Psychology Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Universal grammar: Universal grammar (UG) is based on the assumption that all (human) languages follow common grammatical principles and that these principles are innate to all people. Universal grammar was developed by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s and 1960s. Chomsky assumed that people are born with an innate language ability that enables them to learn language. See also N. Chomsky, Transformational Grammar, >Generative Grammar, Grammar._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Terrence W. Deacon on Universal Grammar - Dictionary of Arguments
I 38 Universal Grammar/Pinker/Deacon: Pinker is a representative of many ideas of Chomsky about the uniqueness of human language. >St. Pinker, cf. >N. Chomsky. Language instinct/Pinker/Deacon: Thesis: innate grammatical knowledge is not incompatible with an adaptive interpretation of its origin. This instinct could have developed gradually in the course of natural selection. In this way, we avoid having to accept improbable coincidences(1). >Selection. Deacon: on the other hand, this does not yet provide us with a formal explanation of language competence and how it was created in the selection process. >Competence. DeaconVsPinker: Pinker's theory of linguistic instinct repeats only a description of the problem and gives it a new name. I 103 Universal grammar/Chomsky/Deacon: (Chomsky 1972(2);1980(3);1988(4)) Chomsky assumed three insights: 1. The logical structure of grammar is much more complex than previously assumed, but it does not pose a problem for speakers of a language. 2. Although languages have very different features on the surface, ... I 104 ...they have a common deep structure (depth logic). This, in turn, makes it difficult to discover these rules, which must first be made accessible indirectly. >Deep structure. 3. One can observe that children quickly learn a remarkable knowledge of the complex grammatical rules, without the trial and error procedure. Some authors have expanded this to the thesis that the abstract rules for a natural language could never be discovered. Other authors argued that one could never inductively infer the rules from texts if there was no prior knowledge of grammar. (See Chomsky and Miller, 1963(8) for a formal representation of this argument). DeaconVsUniversal Grammar: this cure is more radical than the suffering it is supposed to eliminate. Your assumptions about brains and evolution are far too strong. It turns children into super-intelligent learning subjects. I 105 Some authors VsUniversal Grammar: assume that straw men are build here: a limited model of language acquisition as an induction and the assertion that language experience takes place without feedback. I 138 Universal Grammar/DeaconVsUniversal Grammar/Deacon: Def Pidgin language/pidgin languages/Deacon: these are languages that have arisen from a collision of native languages of an area with immigrant languages. Pidgin languages are no one's mother tongue. They can disappear within a generation in favour of "Creole languages". Surprisingly, the syntactic structures of different Creole languages are similar. I 139 Among other things, Bickerton (1981(5), 1984(6), 1990(7)) takes this as evidence of innate grammatical patterns. DeaconVsBickerton/DeaconVsUniversal Grammar: We can explain the language learning skills differently than through an innate universal grammar: the children take many phrases as an unanalysed whole first, and then break them down later. I 140 Brains have developed in such a way that they can apply different learning strategies at different points in time. These strategies compete for neural resources. >Brain/Deacon, cf. >Neural networks. (1) Pinker, Steven (2000): The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. New York: Perennial Classics. (2) Chomsky, Noam (1972). Language and Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (3) Chomsky, Noam (1980) Rules and Representations. New York: Columbia University Press. (4) Chomsky, Noam (1988) Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures. Cambridge Ma: MIT PRess. (5) Bickerton, Derek (1981): Roots of language. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, Inc., Pp. xiii + 351. (6) Bickerton, Derek (1984): The Language bioprogram hypothesis, June 1984, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7(02): 173 - 188. (7) Bickerton, Derek (1990): Language & Species. University of Chicago Press. (8) Chomsky, Noam & G. Miller (1963) Introduction to formal analysis of natural language. In Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, Vol 2, ed. R. D. Luce, R. Bush, and E. Galanter. New York: John Wiley._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
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> Counter arguments against Deacon
> Counter arguments in relation to Universal Grammar
