Patterns in the Mind. Language and Human Nature
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Book Reviews Patterns in the Mind. Language and Human Nature Ray Jackendoff New York Basic Books, a &ion of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1994 ISBN 0-465-05461-7 Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/7/1/101/1755169/jocn.1995.7.1.101.pdf by guest on 18 May 2021 The Language Instinct Steven Pinker. New York William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994 ISBN 0-688-12141-1 Reviewed by Peter Marler The eloquent, aggressive, and unswerving advocacy of behavioral development, came to eschew the term “in- Noam Chomsky, championing a nativistic interpretation nate.” Instead the view current in the 1970s and 1980s of the development of language, was launched in 1957 in most quarters has been that concepts of innateness with his first, and at that time revolutionary book, on were not just scientifically questionable, but in the eyes Syntactic Sbuctuws. He argued then, and has done so of some even intellectually dangerous.As the new dogma with great persuasiveness ever since, that the existence became prevalent, and a virtual taboo was imposed on of species-wide universals in the grammar of all studied notions of innateness, Chomsky‘s voice was one of the languages can only be interpreted in one way; the con- few continuing to argue for strong genetic influences on sistent presence of these universals, he asserts, must behavioral development. His attacks on experientially imply a set of innate brain mechanisms that is uniquely based theories of the ontogeny of behavior were often human. His endorsement of what he has called “an innate vitriolic in their intensity, as in his 1976 book on Reflec- language-acquisition”device, has been steadfastly main- tions on Language. The following and several other tained for a third of a century. Chomsky’s review of quotations are intended to give a flavor of Chomsky’s Skinner’s 1957 book on Verbal Behavior; published in general, rather formalistic style, and to convey some 1959, reprinted repeatedly in subsequent years, set the sense of his proneness to a confrontational stance when stage for an endless series of confrontations with Skin- relating his own ideas to those of others, in the 1970s. nerian disciples and a host of other behavioristically minded opponents who view human behavior patterns No doubt what the organism does depends in part in general, and language in particular, as quintessential on its experience, but is seems to me entirely hope- cultural traits, receiving their structure by way of individ- less to investigate directly the relation between ex- ual experience. Chomsky was not alone in appreciating perience and action. Rather, if we are interested in the importance of language universals, but others favored the problem of “causation of behavior” as a prob- a behavioristic rather than a nativistic interpretation of lem of science, we should at least analyze the rela- them (e.g., Greenberg, 1963). The behavioristic dogma tion of experience to behavior into two parts: first, acknowledged that certain distinctive attributes of the LT, which relates experience to cognitive state, and human brain are required for the development of lan- second, a mechanism, Wsrwhich relates stimulus guage, but these were thought to provide the cognitive conditions to behavior, given the cognitive state CS. and intellectual underpinnings necessary for learning in To put it schematically, in place of the hopeless task general, including linguistic development,with no direct of investigating M as in 0,we may more reasonably bearing on the specific details of how language develops. undertake research into the nature of LT as in (II) Until recently an empiricist,experience-based view of and &, as in (III). language development prevailed among most anthro- 0 M: (experience, stimulus conditions) + behavior pologists, linguists, philosophers, and psychologists. So- 0 LT experience + cognitive state CS ciobiology bucked the trend, but had limited impact (III) WS:stimulus conditions + behavior (given CS) among psychologists. In recent years, even the ethologi- I think that we can make considerable progress to- cal disciples and other intellectual descendents of Kon- wards understanding LT as in 0;that is, towards rad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen, once staunch advocates understanding particular LT(O,D)’s, for various of the crucial importance of innate contributions to choices of D given 0, and the interaction among 0 1995 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Journal of Cognitive Neumscience 7: 1, pp. 101-109 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jocn.1995.7.1.101 by guest on 26 September 2021 them. It is this problem that I want to consider language development, and, by implication, for other here. I doubt that we can learn very much, as scien- types of behavior as well. There is another sense, how- tists at least, about the second of these two parts, ever, in which he has placed obstacles in the path of &,. But it seems to me most unlikely that there will those who would carry the concept of specific innate be any scientific progress at all if we do not at least predispositions further.Repeatedly, investigators eager to analyze the problem of “causation of behavior” into test the validity of Chomskyan propositions have found the two components LT and &, and their elements. his comments on their efforts less than encouraging, An attempt along the lines of 0 to study directly whether they chose to focus on descriptive studies of the relation of behavior to past and current experi- the actual patterns of language development in children, ence is doomed to triviality and scientific insig- or whether they adopted a comparative or evolutionary Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/7/1/101/1755169/jocn.1995.7.1.101.pdf by guest on 18 May 2021 nificance. (Chomsky, 1976, pp. 16-17) approach to the problem. In his comments on these nascent efforts, Chomsky‘s writings often took on an An expansion on the same formulation ends on an al- authoritative and even imperious air, as he issued edicts most reverential note: on those approaches to the study of innate language Consider our near-total failure to discover a scien- mechanisms he regards as sensible and potentially infor- tific theory that provides an analysis of M,, of (III) mative, and those he views as at best a waste of time and (quoted above)-that is, our very limited progress at worst simply stupid. in developing a scientific theory of any depth to ac- Take, for example, Chomsky’s skepticism about the count for the normal use of language (or other as- prospects of research on language in infancy, taken to pects of behavior). Even the relevant concepts seem such an extreme that it must surely have discouraged lacking; certainly, no intellectually satisfying princi- students from investigating early phases of speech be- ples have been proposed that have explanatory havior and development: force, though the questions are very old. It is not ex- There is no general reason to suppose that a human cluded that human science-forming capacities sim- language has “primitive subsystems”in any interest- ply do not extend to this domain, or any domain ing sense, and no convincing evidence for such a be- involving the exercise of will, so that for humans, lief. Observation of early stages of language these questions will always be shrouded in mystery. acquisition may be quite misleading in this regard. It (Chomsky, 1976, p. 25) is possible that at an early stage there is use of Ian- guagelike expressions, but outside the framework im- Few responded to Chomsky‘s call for more studies of posed, at a later stage of intellectual maturation, by genomic influences on behavior, and a long fallow pe- the faculty of language-much a dog can be riod ensued, in which little progress was made in under- as trained to respond to certain commands, though we standing processes of behavioral development,arguably would not conclude, from this, that it is using lan- a result of the unfashionability of invoking genetic con- guage. The most that we can say with any plausibil- tributions to behavior. We have had to wait until the ity is that a relation of “compatibility”holds 1990s for a more balanced approach appropriately coin- between the grammar constructed at a given stage ciding with the advent of the Human Genome Project. of mental growth and linguistic experience, as ana- This new viewpoint is well expressed in two creative lyzed at that stage by mechanisms of mind. and thought-provokingbooks, one by an M.I.T. colleague .-As for the further claim that language is not only of Chomsky, Steven Pinker, author of The Language learned but taught, and that “teaching”is essen- Instinct, and the other, Patterns in the Mind by Ray this tial to establishing the meaning of Linguistic expres Jackendoff,an ex-student of Chomsky. With the approach sions, this view receives no support on either that they propose, we find ourselves contemplating an empirical or conceptual grounds. (Chomsky, 1976, attitude toward behavioral development that is much more in harmony with current activities in developmen- p. 53) tal biology than was previously the case in behavioral If Chomsky had any premonitions about the insights science. Genetic contributions are now given their that Jackendoff and Pinker or other students of infant proper due, as the primary determinants of how growing verbal behavior (e.g., Locke, 1993) might derive from organisms interact with their social and physical environ- their reviews of early stages of language development a ments, changing their behavior as a consequence of couple of decades later, they are not prominently dis- genomic-environmental interactions. played. Broaching the thorny question of the evolution Chomsky’s contribution to these developments, with of language, Chomsky reviewed in 1976 possible coun- a greater emphasis than heretofore on the genetic foun- terarguments to the case for Universal Grammar.