Innate language

The concept of an innate language is referenced in various fields within philosophy, philosophy of language, linguistics, philosophy of mind, psycholinguistics, and other cognitive sciences.

• In philosophy, "innate language" may refer to:
  • Being - as a system of sensual and holistic "language" within the mind
  • Innatism - the idea that the mind is born with knowledge (of being) and is not a "blank slate"
• In linguistics, "innate language" may refer to:
  • Universal grammar - investigation into linguistic commonalities
  • I-language and comprehension (linguistics)
  • Language acquisition device (i.e. "brain")
  • Innateness hypothesis - in language acquisition
  • Language bioprogram theory
• In the cognitive sciences,
  • Language module
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Cognition, thought (as constituted by an "innate language")

Other

• The Language Instinct, and Words and Rules - books by Steven Pinker
• Special:Search/Innate language - search Wikipedia for "innate language"

The general consensus among linguists and philosophers is that language and grammar are driven from both environmental and natural impetuses (WGBH, 2001). Perhaps no other linguistic theorist promotes naturalistic tendencies of language than Noam Chomsky. Rather than accepting the notion of environmentalists, who posit that children purely learn language and syntax from parents and society, Chomsky proposed that children are born with an innate sense of understanding language and grammar (Crain, 2011). This isn’t to say of course that children are born with the capabilities to quote Shakespeare or delivery sophisticated proclamations.

Chomsky theorized that because children are able to quickly acquire complex language structures at such early ages that they must have some innate ability that allows them to efficiently process incoming stimuli. He believed that such innate ability is a basis of “universal grammar,” which can be applied to any language. The universal grammar theory suggests that all language follow similar grammatical patters and constructions (2011). Since multiple languages have developed is separate isolated regions of the world, Chomsky deduced that the confines of language must stem from biological conditions. He further argues that children are able to construct more supplicated sentence structures than anything they may have heard from adults. While environmental factors provide assistance and growth with maturity, without the innate predisposition for processing language, a child’s development would be stunted.

The idea of instinctual knowledge is supported by many other theorists and philosophers including Steven Pinker (2003) . Pinker continues to advocate Chomsky's theories to this day. Pinker claims "The crux of the argument is that complex language is universal because children actually reinvent it, generation after generation -- not because they are taught, not because they are generally smart, not because it is useful to them, but because they can't help it" (Pinker, 1994, p.20) . Pinker like Chomsky, contends that although environmental factors can influence language development, such influences would not have impact if humans didn't have a genetic predisposition for language. Pinker also argues the position from a Darwinian prospective. Through the process of natural selection humans acquired linguistic abilities. These abilities assisted survival rates and the results manifested genetically (1994).

Criticism

Not surprisingly, Chomsky received much criticism and opposition to his arguments. Crain and Thornton for example believe that children are capable of referencing a variety of sentences structures unbeknownst to adults. In this view, children are seen as more capable of learning from environmental influences that what Chomsky acknowledged. Chomsky maintained his position claiming that the various structures and rules of language are far too numerous for children to process without “inner constraints” that filter out the noise. Other criticisms arise from the fact that Chomsky’s position was more theoretical as he experienced little time observing children.

Blank slate theorist John Locke (1690), as well as contemporary supporting philosophers believe humans are born into the world completely void of knowledge, including language. All human traits and propensities are instilled through socialization.

Numeric Innate Language

The idea that babies are born with instinctual knowledge has additional support. It has been said that the only true universal language is mathematics. If the adage has any merit, then it would seem that children should also have an innate knowledge of the language of numbers. Mathematician Stanislas Dehaene (1997) proposed such concept in his book, The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics. Dehaene claims that babies have a predisposition to understand numbers. More interestingly, their understanding he positions is quite different than that of adults.

Rather than thinking of numbers in equally spread out integers, Dehaene determined babies’ process numbers logarithmically, or in ratios. LuLu Miller (2009), producer of the popular syndicated radio program Radiolab describes the difference between computational styles this way, “Imagine in your head the distance between 1 and 2…Now image the distance between 8 and 9…They feel like the same distance from each other…because we think of numbers in distinct ordered chunks. If you think about it logarithmically, the distance between 1 and 2 is huge…and the distance between 8 and 9, tiny.” The number 2 is twice as much as the number 1 whereas 9 is only fractionally larger than 8. According to Dehaene, babies can’t identify differences between 9 and 10 because the difference is too small (2009).

Supporters of this theory including Harvard Psychology Professor Susan Carey, claim that our concept of numbers and counting are human constructions. Through the process of learning and socializing we lose our ability to instinctually process numbers logarithmically (Miller, 2009). To support this claim, Dehaene (1997) cites experiments conducted with remote Amazon tribes who weren’t socialized with the popular concept of numbers. Researchers found that the tribes still use instinctual logarithmic mode of calculation. The instinctual mode of math fostered without obstruction from the societal norm.