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}John, list:
I would further say that our species requires language since our
knowledge is not innate and must be both developed and learned.
What kind of language? All language is primarily symbolic and all
language must acknowledge agents and interactions. Or subject/object
and verbs. Other aspects such as grammatical structure, numbers, etc
are variable.
I'd say this: the symbolic aspect and the agent/interaction aspect
is required.
Socialization is simply based around the acknowledgement of others
and their, and your, role in the functioning in the group.
As far as bilingual and trilingual children [common in Europe] - as
you note, there seems to be no problem. I'm aware of many such
families - and even more, how the infant connects the language to the
person. Such that - if Parent A is speaking Language Y most of the
time, and Parent B speaks Z....the child will get quite upset if the
languages are switched.
I don't think that the nature/nurture question will ever be
resolved!
Edwina
On Wed 08/08/18 1:44 PM , John F Sowa [email protected] sent:
On 8/8/2018 8:41 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
> if you see our species [homo sapiens] as a kind of 'black slate'
Both of the articles cited are contributions to the nature/nurture
debates that have been going on for centuries. Neither one said
that the infant's mind or brain is a "blank slate" at birth.
> our species is not born with innate knowledge and requires a long
> nurturance period. And our type of socialization requires
language.
> So- how do you get away from the notion that the requirement for
> language is innate?
You need large numbers of researchers exploring the issues from
many points of view. And as Peirce said, do not block the way
of inquiry. Chomsky, for example, has spent the past 40 years in
blocking attempts to disprove his hypotheses from 60 years ago.
For example, consider "our type of socialization requires language."
That's true. But what kind of language? What kind of
socialization?
And what aspects of each are required or optional?
Dan E. shows how a language and culture that developed in centuries
of isolation from "our type of socialization" can be radically
different from "our kind of language".
It's unethical to deprive infants of various stimuli to see what
happens, but there are naturally occurring situations that create
variations. For an example from the other article:
> So a child’s brain will develop differently depending on how
> attentive her parents are, whether she lives in poverty, and
> which culture she grows up in.
>
> “Early infancy is a critical time for establishing the biology
> of a healthy mind. You’re not born with a social brain, you
> grow one.”
Another kind of study addresses the issues of infants raised
by parents with two different native languages, spoken and
signed. (Not surprisingly, the study was done in Canada.)
See below.
John
_______________________________________________________________
From slide 14 of http://jfsowa.com/talks/vrmind.pdf [1]
A study of bilingual infants whose parents speak or sign different
languages: *
● All six combinations of four languages: English, French,
American
Sign Language (ASL), and Langue des Signes Québécoise (LSQ).
● Monolingual and bilingual babies go through the same stages and
at the same ages for both spoken and signed languages.
● Hearing babies born to profoundly deaf parents babble with their
hands, but not vocally.
● Babies bilingual in a spoken and a signed language babble in
both
modalities – vocally and with their hands.
● And they express themselves with equal fluency in their spoken
and
signed language at every stage of development.
The same brain areas that support spoken languages support
signed languages, but other areas are also involved. **
* Laura-Ann Petitto (2005) http://petitto.net/pubs/published [2]
** R. Campbell, M. MacSweeney, & D. Waters (2007) Sign language
and the brain: A review.
https://academic.oup.com/jdsde/article/13/1/3/500594 [3]
Links:
------
[1]
http://webmail.primus.ca/parse.php?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fjfsowa.com%2Ftalks%2Fvrmind.pdf
[2]
http://webmail.primus.ca/parse.php?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fpetitto.net%2Fpubs%2Fpublished
[3]
http://webmail.primus.ca/parse.php?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Facademic.oup.com%2Fjdsde%2Farticle%2F13%2F1%2F3%2F500594
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