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Re: Human language (long)
John A. Halloran (seagoat@primenet.com)
10 Jan 1997 00:41:01 -0700
In article <MPG.d3ed53fd0cab2e3989685@client.news.psi.net> ndickover@ver.lld.com (Noel Dickover) writes:
>I think you may want to spend the time to read Steven Pinker's book, "The
>Language Instinct". Pinker, a linguist and cognitive pyschologist,
>provides more than ample evidence to prove that in fact language is
>instinctual. In addition to many detailed experiments, Pinker includes
>evidence of recently created creole languages, and the modification of
>scientifically developed sign languages by the second generation of
>speakers, in which the deaf children, largely independent of contact with
>one another, all modified the sign language in the same way to be a
>"real" language.
Actually, I have read almost all of Pinker's very long and dense book.
Nowhere in it did I find anything but evidence for how the brain/mind thinks
and uses logic (aka syntax). In fact, I found the reference to the young
child who, missing his left hemisphere, had his right hemisphere acquire
language in an only slightly degraded fashion in Pinker's book. I don't think
all his vast material is fully integrated in his own mind.
Share with me, please, what argument(s) for spoken language being instinctual
you personally find most persuasive.
Regards,
John Halloran
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