Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Language and mind rethought
- 2 Is human language unrelated to animal communication systems?
- 3 Are there language universals?
- 4 Is language innate?
- 5 Is language a distinct module in the mind?
- 6 Is there a universal Mentalese?
- 7 Is thought independent of language?
- 8 Language and mind regained
- Notes
- References
- Index
4 - Is language innate?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Language and mind rethought
- 2 Is human language unrelated to animal communication systems?
- 3 Are there language universals?
- 4 Is language innate?
- 5 Is language a distinct module in the mind?
- 6 Is there a universal Mentalese?
- 7 Is thought independent of language?
- 8 Language and mind regained
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Myth: Knowledge of language is present at birth. It is encoded in the microcircuitry of the human brain. This allows children to learn language without parents (or anybody else) trying to teach them, or correcting their mistakes (e.g., I sitted down, versus I sat down). Language is therefore an instinct, emerging naturally, rather than being learned by imitation, for instance; a minimum of exposure to thesounds and words of a specific language is sufficient for a language to grow in a speaker’s mind.
Children come into the world biologically prepared for language – from speech-production apparatus, to information-processing capacity, human infants are neurobiologically equipped to acquire spoken language in a way no other species is. And, although there are precursors of language evident in the communication systems of other animals, human language is qualitatively different from other non-human systems of communication in a number of ways, as I pointed out in Chapter 2.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Language MythWhy Language Is Not an Instinct, pp. 95 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014