View Full Version : Language: innate or learned?


alteredperception
10-07-05, 12:22 AM
Chomsky has turned linguistics into a joke, with his speculation and radical ideas about innate language. He believes we are born with an innate understanding of the basic structure for language. His argument for this contains to parts:
1. the poverty of the stimulus: language is too complex to be learned
2: universal grammar: there are similarites found across all languages

These arguments don't provide sufficient evidence for his theory. Of course we have UG because we all have human brains! Poverty of stimulus argument is just as dumb as creationism.

Language is a function of the brain, learned through our general learning capacities.

dr. cello
10-07-05, 12:36 AM
children tend to develop language at roughly the same age, regardless of which culture they are in. i think he's possibly mistaking language for the structures of the brain that interpret it, however.

Onefinity
10-07-05, 12:48 AM
Philosophy is probably not the place for this thread.