In a book that explicates and primarily builds upon Chomsky′s theory, Pinker (1994) argues that children have an instinct especially for language, and that humans have a common
Universal Grammar (UG) This is the major theme of the book The Language Instinct ( LI ) Pinker starts with an introductory chapter that sets the readers up with interesting topics he seeks to cope with in the subsequent chapters
Ch 2 makes the case for the biological underpinnings of
human language faculty Ch 3 deals with language and thought The following several chapters are devoted respectively to the core of linguistics and various domains of language — generative grammar, lexicology and morphology, phonetics and phonology, and language universals and historical variation Ch 9 10 discuss and examine the acquisition of the mother tongue by infants, and the biological (genetic and ontogenetic ) foundations of language, respectively Ch 11 deals with the origin and evolution of language Ch 12 centers on Pinker′s arguments against prescriptivists, especially the Language Mavens The last chapter looks at the human
mind design and points out that language is just one of many instincts that constitute the mental module of human, and this idea partly forms the basis of Pinker′s How the Mind Works ( Pinker, 1996) The foci of the present paper are on Ch 3, Ch 11, Ch 12, contributions and inadequacies of LI Pinker argues that either Determinism or Relativism is an absurdity, and that in our mind there is a mentalese and people without a language could still have mentalese Here Pinker′s idea about mentalese is very similar to Fodor′s "language of thought" , nevertheless, there seems to be some other disagreement between Fodor and Pinker: while Fodor holds that a mother tongue could be acquired ex nihilo provided its acquisition did not involve hypothesis formation ( Normore, 1990 ), Pinker ( 1994 ) thinks that if babies did not have a mentalese to translate to and from English, it is not clear how learning English could occur, or even what learning English could mean In terms of glottology, Pinker argues that the first traces of language could have emerged as early as the time between human chim split 5 to 7 million years ago and A afarensis With respect to the relationship between Darwin′s theory and evolution of language, Pinker disagrees with Chomsky Pinker holds that language instinct, like our eyes, is a product of
natural selection, whereas Chomsky throws doubts on natural selection and seems to be more interested in physical law Unlike Chomsky and Pinker, Lieberman (1991) once attempted to argue for his controversial neo Darwinian theory of the evolution of language, specifically the theory of origin of syntax, which holds that the capacity for the motor control of rapid speech served as the evolutionary foundation for the syntax , and that the claims regarding innate syntactic knowledge are mistaken Christiansen claims that the fact that children are so successful at language learning is more appropriately expounded as a product of natural selection of linguistic structures, rather than natural selection of biological strucutres, such as UG Jenkins thinks that Christiansen is in the position of Darwin in the 1800s and just locks himself into a metaphoric depiction of language ( Jenkins, 1997 ) Jenkins ( 1997 ) also argues that Pinker′s claims about the relationship between natural selection and human language are either incoherent or irrational As a book aiming at general readers, LI not only makes contribution to the development of generative linguistics, but also makes great contribution to the popularization of Chomsky′s generative theory, with its simple to complex elaborations and humourous and lively quotations from popular culture and other sources However, LI still has its flaws and inadequacies, which are discussed in the fifth part of the present paper And, to my mind,
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