Language acquisition
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Language acquisition
DocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition age (pp. 135-182). MIT Press.Chapter 6Language AcquisitionSteven Pinker6.1IntroductionLanguage acquisition is one of the central topics in cognitive science. Every theory of cognition has tried to explain it; probably no other topic has aroused such controversy. Possessing a language is the quintess Language acquisition entially human trait: all normal huinans speak, no nonhuinan animal does. Language is the main vehicle by which we know about other people's thoughts,Language acquisition
and the two must be intimately related. Every' time we speak we are revealing something about language, so the facts of language structure are easy tDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition in a matter of a few years and without the need for formal lessons. With language so close to the core of what it means to be human, it is not surprising that children's acquisition of language has received so much attention. Anyone with strong views about the human mind would like to show that chil Language acquisition dren's first few steps are steps in the right direction.Language acquisition is not only inherently interesting: studying it is one way to look for coLanguage acquisition
ncrete answers to questions that permeate cognitive science:6.LI ModularityDo children learn language using a "mental organ," some of whose principlesDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition language acquisition just another problem to be solved by general intelligence, in this case the problem of how to communicate with other humans over the auditory channel (Putnam 1971; Bates 1989)?----Preparation of the chapter was supported by N1H grant HD 18381 and NSF grant BNS 91-09766. and by t Language acquisition he - McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at MIT.http //127.0.0.1/~collenti/1.html (1/15/2005 5:44:28 PM]1 age 1 JU Â6.1.2Human UniquenessALanguage acquisition
related question is whether language is unique to humans. At first glance the answer seems obvious. Other animals communicate with a fixed repertoireDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition n which symbols are permuted into an unlimited set of combinations, each with a determinate meaning. On the other hand, many other claims about human uniqueness, such as that humans were the only animals to use tools or to fabricate them, have turned out to be false. Some researchers have thought th Language acquisition at apes have the capacity for language but never profited from a humanlike cultural milieu in which language was taught, and they have thus tried to tLanguage acquisition
each apes languagelike systems. Whether they have succeeded, and whether human children are really "taught" language themselves, are questions we willDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition 75: Piaget 1926)? Or does learning a language somehow mean learning to think in that language? A famous hypothesis, outlined by Benjamin Whorf (1956), asserts that the categories and relations we use to understand the world come from our particular language, so that speakers of different languages c Language acquisition onceptualize the world in different ways. Language acquisition, then, would be learning to think, not just learning to talk.This is an intriguing hypoLanguage acquisition
thesis, but virtually all modern cognitive scientists believe that it is false (see Pinker 1994a). Babies can think before they can talk (chapter 1 anDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition gical propositions (see chapter 12). And linguistics has shown that human languages are too ambiguous and schematic to use as a medium of internal computation: when people think about "spring." surely they are not confused as to whether they are thinking about a season or something that goes "boing" Language acquisition -and if one word can correspond to two thoughts, thoughts cannot be words.But language acquisition has a unique contribution to make to this issue. AsLanguage acquisition
we shall see. it is virtually impossible to show how children could learn a language unless one assumes that they have a considerable amount of nonliDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition w pampered, so heredity must be involved in language. But a child growinghttp//127.0.0.1/-collenti.2.html [1/15/2005 5:44 :29 PM]«a5c.u/ Ảup in Japan speaks Japanese, whereas (he same child brought up in California would speak English, so (he environment is also crucial. Thus, there is no question a Language acquisition bout whether heredity or environment is involved in language or even whether one or the other is "more important." Instead, language acquisition mightLanguage acquisition
be our best hope of finding out how heredity and environment interact. We know that adult language is intricately complex, and we know that children DocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition re, so that its hypothetical child ends up speaking something less than a real language, must be false. The same is true for any theory that posits Loo much innate structure, so that the hypothetical child can acquire English but not. say. Bantu or Vietnamese.And not only do we know about the output Language acquisition of language acquisition, we know a fair amount about the input to it. namely, parents' speech to their children. So even if language acquisition, likLanguage acquisition
e all cognitive processes, is essentially a "black box," we know enough about its input and output to be able to make precise guesses about its contenDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition at is not a coincidence. The historical catalyst was Noam Chomsky’s review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior (Chomsky 1959). At that time Anglo-American natural science, social science, and philosophy had come to a virtual consensus about the answers to the questions listed above. The mind consisted of s Language acquisition ensorimotor abilities plus a few simple laws of learning governing gradual changes in an organism's behavioral repertoire. Language, therefore, must bLanguage acquisition
e learned, it cannot be a module, and thinking must be a form of verbal behavior, since verbal behavior is the prime manifestation of "thought" that cDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition rned by highly subtle and abstract principles, and they do so without explicit instruction or any other environmental clues to the nature of such principles. Hence, language acquisition depends on an innate, species-specific module that is distinct from general intelligence. Much of the debate in la Language acquisition nguage acquisition has attempted to lest this once-revolulionary. and still controversial, collection of ideas. The implications extend to the rest ofLanguage acquisition
human cognition.6.2The Biology of Language AcquisitionHuman language is made possible by special adaptations of the human mind and body that occurredDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition 5:44:31 PM]1 age 1 JO À6.2.1 Evolution of LanguageMost obviously, the shape of the human vocal tract seems to have been modified in evolution for the demands of speech. Our larynxes are low in our throats, and our vocal tracts have a sharp right-angle bend that creates two independently modifiable r Language acquisition esonant cavities (the mouth and the pharynx or throat) which define a large two-dimensional range of vowel sounds (see the chapter by Liberman in thisLanguage acquisition
volume). But it comes at a sacrifice of efficiency for breathing, swallowing, and chewing (Lieberman 1984). Before the invention of the Heimlich maneDocumentI age 1ÂPinker, s. 1995. Language acquisition. In L. R. Gleitman & M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd edition: Langua Language acquisition ctive advantages for language must have been very large to outweigh such a disadvantage.It is templing to think that if language evolved by gradual Darwinian natural selection, we must be able to find some precursor of it in our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. In several famous and controversial Language acquisition demonstrations, chimpanzees have been taught some hand-signs based on American Sign Language, to manipulate colored switches or tokens, or to understLanguage acquisition
and some spoken commands (Gardner and Gardner 1969: Premack and Premack 1983: Savage-Rumbaugh 1991). Whether one wants to call these abilities "languaGọi ngay
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