Exploring Language and Linguistics

PREVIEW

This chapter will summarize arguments in favour of an innate mechanism for language learning. This is not a general mechanism for learning, but is dedicated to language – the name given to the innate mechanism is Universal Grammar. Universal Grammar must be able to deal with the fact that languages differ quite dramatically in their structural properties, and that learning paths can vary for different languages. Evidence for an innate, language-specific mechanism comes from children's innovations during development, lack of negative evidence from caregivers, creation of signed languages and creoles, and first language learners who have various deficits in their cognitive abilities. We consider the need for a better integration of language acquisition theory with the theory of language processing.

INTRODUCTION

Chimpanzees are our closest relatives. Yet chimpanzees cannot learn a human language. With training, they can develop a repertoire of signs, and they can combine these signs in meaningful ways. But chimpanzees have never been shown to use the abstract structural relations between signs (words) that are characteristic of human language.

In this chapter, we argue that humans are equipped with an innate ability to construct a grammar, and that this ability is generally independent of intelligence. In order to make this argument, we need to examine what adult human languages are like – to tackle the issue of cross-linguistic variation. That is, we need to look at the samenesses and differences that human languages offer, and then to look at the challenges that the task of learning a first language poses. After that, we will examine the progress children make with learning different types of language, and the stages children typically pass through. Although the data from many languages is sparse, the conclusion we can draw is that roughly by age 3 years, the fundamentals of the language the child is learning have been acquired. The combination of the intricate complexity of adult languages and the seeming ease with which children get to grips with the fundamentals of their language forms a basic argument for an innate learning capacity. We will then consider in more detail the alternative(s) to the claim that language acquisition is possible only by virtue of human biology.