It was always my impression that Noam Chomsky's 1959 article in the Harvard Journal of Psychology sufficiently solved the problem in favor of innanteness and that Derek Bickerton's _Roots of Language_ put the final nails in the coffin of the non-innanteness views.
Phil Bralich
-----Original Message-----
>From: Johanna Rubba <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Sep 4, 2006 12:38 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: On innate knowledge of language
>
>My position on innateness is that it is too early for anybody to make
>definitive claims. Brain research is beginning to show that language
>processing is scattered around the brain, and it may differ across
>genders/sexual orientations. It is way too early to determine whether
>specific brain parts are devoted to language (claims derived from brain
>injury are not as clearcut as they are presented in the literature, as
>I learned from a specialized neurolinguistics text). The brain is such
>a complex organ, it is likely that there is a mixture of innateness and
>modularity and general cognition. Modularity of other functions, such
>as vision, make it premature to rule out modularity completely. But
>Chomsky and his followers have ruled it in prematurely. I am not
>necessarily in agreement with poverty-of-stimulus arguments, but, since
>the question overall is far from settled (despite what people on both
>sides claim), I don't wish to debate these issues deeply. My interests
>lie elsewhere.
>
>As to how much instruction is needed to achieve competence in language
>and thinking, we must be very careful what kind of assumptions we make.
>Societies that never developed literacy have nevertheless achieved high
>levels of logical thought. Even folk tales like the Ananzi stories and
>Br'er Rabbit stories show lots of sophisticated logic in what the
>tricksters pull off. Anglos (except in the South) have very little
>experience of or appreciation for oral cultures; oral performances
>typical of these cultures are not valued in our schools, unfortunately.
>The current generation is finally getting some exposure to this through
>rap and hip-hop, although it's unfortunate that so much of that is
>violent and misogynistic. Our cultural situation is very particular,
>with a mix of dialect variation, very uneven quality of schooling, lots
>of racism still around, and an anti-intellectual culture.
>
>It doesn't make much sense to make claims in a public forum like this,
>then qualify them by admitting to bias and an insufficient knowledge
>base. There's plenty of research out there. Look for support before you
>make a claim.
>
>I'm waiting for takers on my tag-question rules. Prove your unconscious
>knowledge to yourself. What rules apply to form the tags (e.g., "can't
>she?") on the following:
>
>1. Jane can play the piano, can't she?
>2. Patients should trust their doctors, shouldn't they?
>3. Susan wouldn't steal my book, would she?
>4. Mikey fed the dog, didn't he?
>5. Mr. Blake didn't kill his wife, did he?
>6. Your train was late, wasn't it?
>7. The students weren't in the auditorium, were they?
>
>You'll find that you have to revise your rules a couple of times. There
>are seven rules. If I may be so bold, put your money where your mouth
>is, see if you "know" these rules consciously or have to figure them
>out, and tell me when you remember being taught these rules by anyone,
>or seeing them laid out in a grammar book for native speakers (I don't
>think they appear even in ESL books). I'd bet money that you can't just
>write down these rules without working them out. If we needed conscious
>training in grammar rules, you wouldn't be able to form these tags,
>because nobody teaches these rules to native speakers. But you forms
>tags like this in milliseconds in everyday speech.
>
>People will certainly claim that those of us who advocate methods like
>contrastive analysis are biased. Certainly we have opinions. But they
>are _informed_, _expert_ opinions derived from many years of reading
>replicated research and practicing language study. In general, it is
>common nowadays to accuse academics of liberal bias. Well, maybe that
>bias comes from the decades of research findings that they have access
>to. I wouldn't dream of claiming that I know as much as or more than
>someone with a Ph.D. in physics. People are much readier to challenge
>experts in linguistics, because language is bound up with cultural
>identity (witness the current official-English movement, which is not
>at all informed by international findings on language policy) and
>political and economic control (e.g., will ballot pamphlets be
>published in Vietnamese? Is it fair to deny a native-English speaker a
>job because she doesn't speak Spanish? Should someone who uses double
>negatives be given a high school diploma?) Also, there is a competing
>tradition centered on literature and correctness that has held sway
>since the 1600's in Western Europe in general. There are two sets of
>"language experts" for people to consult, but most people don't know
>about the ones who have taken language study far beyond that competing
>tradition.
>
>
>
>Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
>Linguistics Minor Advisor
>English Department
>California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
>E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>Tel.: 805.756.2184
>Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
>Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
>URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>
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