part of development.

However - and here is my question - is this the same thing as "learning the
rules of language?"

Personally, I have always felt there is a difference between language
acquisition/learning to speak and language/grammar/rules.

The three points of view below seem to be specifically regarding language as
the "set of written rules we learn."  Although they express varying
opinions, all seem to be pointing at the rules of use rather than
acquisition itself.

Am I confused in this?

-patty

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Yates
Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 9:59 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On innate knowledge of language

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.

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