Language genes

[lolwhites]

You may have heard about this already, but it certainly makes for an interesting read:

The FOXP2 story

And there's lots more on FOXP2 to be found on the Internet.[/url]

[abufletcher]

Interesting reading but like most populist stories on language needs to be taken with a LARGE grain of salt. In his book Educating Eve, Sampson includes a section about the KE family where he points out that this is not a family or "otherwise normal" individuals. Thirteen of the affected individuals were tested as having a below average IQ overall, i.e. they can be expected to perform badly on a wide range of intellectual tasks.

Still, I have no basic reason to reject the possibility that there may be either individual genes (or as Richard Dawkins argues in his Selfish Gene book, clusters of genes) that might lead to language impairment of one sort of another. That's a long long way though from definitely proof of correctness of the nativist position.

[abufletcher]

While it's not my areas of personal interest I do find it fascinating that people are now looking for a neurological basis for learning in the wet-wiring of the brain and genetics instead of postulations of "structures of the mind" (a la Jackendoff).

[lolwhites]

That's a long long way though from definitely proof of correctness of the nativist position.

Agreed, though since the research is still very much in its infancy I wouldn't expect anything conclusive at this stage.

[liqi]

quite interesting!

[Stephen Jones]

That's a long long way though from definitely proof of correctness of the nativist position

The 'nativist' position as you put it, is pretty much proved beyond a shadow of doubt. I find matters such as the Fox2 gene to be distractors. Little in behaviour, is the result of the action of a single gene.

Sampson is a crank (anybody who gives the importance he does elsewhere on his site to Britain and the EU is bound to be). To espouse the idea that the mind is a blank slate, shows either a woeful ignorance of the facts, or a wilful refusal to face them. When he calls his policy of simply ignoring the facts 'empiricism' then a smile is the best response

[abufletcher]

I have to admit that I sense a bit of "the crank" in Sampson as well -- but I do think his book points out the dangers of accepting sight-unseen archival literature.

As far as whether the "nativist" position has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, I think that depends on how one defines this position and whether one believes in a "strong" or "weak" version.

I doubt anyone would seriously deny that there isn't some degree of "nature" in language acquisition, i.e. there must certainly be some degree of predisposition towards the acquision of human language (and other organizational behaviors). But that this might be a simple matter of "throwing a few switches" during the first few years of life strikes me as an extremely strong version and far from proven.

[lolwhites]

It certainly seems to be the case that people who aren't exposed to language in their early years (e.g. Genie, Victor of Aveyron) are unable to acquire much more than individual words later on. This seems pretty strong evidence (maybe not conclusive proof) of a biological basis for language. Adults who never learned to read or swim can still learn, whereas the same cannot be said for language.

[abufletcher]

I don't put much weight on a few historical accounts of "feral children." I would imagine that the fact that these children lived in conditions of extreme social isolation is a relevant as the simple lack of language input.

[fluffyhamster]

That's a long long way though from definitely proof of correctness of the nativist position

The 'nativist' position as you put it, is pretty much proved beyond a shadow of doubt. I find matters such as the Fox2 gene to be distractors. Little in behaviour, is the result of the action of a single gene.

Sampson is a crank (anybody who gives the importance he does elsewhere on his site to Britain and the EU is bound to be). To espouse the idea that the mind is a blank slate, shows either a woeful ignorance of the facts, or a wilful refusal to face them. When he calls his policy of simply ignoring the facts 'empiricism' then a smile is the best response

Have you actually read Sampson's book, SJ? Although he may be a bit blunt or forceful at times, it's actually a serious work and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand (the Foreword is by Paul Postal, hardly a minor linguist and somebody also concerned with the manner in which Chomsky and his followers have conducted themselves in their "scientific" quest). As for him simply 'ignoring facts', what do you mean? (If anyone's ignored facts e.g. as unearthed by Corpus Linguistics, then it's Chomskyans - they seem to have been involved in sort of reinventing the linguistic wheel, so to speak). Can you be more specific?

In previous posts you've been quite hostile to Chomskyan linguistics (e.g. TG), so I was wondering why you generally seem to feel that such a compelling case has been made for an innate language faculty.

Myself, I lean more to a non-modularized general cognitive ability (Got a brain? Check. Eyes, ears and other sensory organs all in place and working OK? Check etc), which allows us to receive input (of which there is, as Abu has said, quite a bit more, and of supposedly "impossible" types, floating around in the environment than linguists working in the UG framework realize or are prepared to admit) and develop our "linguistic" abilities through a mind-body awareness, metaphor etc yadda yadda.

I don't recall what Samspon wrote about this KE family, but I will take a look at it again soon. From a quick read of the article that lol posted, it would seem that being deficient in the FOXP2 gene could result in all sorts of physiological impairments (which would have an impact on general cognitive ability). I'd also assume that somebody with problems with motor control of their lower face (and in articulating sounds) would also have problems with discriminating sounds generally i.e. have a low phonological awareness, which might affect (i.e. explain) the poor performance in writing words 'beginning with a particular letter'.

[abufletcher]

I don't recall what Samspon wrote about this KE family, but I will take a look at it again soon.

P. 90-96

Basically Sampson argues that both Gopnik (the original researcher) and Pinker overstate their case -- which seems to be very common to formalist linguistics. That is, very LARGE claims are made on the basis of quite marginal observations (in contrived experimental settings).

[Stephen Jones]

Modularity is much more fine-grained than eyes and ears, fluffy. For example your brain has a particular module dedicated to recognizing faces, and just faces.

Much of the evidence about the specificity of particular parts of the brain was gained through observing cases where people had suffered some kind of neurological damage.;Oliver Sachs, "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" is an excellent read in that respect. Recently we have been able to identify which areas of the brain neurons are firing in when performing a particular task.

It is easy enough to attack one particular piece of evidence; it is the culmulative weight of all these pieces that makes the blank slate idea laughable.

[Stephen Jones]

the other point about Sampson is that he is gloriously inconsistent. In one part of his web site
http://www.grsampson.net/CDissident.html
he argues in favour of the most extreme form of biological determinism
My website at that time contained a set of pages on controversial current-affairs issues, including one which made the point that preference for members of one’s own race over other races is a biologically natural, universal aspect of human psychology...
The point in my web page which seemed to arouse most hostility of all was in fact a relatively brief allusion to scientific findings that were established decades ago, and which I supposed that most educated people were well aware of, about differences in average intelligence level between the races. We have known for a long time that the yellow-skinned races have on average slightly higher IQs than whites, who in turn have on average higher IQs than blacks.

and then when he is talking about the origins of language goes straight to the other extreme
http://www.grsampson.net/REmpNat.html
The ‘Language Instinct’ Debate shows that anyone who is willing to look at the evidence in good faith must agree that language, and indeed human intellectual achievements more generally, are in all the ways that matter purely cultural developments. Only to a trivial extent are they predetermined by our biology.

[abufletcher]

it is the culmulative weight of all these pieces that makes the blank slate idea laughable.

I just see this as one of those continuums:

(extreme of nuture) <--------------------> (extreme of nature)

It's probably foolish to argue either extreme. Personally, I think the evidence points to something more towards the nuture side while others think the truth lies closer to the nature end. Partially this has to do with one's conception of "language." If, as many people do, one treats language as some idealized code that is "acquired" by about age 5-7 then you're probably more likely to be on the nature end of things. On the other hand if you see language (which for me includes all the stuff that Chomsky's "performance" is intended to exclude) as the sedimentation of social routine, that is by no means acquired by age 5 (or perhaps even age 25), then you're more likely to prefer a place on the nuture side.

And I think people that are more comfortable on the "nature end" are also more likely to teach grammar in the classroom.

[Stephen Jones]

Nature and nurture both work together; they are not at opposite ends of a continuum.

Language is not acquired perfectly before adolescence. Only certain features of it are. And the mechanism to acquire a first language is turned off round about puberty.

Now this doesn't deny that an adult's idiolect changes throughout his life or that many of its identifying features come from the adolescent peer group. Nor does it deny tthat people who learn a second language later in life can use it better than most who speak it as a first language (think of Conrad who knew no English before the age of twenty).