Human Language, unique, innate or learnt?

[kyser_soze]

Re: the future thing...wolf packs in Sweden will note when elk are getting older or sick, and revisit specific targets at regular intervals to see how they're doing, before attacking them (elk being fucking huge beasts). Hunting patterns of many pack animals show that they have limited conceptions of future at least - hyenas, for example, will split their pack so that some chase the prey to 'herd' it into the path of the other half. Pack hunting generally requires an ability to analyse time/space coordinates.

I do think that most animals do live 'in the present', but are aware of time's passing - hence the dog that knows when it's owner will return from work throughout the year (so it's not only taking cues from sunlight, for example).

We have language that has blunted our own instinctive ability (when that big tsunami occurred for example, elephants in sri lanka, and other animals in other affected countries, headed off away from the sea sharpishly; humans just carried on swimming), but of course has provided other guides to our life.

Yeah, animals and weather prediction is an interesting one (altho in this example all the humans who recognised the significance of the retreat of the sea also removed themselves), but given that animals have more attuned senses of smell etc and have different criteria for entering flight mode it's best not to assign semi-mystical powers of comprehension to them...I don't honestly see how you can argue that language was the reason so many people stayed in the sea, rather than a lack of knowledge of what an incoming tsunami looks like...

 

[fela fan]

Yeah, animals and weather prediction is an interesting one (altho in this example all the humans who recognised the significance of the retreat of the sea also removed themselves), but given that animals have more attuned senses of smell etc and have different criteria for entering flight mode it's best not to assign semi-mystical powers of comprehension to them...I don't honestly see how you can argue that language was the reason so many people stayed in the sea, rather than a lack of knowledge of what an incoming tsunami looks like...

I wasn't assigning any kind of mystical powers to animals, just instinct, unless you see instinct as a semi-mystical power.

Language gave us reason, and reason and logic are a powerful human attribute and governance of our behaviour. Reason and instinct often clash, and one is often conscious of deciding whether to follow head or heart.

There obviously was a lack of knowledge for many on what a tsunami looks like, but no lack of knowledge that something was looking extremely non-normal at the time. People noticed something was very different, but did not seem to be in instinctive mode by remaining where they were. The animals knew what to do, but humans did not. I believe language, and all it has given humans, acted as a barrier to our natural instincts to get the fuck away from a sea that was behaving most weirdly. I personally would have got the hell out of the way in rapid fashion. Of course, some did, but most carried on as normal.

 

[danny la rouge]

Innate and learned.

Our brain structure allows us to learn it. If we didn't learn it, it doesn't just spring up.

This.

The "wild child" case studies were the big regarding this, when I was an undergraduate.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

But that's very obvious. Of course we have the inherent capacity for language (we wouldn't speak, otherwise). But to what extent does this capacity correspond to a specific organic function, even to the generation of grammar a priori?

 

[IMR]

Genetic basis for Specific Language Impairment, existence of brain areas functionally dedicated to speech production and comprehension, independence of syntactic performance from measures of general intelligence/learning ability.

 

[kyser_soze]

But that's very obvious. Of course we have the inherent capacity for language (we wouldn't speak, otherwise). But to what extent does this capacity correspond to a specific organic function, even to the generation of grammar a priori?

I was addressing the question in the OP, which I felt was poorly worded as it wsa looking for an either/or answer.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Genetic basis for Specific Language Impairment, existence of brain areas functionally dedicated to speech production and comprehension, independence of syntactic performance from measures of general intelligence/learning ability.

I find none of that conclusive, though. So please expand.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

I was addressing the question in the OP, which I felt was poorly worded as it wsa looking for an either/or answer.

Sure. It's just a general problem with such a discussion, which tends to become binary. I could have said this earlier.

 

[IMR]

I find none of that conclusive, though. So please expand.

What would you find conclusive?

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

What would you find conclusive?

Something in the neurological field, especially if it was strongly backed up by genetics. Something as non-observational as possible.

 

[IMR]

Something in the neurological field, especially if it was strongly backed up by genetics. Something as non-observational as possible.

'Non-observational' implies experimental manipulation, am I understanding you correctly?

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

'Non-observational' implies experimental manipulation, am I understanding you correctly?

Precluding (to whatever extent possible, which can't probably be total) experimental manipulation - if that's what you mean - yes.

 

[IMR]

I actually meant the opposite

Sorry, I was ignorant of the philosophical definition of 'non-observational', having in mind differing experimental designs such as 'natural' experiments and so forth.

Am I right in assuming that you meant 'non-observational' in the philosophical sense of knowledge acquired through reasoning alone?

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Am I right in assuming that you meant 'non-observational' in the philosophical sense of knowledge acquired through reasoning alone?

I just mean unambiguous.

Lots of the evidence is open to interpretation.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

However, that said, i'd be interested to hear how crows think about the future!

They demonstrate an ability to reason by their use and construction of tools – which is not done merely by trial and error, but shows an ability to reason thus: if I make the tool this shape, I'll be able to do that.

Here's some interesting stuff about Caledonian crows. An animal that lives in a perpetual present would not be able to reason in this way.

Another example – from a book I don't have to hand, so I'll summarise – comes from a chimp's solving of the problem of how to get to a banana that is out of reach when there is a pile of books sitting in the room. After a period of frustrated and unsuccessful grasping for the elusive banana, the chimp retired to a corner apparently in a sulk. After a while, it perked up and jumped around in obvious delight. Without further ado, it strode over to the books, piled them up underneath the banana, stood on the books and took and ate the banana. It clearly had every stage in its solution worked out in its head before starting to do it. It had come up with a fully formed sequence of events that would lead to it getting to the banana – hence the leap of delight before it even started. This is a clear awareness of time – before this can happen, that must take place first.

 

[IMR]

Ibn Khaldoun: Start with Eric Lenneberg and go from there if you really are genuinely interested in the neurology of language. Myrna Gopnik for the FOXP2 gene which she discovered and her work on Specific Language Impairment.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Ta

 

[littlebabyjesus]

One caution re localisation in the brain: much of what we know about this is inferred from injured brains, but it does not logically follow that a particular disability due to a lesion in one part of the brain means that this part of the brain is responsible for that ability. It only proves that the part of the brain that is injured is involved in the ability.

 

[IMR]

Quite a lot's known from PET/fMRI studies as well though. I used to volunteer for some of those at Queen Square/Institute for Cognitive Neuropsychology years ago.

£20 and a pic of different bits of your brain all lit up to take home.

Plus cortical surface stimulation during surgery and selective knock-out from MEG (strong localised magnetic field); always wanted that done to my visual colour centre. Apparently everything looks yuck, not like some cool Jim Jarmusch film.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes, true. Good thing to volunteer for.

It is still an area of neuroscience with more questions than answers though. Others on here are better qualified to say how.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Plus cortical surface stimulation during surgery and selective knock-out from MEG (strong localised magnetic field); always wanted that done to my visual colour centre. Apparently everything looks yuck, not like some cool Jim Jarmusch film.

Yes, new Parkinson's therapy* involves having to find the right spot to stumulate, and as the probe goes in, a particular series of sensations is elicited on the way. Still only proves the area is involved in the task rather than responsible for it, though.

*Brilliant new treatment that has come from primate research.

 

[Jonti]

This.

The "wild child" case studies were the big regarding this, when I was an undergraduate.

But if a wild child has only another wild child, than language will develop.

This is an astounding fact

 

[kyser_soze]

Quite a lot's known from PET/fMRI studies as well though. I used to volunteer for some of those at Queen Square/Institute for Cognitive Neuropsychology years ago.

£20 and a pic of different bits of your brain all lit up to take home.

Plus cortical surface stimulation during surgery and selective knock-out from MEG (strong localised magnetic field); always wanted that done to my visual colour centre. Apparently everything looks yuck, not like some cool Jim Jarmusch film.

Yes, true. Good thing to volunteer for.

It is still an area of neuroscience with more questions than answers though. Others on here are better qualified to say how.

They still taking peeps to volounteer? That sounds

Wonder if they'd map my brain playing MW2

 

[IMR]

They probably are kyser. It helps if you're right-handed - you'll get onto more speech-related studies. I'm left-handed so tended to get stuff like vision research instead. It's interesting but not very comfortable. You have a catheter in your arm and the scanner room has to be kept quite cold.

Hammersmith Hospital was doing transcranial magnetic stimulation studies, the first place in London iirc, but never knew anyone there so didn't get to take part in those.

 

[Cid]

Well, they did teach chimps ASL. But they never mastered a fast and fluent and abstracted use of language- not even those chimps who were taught the signing by the parents. This suggests there is a fundemental difference in the nueral architecture of a human as compared to a chimp

IIRC the criticisms went further than that; the subjects were essentially memorising symbols rather than using language in any meaningful sense.

Of course there is a difference BUT that doesn't mean that animals are not capable of language.

What you must take into consideration when looking at studies with chimps and ASL is that the sign language, is a human language (English) that has been translated from verbal to physical words.

Judging apes capacity for grammar is never going to be that accurate using this method.

I love Chomsky but he was wrong in this instance.

No it's not, ASL is a distinct language with a grammar and syntax unrelated to any spoken language.

 

[chazegee]

Enjoyed reading about Xenoglossy, and the documented case of a British girl coming up with Ancient Egyptian out of the middle of nowhere.

 

[revol68]

Yep. Agree with Chomsky and Pinker et al. The brain is structured in such a way as to make language learning possible. So it's inate.

It's quite obvious that the ability to learn learn language is innate and that's just a simple logical truism.

The issue of whether it is nature or nurture rests on a fundamentally flawed dualism, that posits culture and learning as a kind of opposite to the innate and natural.

As for Chomsky and Pinker, well I don'y know how much they are in agreement, Chomsky's universal grammar and argument that the brain is structured in such a way to allow the development of language is quite some distance from Pinker's over egged pile of evolutionary psychologist crap. For a start Chomsky views the evolution of language in humans as a Gouldian spandrel, a concept at odds with Pinker's reductionist just so stories of evolutionary psychology.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

It's quite obvious that the ability to learn learn language is innate and that's just a simple logical truism.

The issue of whether it is nature or nurture rests on a fundamentally flawed dualism, that posits culture and learning as a kind of opposite to the innate and natural.

As for Chomsky and Pinker, well I don'y know how much they are in agreement, Chomsky's universal grammar and argument that the brain is structured in such a way to allow the development of language is quite some distance from Pinker's over egged pile of evolutionary psychologist crap. For a start Chomsky views the evolution of language in humans as a Gouldian spandrel, a concept at odds with Pinker's reductionist just so stories of evolutionary psychology.

UG does open the way for a priori ideas, though.

But of course we have the inherent capacity for language.

How did we learn language though? From books, I suppose.

 

[Jonti]

The 'arbitrary symbol' is secondary; what we can immediately perceive, because of the sort of animal we are, is the intent of the other.

So, a hand tilted as if tipping a glass to take a drink may be read as offering one a drink.

We learn language by apprehending the other's intentions, and assigning to those inferred intentions the signal made.

 

[bhamgeezer]

UG does open the way for a priori ideas, though.

But of course we have the inherent capacity for language.

How did we learn language though? From books, I suppose.

I really dislike the tendency to think of capacities of the brain as getting a foot in for apriori ideas. There is no reason why it is not possible to give an entirely mechanical account of how one can differentiate between different instances of sense data, nor is it beyond concievabilty that the logical structure of language is partial realised physically in the brain merely requiring the world to act upon it, which to the individual in question would be their experience, to become fully realised. If this is correct events are distinct from one might consider the mind and therefore to describe them apriori is a mistake.