Keeping up my end of the conversation with Chris
So I got into a conversation on Chris's Linguistics Blog, and I think it would be kinder not to make big comments on his blog. So my half of the conversation will be over here and I'll link to his thoughts so that the conversation can be followed.
It all started here with Chris's discussion of case assignment. I asked a couple questions in the comments. He responded directly here and you can read my comments at the bottom and now Chris has asked me some questions.
Here's his question:
I'm going to rephrase the question as I hear it: Given what we know about the brain, what are the chances that we have a language acquisition gene (that produces or is a language acquisition device)?
And for the sake of time and getting back to my gender and langauge book review which is on hold, I will answer this subset of the problem: Getting something into the genes.
Click on to read my answer.
Evolutionary theory tells us a story like this: organisms may have gene mutations that are adaptive. As such, those organisms with the adaptive mutation are more likely to survive, more likely to have progeny who may also have that mutation. Lather, rinse, repeat and mutations accrete. Woohoo! This is cool!
Moving on to language and genes--
When we look at our primate relatives, we do not see nearly the symbolic capacity that we humans have. (Even decades of work by Savage-Rumbaugh with Kanzi the bonobo hasn't gotten very far. There is no danger of bonobos starting libraries or building nukes anytime soon.) In other words, somewhere between there and here, language evolved in.
Although this might send a true Chomskian shrieking, from an evolutionary perspective language must be a communicative act. Why?
Let's say that in the primordial world, homonid "John" won the genetic lottery and has the language acquisition gene (LAG). The first! The only! Oh wait. The only? He has all the "underlying grammar" waiting to be set but there is no speech community around him to set the parameters. That mutation is wholy obscured, not evident to any of the chicks. Turns out his lottery pays off in funny money, so his Benz is locked in the garage.
John's buddy "Tom" won the other genetic lottery and can throw rocks with stunning accuracy. Able to fend off predators, knock down fruit, and hunt squirrels, the chicks dig Tom. "Tom, take me for a ride in your Hummer!" they shout as John looks forlornly along. So we have John, average in every other way and Tom, community stud. Tom's genes advance, John's? Well, we don't know. So the first problem with the LAG is the chances of it continuing in the gene pool on its own are not looking good.
To sum up, it appears that LAD/LAG proponents look at the universality of language acquisition and say, "It must be in the genes!" When this was first said 50 years ago, genetics was this mystery black box term. But it's 2006. To say it is in the genes requires that the sayers be serious about that, to study what that implies, and to my (possibly egocentric) mind, get around the problem I proposed--the lack of a speech community in which to demonstrate a LAG/LAD as a fitness indicator.
Tune in next time for: General cognition/"Up from movement"
It all started here with Chris's discussion of case assignment. I asked a couple questions in the comments. He responded directly here and you can read my comments at the bottom and now Chris has asked me some questions.
Here's his question:
With that said, Andrea asks about a potential genetic substrate for language learning, and from what I recall reading and hearing about in linguistic anthropology, there has been suggestion of precisely that. If universal grammar does exist and we do have this ability to learn any human language, there may perhaps be some genetic substrate for language learning...a language acquisition gene, if you will. Andrea mentions that this would be "a very strong claim given the latest neuroscience." I don't think that I'm familiar with the material that that references, so could you fill me in on that please Andrea? I'd really like to know about it.
I'm going to rephrase the question as I hear it: Given what we know about the brain, what are the chances that we have a language acquisition gene (that produces or is a language acquisition device)?
And for the sake of time and getting back to my gender and langauge book review which is on hold, I will answer this subset of the problem: Getting something into the genes.
Click on to read my answer.
Evolutionary theory tells us a story like this: organisms may have gene mutations that are adaptive. As such, those organisms with the adaptive mutation are more likely to survive, more likely to have progeny who may also have that mutation. Lather, rinse, repeat and mutations accrete. Woohoo! This is cool!
Moving on to language and genes--
When we look at our primate relatives, we do not see nearly the symbolic capacity that we humans have. (Even decades of work by Savage-Rumbaugh with Kanzi the bonobo hasn't gotten very far. There is no danger of bonobos starting libraries or building nukes anytime soon.) In other words, somewhere between there and here, language evolved in.
Although this might send a true Chomskian shrieking, from an evolutionary perspective language must be a communicative act. Why?
Let's say that in the primordial world, homonid "John" won the genetic lottery and has the language acquisition gene (LAG). The first! The only! Oh wait. The only? He has all the "underlying grammar" waiting to be set but there is no speech community around him to set the parameters. That mutation is wholy obscured, not evident to any of the chicks. Turns out his lottery pays off in funny money, so his Benz is locked in the garage.
John's buddy "Tom" won the other genetic lottery and can throw rocks with stunning accuracy. Able to fend off predators, knock down fruit, and hunt squirrels, the chicks dig Tom. "Tom, take me for a ride in your Hummer!" they shout as John looks forlornly along. So we have John, average in every other way and Tom, community stud. Tom's genes advance, John's? Well, we don't know. So the first problem with the LAG is the chances of it continuing in the gene pool on its own are not looking good.
To sum up, it appears that LAD/LAG proponents look at the universality of language acquisition and say, "It must be in the genes!" When this was first said 50 years ago, genetics was this mystery black box term. But it's 2006. To say it is in the genes requires that the sayers be serious about that, to study what that implies, and to my (possibly egocentric) mind, get around the problem I proposed--the lack of a speech community in which to demonstrate a LAG/LAD as a fitness indicator.
Tune in next time for: General cognition/"Up from movement"
posted by Andrea Mates at 2:43 PM
1 Comments:
Here's a snippet on language & gene which might interest you: http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=brainBriefings_09_genesandlanguage. Have some questions on language, aphasia & symbolic systems that I'm dying to ask a neurologist, if you would be willing to drop me your email?
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