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 To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/