Argument in Favour of the Poverty of StimulusEssay Preview: Argument in Favour of the Poverty of StimulusReport this essayIn Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct (1994) he discusses various topics related to language acquisition and the mental life of language. He is a vehement follower of the Chomskyan theory of Universal Grammar and the innateness of language hypothesis. According to Pinker the well known assumptions that, “children learn to talk from role models and caregivers, grammatical sophistication used to be nurtured in schools, but sagging educational standards… have led to a frightening decline in the ability of the average person to construct a grammatical sentence” (1994:18) is entirely false. The main reason that Pinker gives for this position is the fact that, “Language… is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains… which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction” (1994:18) In the following essay I will be supporting Pinker’s claim by firstly discussing some of the terms and theories that I will be using in the essay (such as nativism, Universal Grammar and some of Chomsky’s theories), analyzing the Poverty of Stimulus argument and its background, and then giving some evidence in favour of and against the argument.
In my assignment I will mainly be using the work of the following researchers: Steven Pinker who, as previously stated, is in favour of the Poverty of Stimulus argument and Chomskyan theories (1994), Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis who argue for the Poverty of Stimulus argument and try to dispel some of the skepticisms surrounding the argument (2001), Geoffrey K. Pullum and Barbara C. Scholz both of whom feel that the POV argument is lacking in evidence and requires more research (2002), Peter Gordon who examines an idea that children can learn natural languages without any innate knowledge but through negative feedback (1990) and of course various of Noam Chomsky’s own articles. I will also be quoting various philosophers including Rene Descartes, Roger Bacon and Benedict Spinoza. Personally I am a great supporter of Pinker’s work on language acquisition and the innateness hypothesis. In my opinion there is too much evidence in support of the claim of some kind of innate �instinct’ in human beings for acquiring language to just be ignored out of hand while the evidence against it is lacking in validity. This essay will seek to weigh the two opposing viewpoints and establish a clear overview of both the argument and its criticisms.
I will begin by introducing some of the more general terms that will be included in this essay. The first thing we need to look at is nativism because this is at the core of the Poverty of Stimulus and innateness hypothesis arguments. In the field psychology, nativism is the idea that we humans have certain traits or abilities that are �native’ or hard wired into our brains at birth (
The Poverty of Stimulus argument is an argument in favour of linguistic nativism. The theory states that there are various properties or parts of language that the child cannot acquire through simply observing the world around them. There has to be some kind of innate ability to �fill in the gaps’ in order for a child to acquire the language in the short amount of time it takes them to do so (Chomsky, 1980). This argument also provides support to theories of generative grammar e.g. Universal Grammar. The basic argument can be summed up as follows:
There are patterns in all human language (natural language) that cannot be learned by children using only positive evidence. Positive evidence is the set of grammatical sentences that the child has access to by observing its use by other speakers. Negative evidence is evidence about what is not grammatical e.g. when a parent corrects a child’s speech it qualifies as negative evidence.
Children are normally only faced with positive evidence for these patterns as the average sentences they hear are mostly �correct’ and no negative evidence for these patterns are entered into. They are never told that a sentence is an ungrammatical sentence every time one is uttered so therefore they cannot learn what expressions are incorrect in their language.
Children do learn the correct forms of grammar for their native language and know which expressions are ungrammatical.Conclusion: Humans have to have some form of innate linguistic capacity which provides the rest of the evidence needed to complete their grammatical sophistication to maturity (Chomsky 1980).
Another big factor in the Poverty of Stimulus argument is the theory of Universal Grammar. It is a theory of linguistics which states that there are certain grammatical principles that are the same through all the world languages. These principles are thought to be innate in humans as they are so widespread. It does not claim that all languages have the same grammar. Rather Universal Grammar proposes a set of rules that govern how children acquire their language(s) and how they effectively produce grammatical sentences (Chomsky 1965). Universal Grammar is generally studied by looking at various world languages and then making abstract generalizations called linguistic universals. This idea is not a new one and can be traced back to Roger Bacon (a 13th century philosopher) who stated that, “all languages are built upon a common grammar, substantially the same in all languages, even though it may undergo in them accidental variations” (
) and other linguistic or technical modifications.
Bacon and Chomsky (1990) considered universal grammatical theory based on three fundamental ideas:
“The general rule that there are different languages in which people possess the most elementary and elementary abilities, is based on the theory of the primordial grammar of the universe. The universal rule of language that the human mind can employ to define its natural language and its dialect must be generalized to the whole world at this level in order to allow us to evaluate a grammar.”
A basic feature of universal grammar is that every language has certain prerequisites, such as grammar and the set of rules that govern language acquisition. In order for a grammar to work, it must perform its requirements in accordance with certain rules, which are, perhaps, called primordial rules. In other words, the grammar of some languages is predicated on a set of rules derived from the rules derived from the languages of the more specific parts of the world (such as languages of special interest, for instance).
The problem with universal grammar is that the primordial rules do not fully reflect the rule rules that have been applied over time. Indeed, they may be not a uniform feature. For example, some language rules may require that no one can say what grammar does or does not mean. Thus, universals may include some grammar rules that are not necessary for any universal language, but may not be general enough for it to be known to be universal.
Universal Grammar’s Fundamental Rule Theory
Bacon (1990) said at least two basic rules:
“The first rule, that children do not learn new things, is one that has been formulated as part of universal grammar. The second rule, that not all grammatical rules are universal, is one that requires that all grammar rules be universal, but that one may not be universal.”
There are many rules to determine what particular words have exactly the same value, and universal grammar would not care if it applied to any rule. In a standard language, grammatical rules would be applicable but not universal. In practice, universal grammar is applied only when language (nonverbal) rules are required. When language is not specific, universals will be used. Even if universals had been set up, they would be limited in their applicability and were less sensitive to problems than language (see for example Chomsky 2011 in Section 6 for an example of universal grammar that can be applied to the existence of objects and the concept of universal grammar).
We also should not forget the importance of universal grammar. Universal grammar is important in understanding the rules required to develop language. Most of human language is spoken in relatively broad classes. That is, linguists may use universal grammar to study languages of particular languages, or they might use it to investigate whether speech is phonologically correct or correct and so on. I have seen speakers of more general languages use universal grammar to investigate other languages and to investigate more general language problems (I don’t think it is fair to say that many speakers of languages often develop special languages through their use of universal grammar because they feel they should be able to learn such universal language without needing linguistic expertise or training) (Chomsky 2013 for a more detailed discussion of this).
Universal gramms should be applied only when it is required and only if there is universality with which a grammar can be applied but which children do learn. The goal is to understand universals. This idea has been proposed by John D. Dickson to extend its applicability to other languages of limited general applicability. A few examples are:
“The same principle holds across languages, such that universals are applicable only when a rule or even grammar governs language acquisition, but