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Shvoong Home>Arts & Humanities>The Genetic Properties of Human Languages Summary

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The Genetic Properties of Human Languages

Article Summary by: TsingHua    

Original Author: Modern Foreign Languages
This abstract was translated from 人类语言的生物遗传属性
On the basis of the fourteen cases reported mainly in Jenkins' Biolinguistics (2000) and Pinker's Language Instinct (1994),
the present study lends support for Chomsky's claim that the Language Faculty is a mental organ and linguistics is a natural science, and confirms the ideas of "language organ", "linguistic modularity" and "the genetic properties of human languages."Chomsky has proposed thinking of the language faculty is a "mental organ", analogous to a physical organ like the heart or the visual system. That is to say, the brain is not a homogenous organ, but consists of subcomponents, or modules, each specialized for different purposes such as vision, the language faculty, the number faculty. Moreover, when one examines the different subsystems of the language faculty such as syntax, morphology, and lexicon, further distinguishing properties are found. The first Eleven cases suggests that when the brain is injured or has some disease or genetic disorder, one might finds that one or another of these submodules is selectively impaired.From the second three cases (identical twins, the KE family and other family pedigree studies), we can reasonably note that some linguistic disabilities run in families or even through several generations. On the basis of all the evidence of familial transmission of the speech disorders, we can reasonably conclude that there are specific properties of language that appear to have a genetic basis.It seems that, biologically speaking, the inheritable capability to learn any language must be encoded in the DNA of our chromosomes. The critical difficulty which all linguists and geneticists should challenge is the localization of the genes controlling the language faculty. We have every reason to say that the localization of genes for language faculty will be an epoch-making revolution.
Published: January 30, 2002
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