{"title":"From Zero to Fifty: Considerations on Eric Lenneberg’s Biological Foundations of Language and Updates","authors":"M. Piattelli-Palmarini","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9107","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2017-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43833350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Departing from Lenneberg’s biological conception of language and its de- velopment, this paper first reviews select examples from research on lan- guage development and its interface with genetics before making some specific proposals with regard to how the genetics of grammar could be investigated. The central proposal of this paper is that an important, per- haps necessary, avenue for studying the genetics of grammar is to study the genotypes corresponding to phenotypes of child (and genetically im- paired) versions of the computational system of grammar, as opposed to strictly descriptive measures of a construction or standardized linguistic tests. In some cases, these phenotypes have wide explanatory ability, sug- gesting that they directly involve parts of the computational system of lan- guage. The primary example discussed is the phenotype of the Unique Checking Constraint (UCC). In particular, it is proposed that one could usefully start to investigate the genetic basis for he development of finite- ness, object clitic omission, and related phenomena of the UCC. A second, less developed example here, corresponding to a much later developmen- tal stage, is the Universal Phase Requirement (UPR), regulating verbal pas- sives and many other phenomena in children.
{"title":"A Program for the Genetics of Grammar","authors":"K. Wexler","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9091","url":null,"abstract":"Departing from Lenneberg’s biological conception of language and its de- velopment, this paper first reviews select examples from research on lan- guage development and its interface with genetics before making some specific proposals with regard to how the genetics of grammar could be investigated. The central proposal of this paper is that an important, per- haps necessary, avenue for studying the genetics of grammar is to study the genotypes corresponding to phenotypes of child (and genetically im- paired) versions of the computational system of grammar, as opposed to strictly descriptive measures of a construction or standardized linguistic tests. In some cases, these phenotypes have wide explanatory ability, sug- gesting that they directly involve parts of the computational system of lan- guage. The primary example discussed is the phenotype of the Unique Checking Constraint (UCC). In particular, it is proposed that one could usefully start to investigate the genetic basis for he development of finite- ness, object clitic omission, and related phenomena of the UCC. A second, less developed example here, corresponding to a much later developmen- tal stage, is the Universal Phase Requirement (UPR), regulating verbal pas- sives and many other phenomena in children.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2017-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46830155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The publication of Biological Foundations of Language in 1967 by Eric Lenneberg fundamentally changed the way we think about language. Chomsky brought language from the abstract realm of philosophy into the more grounded world of mind, and Lenneberg completed the process by rooting that mental view of language firmly in the brain. Without Lenneberg, it is difficult to imagine the immense amount of research over the past 50 years that has revealed its structure and function, its social and cognitive dimensions, and obviously, its neurobiology. For Chomsky, the biological basis of language was static, based on innate concepts that unfolded with experience and the reference to biology was largely metaphoric: “mental organ”. For Lenneberg, the biological basis of language was real and dynamic. He was the first thinker to seriously understand language as part of human cognition: “[Words] stand for a cognitive process, that is, the act of categorization or the formation of concepts” (Lenneberg, 1967: 365, emphasis in original). This conception of language blossomed over the subsequent decades, leading to more sophisticated accounts of human language that were based on the use of new methodologies that Lenneberg was unlikely to even imagine. The expansion of technology for observing the brain, the explosion in the sheer amount of knowledge that was accumulated about the brain and its function, and the widespread access to these technologies that became available irrevocably changed the way that language research was conducted (Friederici 2017, Kemmerer 2015). Lenneberg’s visionary ideas about the neurobiology of language set the stage for 50 years of exciting and productive study. In parallel with Lenneberg’s developing understanding of language as a biological system, another field began to emerge around the same time. There was growing interest in the process of learning a second language, particularly in adulthood, spawning the field of second-language acquisition (SLA). Much of this research was generated in response to practical needs. A salient example comes from the post-war efforts of The British Council to teach English in various corners of the British Empire by recruiting graduates from the top schools such as Oxford and sending them to distant lands. Armed with little more than intelligence and intuition, many of these teachers thought deeply about their experiences and began
{"title":"The Neurobiology of Language: Looking Beyond Monolinguals","authors":"E. Bialystok, J. Kroll","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9095","url":null,"abstract":"The publication of Biological Foundations of Language in 1967 by Eric Lenneberg fundamentally changed the way we think about language. Chomsky brought language from the abstract realm of philosophy into the more grounded world of mind, and Lenneberg completed the process by rooting that mental view of language firmly in the brain. Without Lenneberg, it is difficult to imagine the immense amount of research over the past 50 years that has revealed its structure and function, its social and cognitive dimensions, and obviously, its neurobiology. For Chomsky, the biological basis of language was static, based on innate concepts that unfolded with experience and the reference to biology was largely metaphoric: “mental organ”. For Lenneberg, the biological basis of language was real and dynamic. He was the first thinker to seriously understand language as part of human cognition: “[Words] stand for a cognitive process, that is, the act of categorization or the formation of concepts” (Lenneberg, 1967: 365, emphasis in original). This conception of language blossomed over the subsequent decades, leading to more sophisticated accounts of human language that were based on the use of new methodologies that Lenneberg was unlikely to even imagine. The expansion of technology for observing the brain, the explosion in the sheer amount of knowledge that was accumulated about the brain and its function, and the widespread access to these technologies that became available irrevocably changed the way that language research was conducted (Friederici 2017, Kemmerer 2015). Lenneberg’s visionary ideas about the neurobiology of language set the stage for 50 years of exciting and productive study. In parallel with Lenneberg’s developing understanding of language as a biological system, another field began to emerge around the same time. There was growing interest in the process of learning a second language, particularly in adulthood, spawning the field of second-language acquisition (SLA). Much of this research was generated in response to practical needs. A salient example comes from the post-war efforts of The British Council to teach English in various corners of the British Empire by recruiting graduates from the top schools such as Oxford and sending them to distant lands. Armed with little more than intelligence and intuition, many of these teachers thought deeply about their experiences and began","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2017-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44067536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
“The study of language is pertinent to many fields of inquiry,” reads the first sentence of the preface to Biological Foundations of Language. The serious scientific study of the biological foundations of the human capacity for language as one of the youngest branches of linguistic inquiry, nowadays frequently referred to using the label “biolinguistics,” began roughly half a century ago and was, in part, fuelled by the so-called “cognitive revolution” (Miller 2003) of the 1950s. Eric Lenneberg’s book Biological Foundations of Language, one of the field’s founding documents, was first published in 1967, that is exactly 50 years ago. Today, though not as universally known as it should be, Lenneberg’s book is regarded as a classic by most people in the field. Consequently, this year’s anniversary provides an excellent occasion for revisiting Lenneberg’s by now classic work and reassessing the scope, validity, and foresight of the evidence presented and arguments put forward. The purpose of this special issue thus is to reconsider and reflect on Eric Lenneberg’s ideas and how they influenced (or actually didn’t influence, because they were quickly forgotten) today’s field of biology of language. In his Biological Foundations of Language, amongst other things, Lenneberg already outlined the possibility of a genetics of language and wrote about language and the brain long before any of the multitude and major technological advancement in both, genetics and neuroimaging, that we have seen in the past decades were even looming on the horizon. A whole lot has been learned since Biological Foundations of Language was first published and there can be little doubt that Lenneberg would be amazed by
{"title":"50 Years Later: A Tribute to Eric Lenneberg's Biological Foundations of Language","authors":"Patrick C. Trettenbrein","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9073","url":null,"abstract":"“The study of language is pertinent to many fields of inquiry,” reads the first sentence of the preface to Biological Foundations of Language. The serious scientific study of the biological foundations of the human capacity for language as one of the youngest branches of linguistic inquiry, nowadays frequently referred to using the label “biolinguistics,” began roughly half a century ago and was, in part, fuelled by the so-called “cognitive revolution” (Miller 2003) of the 1950s. Eric Lenneberg’s book Biological Foundations of Language, one of the field’s founding documents, was first published in 1967, that is exactly 50 years ago. Today, though not as universally known as it should be, Lenneberg’s book is regarded as a classic by most people in the field. Consequently, this year’s anniversary provides an excellent occasion for revisiting Lenneberg’s by now classic work and reassessing the scope, validity, and foresight of the evidence presented and arguments put forward. The purpose of this special issue thus is to reconsider and reflect on Eric Lenneberg’s ideas and how they influenced (or actually didn’t influence, because they were quickly forgotten) today’s field of biology of language. In his Biological Foundations of Language, amongst other things, Lenneberg already outlined the possibility of a genetics of language and wrote about language and the brain long before any of the multitude and major technological advancement in both, genetics and neuroimaging, that we have seen in the past decades were even looming on the horizon. A whole lot has been learned since Biological Foundations of Language was first published and there can be little doubt that Lenneberg would be amazed by","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2017-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45821089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. Newport, B. Landau, Anna Seydell-Greenwald, P. Turkeltaub, Catherine E. Chambers, A. Dromerick, J. Carpenter, M. Berl, W. Gaillard
A prominent theme in the literature on brain injury and recovery has been the notion of early developmental plasticity (Kennard 1940, Kolb et al. 2000). This has been a particular focus in work on language. In healthy adults, language is virtually always lateralized to the left hemisphere (LH; Broca 1861, Gazzaniga & Sperry 1967). However, Basser (1962) and Lenneberg (1967) compiled published case studies, their own patient histories, and available medical records of children and adults with left and right hemisphere lesions or hemispherectomy to determine whether there were systematic effects of hemisphere and age of insult on the development or recovery of language. From these data, Lenneberg (1967) concluded that, when even massive injuries to one hemisphere occurred before age 2, most children developed language normally or with only some delay; and these outcomes were the same regardless of which hemisphere was affected. This led him to argue that initially, before cerebral dominance was fully established, the two hemispheres were equipotential for language. This was less true for older children and was definitively no longer true for adults, who showed strong LH specificity for language interference and some recovery from mild aphasias, but did not recover completely from severe aphasias or left hemispherectomies. Using the Wada test (briefly anesthetizing one hemisphere and then the other; see Loring et al. 1992) to determine which hemisphere controls speech, Rasmussen & Milner (1977) showed that in children, depending on the age at injury, speech that is ordinarily in the left hemisphere could be controlled successfully by the right hemisphere or by an alternate region of the damaged left hemisphere. Similar reorganization was not observed in adults, even decades after injury. These generalizations have long formed the classic picture of recovery of language function. However, recent research on organization after early injury in children has not always found such consistent outcomes. Some studies have found good language abilities after focal brain injury in children, but others have not (Banich et al. 1990, Ballantyne et al. 2007, Levine et al. 2005, Moesch, Max, & Tranel 2005, Montour-Proulx et al. 2004, Stiles et al. 2012, Westmacott et al. 2010). Relatively few studies of neural reorganization have been done with children, also with somewhat inconsistent outcomes (see, e.g., Mbwana et al. 2009, Rosenberger et al. 2009, and You et al. 2011 for language reorganization with epilepsy, and Booth et al. 2000, Dick et al. 2013, Fair et al. 2006, 2010, Jacola et al. 2006, Liegeois et al. 2004, Raja et al. 2010, Staudt et al. 2002, 2007, and Tillema et al. 2008 on perinatal stroke). This variation of outcomes may be due to true variation among children, or to the inclusion of children with a variety of types and causes of focal brain injuries (e.g., periventricular leukomalacia, moya moya, vasculitis, tumors, and hemorrhagic or arterial is
{"title":"Revisiting Lenneberg's Hypotheses About Early Developmental Plasticity: Language Organization After Left-Hemisphere Perinatal Stroke.","authors":"E. Newport, B. Landau, Anna Seydell-Greenwald, P. Turkeltaub, Catherine E. Chambers, A. Dromerick, J. Carpenter, M. Berl, W. Gaillard","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9105","url":null,"abstract":"A prominent theme in the literature on brain injury and recovery has been the notion of early developmental plasticity (Kennard 1940, Kolb et al. 2000). This has been a particular focus in work on language. In healthy adults, language is virtually always lateralized to the left hemisphere (LH; Broca 1861, Gazzaniga & Sperry 1967). However, Basser (1962) and Lenneberg (1967) compiled published case studies, their own patient histories, and available medical records of children and adults with left and right hemisphere lesions or hemispherectomy to determine whether there were systematic effects of hemisphere and age of insult on the development or recovery of language. From these data, Lenneberg (1967) concluded that, when even massive injuries to one hemisphere occurred before age 2, most children developed language normally or with only some delay; and these outcomes were the same regardless of which hemisphere was affected. This led him to argue that initially, before cerebral dominance was fully established, the two hemispheres were equipotential for language. This was less true for older children and was definitively no longer true for adults, who showed strong LH specificity for language interference and some recovery from mild aphasias, but did not recover completely from severe aphasias or left hemispherectomies. Using the Wada test (briefly anesthetizing one hemisphere and then the other; see Loring et al. 1992) to determine which hemisphere controls speech, Rasmussen & Milner (1977) showed that in children, depending on the age at injury, speech that is ordinarily in the left hemisphere could be controlled successfully by the right hemisphere or by an alternate region of the damaged left hemisphere. Similar reorganization was not observed in adults, even decades after injury. These generalizations have long formed the classic picture of recovery of language function. \u0000 \u0000However, recent research on organization after early injury in children has not always found such consistent outcomes. Some studies have found good language abilities after focal brain injury in children, but others have not (Banich et al. 1990, Ballantyne et al. 2007, Levine et al. 2005, Moesch, Max, & Tranel 2005, Montour-Proulx et al. 2004, Stiles et al. 2012, Westmacott et al. 2010). Relatively few studies of neural reorganization have been done with children, also with somewhat inconsistent outcomes (see, e.g., Mbwana et al. 2009, Rosenberger et al. 2009, and You et al. 2011 for language reorganization with epilepsy, and Booth et al. 2000, Dick et al. 2013, Fair et al. 2006, 2010, Jacola et al. 2006, Liegeois et al. 2004, Raja et al. 2010, Staudt et al. 2002, 2007, and Tillema et al. 2008 on perinatal stroke). This variation of outcomes may be due to true variation among children, or to the inclusion of children with a variety of types and causes of focal brain injuries (e.g., periventricular leukomalacia, moya moya, vasculitis, tumors, and hemorrhagic or arterial is","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"11 1","pages":"407-422"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2017-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48520787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Language and Brain: Developmental Aspects:” Eric Lenneberg at the Neurosciences Research Program in 1972","authors":"M. Arbib","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9111","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2017-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43318876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the last years, Chomsky has defended a strong divide between a core, thought-related component of the faculty of language (FL), and a peripheral, sensory-motor dedicated one, in support of which he has mostly drawn from design and evolutionary arguments. This paper adds to these lines of reasoning some evidence from forms of language impairment that, it is argued, may be understood as selectively affecting the latter component (Externalization). Previous accounts suggest that certain variants of specific language impairment (SLI) affect the Syntax–Phonology interface, including the Morphology component. The Linearization converter is also argued to be typically affected, so one might refer to such variants of SLI as instances of a specific externalization impairment (SEXTI). The data presented here suggest comprehension difficulties with object relative clauses in children with SLI, which, contrary to previous analyses, are argued to be due to linearization problems. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate how clinical linguistics may help to define aspects of the evolved linguistic phenotype, like the above-mentioned divide.
{"title":"The Externalization Component as the Locus of Specific Impairments","authors":"G. Lorenzo, E. Vares","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9119","url":null,"abstract":"In the last years, Chomsky has defended a strong divide between a core, thought-related component of the faculty of language (FL), and a peripheral, sensory-motor dedicated one, in support of which he has mostly drawn from design and evolutionary arguments. This paper adds to these lines of reasoning some evidence from forms of language impairment that, it is argued, may be understood as selectively affecting the latter component (Externalization). Previous accounts suggest that certain variants of specific language impairment (SLI) affect the Syntax–Phonology interface, including the Morphology component. The Linearization converter is also argued to be typically affected, so one might refer to such variants of SLI as instances of a specific externalization impairment (SEXTI). The data presented here suggest comprehension difficulties with object relative clauses in children with SLI, which, contrary to previous analyses, are argued to be due to linearization problems. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate how clinical linguistics may help to define aspects of the evolved linguistic phenotype, like the above-mentioned divide.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2017-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49479656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Elissa L Newport, Barbara Landau, Anna Seydell-Greenwald, Peter E Turkeltaub, Catherine E Chambers, Alexander W Dromerick, Jessica Carpenter, Madison M Berl, William D Gaillard
{"title":"Revisiting Lenneberg's Hypotheses About Early Developmental Plasticity: Language Organization After Left-Hemisphere Perinatal Stroke.","authors":"Elissa L Newport, Barbara Landau, Anna Seydell-Greenwald, Peter E Turkeltaub, Catherine E Chambers, Alexander W Dromerick, Jessica Carpenter, Madison M Berl, William D Gaillard","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"11 ","pages":"407-422"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6291004/pdf/nihms-993456.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36788764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Both within and outside generative linguistic circles, it is often claimed that at least two factors determine organismic development, hence determine language development in humans. First, an innate capacity, perhaps species-specific as well, that allows humans (but not e.g. cats) to acquire linguistic systems such as the one you are now using to transduce ‘retinal images’ to meanings. The second factor is, of course, the environmental input. Thus, we have the standard dichotomy ‘nature vs. nurture’. The influence of the environment is amply demonstrated, for example, through naturalistic experimentation indicating that a normal child raised in Japan acquires ‘Japanese’, but one raised in the Philippines develops ‘Tagalog’. Hence, the central role of the environment in language development. However, it is important to remember—as has been noted before, but perhaps it remains underappreciated—that it is precisely the organism’s biology (nature) that determines what experience, in any domain, can consist of (see Chomsky 2009 (originally 1966) for discussion (and resurrection) of the Rationalist roots of the idea, especially pages 103–105, concerning Cudworth and Humboldt; more recently, see e.g. Gould & Marler 1987, Jackendoff 1994, Lust 2006, Lewontin 2008, and Gallistel 2010). To clarify, a bee, for example, can perform its waggle dance for me a million times, but that ‘experience’, given my biological endowment, does not allow me to transduce the visual images of such waggling into a mental representation (knowledge) of the distance and direction to a food source. This is precisely what it does mean to a bee witnessing the exact same environmental event/waggle dance. Ultrasonic acoustic disturbances might be experience for my dog, but not for me. Thus, the ‘environment’ in this sense is not in fact the second factor, but rather, nurture is constituted of those aspects of the ill-defined ‘environment’ (which of course irrelevantly includes a K-mart store down the street from my house) that can in principle influence the developmental trajectory of one or more organs of a member of a particular species, given its innate endowment.
{"title":"Why Nurture Is Natural Too","authors":"S. Epstein","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9057","url":null,"abstract":"Both within and outside generative linguistic circles, it is often claimed that at least two factors determine organismic development, hence determine language development in humans. First, an innate capacity, perhaps species-specific as well, that allows humans (but not e.g. cats) to acquire linguistic systems such as the one you are now using to transduce ‘retinal images’ to meanings. The second factor is, of course, the environmental input. Thus, we have the standard dichotomy ‘nature vs. nurture’. The influence of the environment is amply demonstrated, for example, through naturalistic experimentation indicating that a normal child raised in Japan acquires ‘Japanese’, but one raised in the Philippines develops ‘Tagalog’. Hence, the central role of the environment in language development. However, it is important to remember—as has been noted before, but perhaps it remains underappreciated—that it is precisely the organism’s biology (nature) that determines what experience, in any domain, can consist of (see Chomsky 2009 (originally 1966) for discussion (and resurrection) of the Rationalist roots of the idea, especially pages 103–105, concerning Cudworth and Humboldt; more recently, see e.g. Gould & Marler 1987, Jackendoff 1994, Lust 2006, Lewontin 2008, and Gallistel 2010). To clarify, a bee, for example, can perform its waggle dance for me a million times, but that ‘experience’, given my biological endowment, does not allow me to transduce the visual images of such waggling into a mental representation (knowledge) of the distance and direction to a food source. This is precisely what it does mean to a bee witnessing the exact same environmental event/waggle dance. Ultrasonic acoustic disturbances might be experience for my dog, but not for me. Thus, the ‘environment’ in this sense is not in fact the second factor, but rather, nurture is constituted of those aspects of the ill-defined ‘environment’ (which of course irrelevantly includes a K-mart store down the street from my house) that can in principle influence the developmental trajectory of one or more organs of a member of a particular species, given its innate endowment.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2016-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper addresses Landau–Kleffner syndrome (LKS), a childhood aphasia, from the perspective of I-language and the critical period for first language acquisition. LKS involves a language disorder and behavioral disturbances resembling autistic spectrum disorders due to electroencephalographic abnormalities with continuous spike-and-waves during sleep over the temporal regions. Comparing LKS with other childhood syndromes, the architecture of language is explored through elucidating the linguistic mechanisms behind the language disorder in LKS on the basis of Hickok & Poeppel’s (2007) dual-stream model of speech processing. It is claimed that early onset LKS provides further support for the critical period for first language acquisition and modularity of mind (the faculty of language), and that verbal auditory input during the critical period is most crucial for language recovery and development in LKS. Considering that electroencephalographic abnormalities affect cognitive/motor functions, ameliorating neural dysfunction in the affected brain areas with proper application of trans-cranial direct current stimulation is recommended.
{"title":"Architecture of Human Language from the Perspective of a Case of Childhood Aphasia — Landau–Kleffner Syndrome","authors":"Koji Hoshi, K. Miyazato","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9055","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses Landau–Kleffner syndrome (LKS), a childhood aphasia, from the perspective of I-language and the critical period for first language acquisition. LKS involves a language disorder and behavioral disturbances resembling autistic spectrum disorders due to electroencephalographic abnormalities with continuous spike-and-waves during sleep over the temporal regions. Comparing LKS with other childhood syndromes, the architecture of language is explored through elucidating the linguistic mechanisms behind the language disorder in LKS on the basis of Hickok & Poeppel’s (2007) dual-stream model of speech processing. It is claimed that early onset LKS provides further support for the critical period for first language acquisition and modularity of mind (the faculty of language), and that verbal auditory input during the critical period is most crucial for language recovery and development in LKS. Considering that electroencephalographic abnormalities affect cognitive/motor functions, ameliorating neural dysfunction in the affected brain areas with proper application of trans-cranial direct current stimulation is recommended.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2016-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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